Filed under: Uncategorized
I never claimed to be a prolific writer, and one look at the entries I’ve made here – 84, according to my handy-dandy WordPress stats, since October 2008 – is proof of that. So, it’s with a combination of defeat and determination for next year that I announce that I’m giving up NaNoWriMo and returning to the wonderful world of writing about music. (However, I will be better prepared next year, so you haven’t seen the last of me, you strange little acronym you!)
I’ve made this a sticky, because I want people to be aware that I’m writing reviews again, but I don’t want to bump off the other sticky about my dad’s photo show (this Friday – be there!). So if scrolling down the page is too much effort, here are the albums currently in my draft folder that I hope to be finishing very soon:
Weezer: Raditude
Them Crooked Vultures: self-titled
Roxy Music: Country Life
The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You
Various Artists: Whip It (Music from the Motion Picture)
Pearl Jam: Backspacer
Elton John: Madman Across the Water
The Stooges: Fun House
Keep checking back, and with any luck I’ll actually finish some of these this time!
My interest in Queen and Queen-related projects has waned considerably since the publication of my book (which is one of many reasons I’m taking my time with my Elvis Costello and The Who books: I’d rather not burn myself out to the point that I can’t stand listening to them for any extended period of time), but I became genuinely excited within the past week or two when it was revealed that Roger Taylor was set to release his first solo single in 12 years.
At least, that’s according to the press release. Obviously they’ve forgotten about the catchy ‘Woman You’re So Beautiful (But Still A Pain In The Ass)’, which was released as Felix + Arty back in the summer of 2006. (Felix, for those not in the know, is Taylor’s eldest son and the source of the phrase “radio ka ka”, which gave way, of course, to ‘Radio Ga Ga’. Arty is Roger Taylor’s initials pronounced phonetically. Clever, no?) And Taylor’s most recent solo album was released in 1998, not 1997. But let’s not quibble over technicalities and such; the man has put out a new single, and it’s pretty damn good.
In the press release, Taylor laments the “loss” of the protest song, and as soon as I read that, I cringed. Throughout his solo career, Taylor has taken pot-shots at politicians and undeserving celebrities, and while they may have been deserved, some of his word usage is questionable at best, and laughable at worst. (Here’s one of his winning verses: “VIPs and royalty get treated like they’re specialty / But the trick is there for all to see / They’re people just like you and me / You can shove it!”) A 90 second sample of the new song was made available over the weekend, and one overenthusiastic Queen fan stated that Taylor is the British Bob Dylan. I found such a statement incredulous and baffling. Dylan’s lyrics, which at one point were the voice of a generation, are timeless and classic works of poetry; Taylor’s lyrics – in fact, most of Queen’s lyrics – are timeless and classic, but more as a way of filling in spaces around the music. They say a lot, and they say nothing, whereas Dylan draws on personal experience to speak personally and from the heart. There’s no denying that Taylor might speak personally and from the heart on his songs, but Dylan has such a way with words that very few people can lyrically touch him. To me, Elvis Costello is the British Bob Dylan, but Dylan is in a class all of his own, that it’s unfair to compare him with anyone else.
So, now that I’ve blustered on for far too long about one stupid statement: what of the song? Titled ‘The Unblinking Eye (Everything Is Broken)’ (hey, maybe that’s where the Queen fan drew the Dylan reference!), it’s a six minute epic that is less of a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and more of a combination of ‘Happiness?’ and ‘Foreign Sand’, both from Taylor’s wonderful 1994 album Happiness?. There’s nothing too over-the-top or bombastic here, and Taylor proves himself to be a jack-of-all-trades by playing all the instruments – quite well, too; that’s some accomplished piano and keyboard playing, for sure – and singing all the vocals. Lyrically, it deals with the Iraq war, clueless politicians, and the invasion of privacy in London, but it’s not acerbic enough to be a true protest song. When I think of protest songs, I think of anger and frustration, sharp, loud guitars, and emotions boiling over, but the languid pace and relatively restrained vocals gives it a resigned weariness, as if Taylor has little else to do but accept what he’s protesting.
For what it’s worth, the song is lovely (not only is there a nice orchestration – undoubtedly done on keyboards – but also a Stylophone solo), and I’m really pleased that Taylor has had the creative fire lit under him: his songs on the patchy but enjoyable The Cosmos Rocks were some of the best that he’s written, and as spotty as his solo career has been in the past, it’s certainly diverse and interesting enough to pick up again. I remember being disappointed when he announced he wouldn’t be doing anymore solo albums after the release of his excellent Electric Fire in 1998, because I’ve always found his solo material more enjoyable than, say, Brian May’s output, but I’m pleased to see that he’s since retracted that statement and is at least putting out some singles. I just hope a full album is in the works, because ‘The Unblinking Eye’ is too good to be forgotten as a download-only single.
Download ‘The Unblinking Eye (Everything Is Broken)’ from the Queenonline store or watch the video here. But buy the single, because it’s good.
Filed under: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Beatles
Something that I find myself doing from time to time is creating “lost” Beatles albums, and placing them in the realm of the actual Beatles’ output. I got the idea from a pretty nifty GeoCities website (which is probably long gone by this point) many, many years ago (mid-1990s or thereabouts), where an enterprising young Beatles fan collected all of the solo material released by the Beatles into a cohesive album. The juxtaposition of songs – Lennon’s edgier, politically-charged stuff; Harrison’s cerebral, mystical stuff; McCartney’s catchy, lightweight stuff; Starr’s, uh… stuff – was interesting, and while it’s clear that most of the songs wouldn’t have been written if the Beatles never broke up, it’s a nice way to waste time and make a mix CD, which is something that I like to do.
So I was intrigued to stumble upon this website, which alleges that the lucky, anonymous person found an unreleased Beatles album. I say I was intrigued not because I believed this allegation (any Beatles fan knows that if there was an unreleased Beatles album sitting around for all these years, it either would have been bootlegged or released by Apple Records; even an unreleased Beatles album is guaranteed to be a major unit shifter, and Apple knows that) but because it might have been some mildly interesting unreleased tidbits from, say, the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, or maybe some unearthed tracks from the 1968 Kinfaus demo sessions, or even from the famed 1974 meet-up of Lennon and McCartney that was bootlegged as A Toot and a Snore in ‘74.
Having read through the website a bit more, I was disappointed; again, not because I was expecting anything earth-shattering, but because the guy in question (one “James Richard”) seems to have ruined it all with a bogus story of being knocked unconscious in a desert and taken to a parallel universe where Lennon and Harrison are still alive, Yoko Ono isn’t a big presence in Lennon’s life, and the Beatles are still together, recording albums and touring behind them. The mystery man who told him this had about four cassette tapes of completely unreleased Beatles albums (I guess in the parallel universe, they’re still a few decades behind, technologically), so “Mr. Richard” hatched a crazy scheme to snag one of the unreleased albums, Everyday Chemistry, and bring it back to this universe.
I, for one, tend not to believe anyone when they preface anything with “I dont [sic] expect you to believe what happened to me, I sure wouldn’t, but thats [sic] why I grabbed the tape as proof that my experience was real.” Deciding I needed some new tunes to listen to, I played the songs – on the feller’s bandwidth! – so that I could hear for myself what exactly was going on here.
Of course it’s not an unreleased Beatles album, nor is it Klaatu; it’s a moderately well-done mash-up, a la the Love album from a few years ago, of the Beatles’ separate solo songs. The first tune, ‘Four Guys’, uses the guitar riff and chorus of ‘Band On The Run’, and quotes heavily from ‘When We Was Fab’; track 3, ‘Anybody Else’, is built around McCartney’s ‘Somedays’. (“Mr. Richard” claims that the album was released in the late ’70s or mid ’80s, but as ‘Somedays’ was released in 1997, I find this a little dubious, unless, of course, in a parallel universe, musicians are able to release songs decades before they were written or recorded.) One of the most enjoyable ones that I listened to on random was ‘Sick to Death’, which fuses Lennon’s ‘Gimme Some Truth’ to the piano opening of Harrison’s ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’, turning Lennon’s vitriolic original into an almost New Orleans-esque rave-up. (There are other solo Beatles songs interspersed throughout, though I’m only mentioning what I recognize, as I’m not well-versed in Starr’s solo career, and I’m even a little hazy on most of Lennon’s and Harrison’s[1].) The thing is, it’s actually not that bad of a listening experience; the pieces work together quite well, even if it gets quite repetitive quite quickly, making repeated listens unnecessary and unwelcome.
I know that writing an entire blog post about this is just giving “Mr. Richard” what he wants – attention – but it sounds like he went to a lot of effort to create this, and it deserves a listen, even if it’s just essentially a very creative mix tape. I only wish he would drop the parallel universe bullshit; it worked for the Beatles back in the ’60s, but that was only because they were consuming vast amounts of LSD and weed. The only parallel universe this guy was visiting was the ProTools Universe, and it sounds like he was there for an afternoon, at the most.
[1]If anyone listens to the entire thing and has the time to figure out what comes from what, feel free to post here and I’ll send you something as a reward. Probably just a burned copy of Everyday Chemistry… or maybe I can drive out to a desert, knock myself unconscious, and steal another unreleased Beatles album from the mysterious Jonas. “Mr. Richard” said that “I wish I grabbed this other tape that had a song very similiar [sic] to “Imagine” on it that Jonas played, only it sounded like it had a big band behind it with horns and huge orchestral sections, though the lyrics were practically identical to the original “Imagine”", so maybe I can grab that and burn it for you.
Essential listening: oh come on, you can’t be serious?
I like to think that I have good taste in music, and that I’m able to weed out the crap from the good. But sometimes my tastes slip, and I’m drawn to bad music like a moth to a flame – or, for a less clichéd cliché, like a movie buff to Ed Wood or Coleman Francis films. It’s why I once had t.A.t.U.’s 200Km/h In The Wrong Lane in my collection, and while the novelty of Russian not-really-lesbians quickly wore off, the ‘All The Things She Said’ single is still damn good.
Once upon a time, for a brief period of time, I really liked Weezer. I still maintain that Pinkerton is their best album, and Maladroit is severely underrated; for anyone who read my “Rages In Raditude” entry a few months ago, you may remember that their new album, Raditude (we have Rainn Wilson to thank for that title), was on the cards for an October release, while first single ‘(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To’ was about to hit the airwaves. Reviews I read on the Internet were cautiously positive, although when the tracklist of the album was released, the Internet collectively hid laughter behind its sleeve. I was ready to write the album off, based entirely on the fact that Rivers Cuomo was singing songs titled ‘In The Mall’ and ‘I’m Your Daddy’. Even the samples on iTunes didn’t inspire much hope, and I was sharpening my knives, almost delighting in trashing the album.
The thing is… it’s not that bad. I know – I’m surprised, too. I think at this point in Weezer’s history, the only thing they can put out is summery, breezy pop songs, songs with no lyrical depth, but are catchy and lightweight enough to be radio-friendly without offending or alienating anyone. The paradox, though, is that to longtime Weezer fans, the kind of album that Raditude is is offensive and potentially alienating, but that may be because they’re expecting their heroes to write Pinkerton II with each passing album, while Cuomo has stated, without a trace of irony or humor, that his most-played musicians nowadays are Hannah Montana, Katy Perry, and Tim McGraw. Hm.
Raditude starts with the most accessible tune, ‘(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To’, an almost dementedly enjoyable song that makes good use of the ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ riff and is so singalongable that it’ll be stuck in your head for days. ‘I’m Your Daddy’ has the potential to be creepy, but its infectiously upbeat tempo and loud guitars transcend it to shades of earlier Weezer. (Not Blue Album era, but certainly Green Album/Maladroit era.) ‘The Girl Got Hot’, despite its shockingly laughable lyrics of Cuomo bopping along to a moshpit-turned-Kiki Dee rave-up at the local club, is another surprisingly powerful song, again with loud guitars and kick-ass drums. (The latter is courtesy of Josh Freese, who, readers may recall, recently released a solo album for $75,000 a pop.)
Cuomo’s fascination with rap and hip hop (or at least his perception/understanding of it) comes to a head with ‘Can’t Stop Partying’, which sounds like something that would be played in a club and is almost entirely devoid of anything remotely Weezer-esque: robotic drum beats, synthesized blasts of noise, Auto-Tuned vocals, and an interjection from Lil’ Wayne. (Yes, there is a “Weezer/Weezy” reference.) It’s one of two songs on the album that I find entirely unlistenable, the other being Patrick Wilson’s ‘In The Mall’, a puerile and profoundly stupid song about… being in the mall. You’d expect this from the likes of whatever young muppet Disney Channel or Nickelodeon is hyping these days, but not from Weezer. ‘Love Is The Answer’ is another embarrassing tune, and can be taken as Cuomos’ “mystical revelation”, in that it’s bathed with droning sitars, galloping tablas, and a vocal interjection from Amrita Sen; however, the vocal melody is a check in the “pro” column, so it’s docked only half a point for the completely unnecessary Indian stuff. (There’s a time and place for Indian music in pop/rock music, but when it feels forced like it does here, then it’s just unbearable.)
‘Put Me Back Together’ and ‘Tripping Down The Freeway’ are both pure power pop songs that sound like they’ve been done before by a million faceless one-hit-wonders from the late 1990s – bands like Goo Goo Dolls, Fastball, and the like – but they somehow manage to hit my emotional core, and maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about a song starting off slow and building in intensity until those drums and guitars hit full-force. Likewise, ‘Let It All Hang Out’, with its squealing lead guitar and gritty power chords, has been done before by other bands, and feels like it was made with the explicit intent of catering to the Rock Band generation, but it’s also the kind of song that is perfect for blasting while speeding down an open highway.
The album ends with ‘I Don’t Want To Let You Go’, and is the only song on the album I like for its musical and lyrical quality, whereas the other songs that I like are enjoyable because they’re dumb and catchy. It’s another song that builds in intensity, starting off with a thumping drum machine and sparse keyboards, but Cuomo’s vocals really make the song here, and it serves as a fitting conclusion[1] to an album that fans are going to write off simply because it’s Weezer and not as good as the Blue Album or Pinkerton. And that’s really too bad, because the key to enjoying Raditude is to not take it all that seriously, and take it for what it is: a dumb little pop record that isn’t meant to change the world or be some kind of major musical statement. It’s not perfect by a long-shot, but it’s not the abomination that many Weezer fans will have everyone believe; simply put, it’s on a par with any other Weezer album since 2001. My only legitimate lament was that it wasn’t released in late May, because this is perfect music for driving around in the summer with the windows down.
[1]A handful of bonus tracks mean that this isn’t the actual real end of the album, but as is the rule with Sound Round, only the original album tracks are discussed. If it makes any difference, you can make the album a whole lot better by dumping the two worst songs – ‘Can’t Stop Partying’ and ‘In The Mall’ – and replace them with ‘The Prettiest Girl In The Whole Wide World’ and ‘Run Over By A Truck’. The former song will make you wonder what the fuck the band was thinking in not giving that song more attention[2].
[2]Hey footnotes!
Essential listening: (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To, I’m Your Daddy, The Girl Got Hot, I Don’t Want To Let You Go
Filed under: 2009, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jackson Browne, Jeff Beck, KISS, Little Feat, Renaissance, Robert Palmer, Rory Gallagher, Warren Zevon, and so on, announcement, of interest, something completely different, various artists
Breaking radio silence temporarily, but I was asked by my father to do a light bit of promotion for his joint photo gallery presentation, Musicians In Print: A Photo Flashback Documented by Beth Trepper and Georg W. Purvis III, to be held at the Tyme Gallery in Havertown, PA. The opening reception is on November 13 (less than a week from today), and runs until December 8, 2009.
The photos were taken by my father in the ’70s and ’80s, and may have been done so less out of artistic desire and more as a reminder to what actually happened. (Obligatory “If you remember the ’70s, you weren’t really there” joke.) Some of the bands and musicians include Little Feat, KISS, Rory Gallagher, Jeff Beck, Jackson Browne, Renaissance, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Warren Zevon, Robert Palmer… the list goes on.
Here are a few websites to check out for more information:
Georg W Purvis III Photography
And here’s all the information from the back of the invite, in case you didn’t get it:
Tyme Gallery
17 W. Eagle Road
Havertown, PA 19083
610-853-1215
Tyme Gallery Proudly Presents:
Musicians In Print: A Photo Flashback Documented by Beth Trepper and Georg W Purvis III
Opening Reception:
Friday, November 13, 2009
5 00pm – 9 00pm
Exhibition Dates:
November 13 – December 8, 2009
Framed prints, matted prints, gift cards, and books of this exhibit will be available for purchase, just in tyme for Christmas.
Filed under: and so on, announcement, obituary, of interest, something completely different
Greetings, readers. You may have noticed I have been writing far less in this blog, and that is entirely the fault of a crazy little thing called work. I have about a dozen started drafts just waiting to be finished, but I’m going to abandon them and close down Sound Round.
But wait! There is a consolation.
This is only temporary, as I have decided to partake in something called NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, where aspiring writers take the month of November to write a 50,000 word novel.
That’s only 1,666.67 words a day. I figure I can handle that.
We’ll see if this ever gets off the ground; as a wannabe novelist, the prospect of writing a novel in a month is pretty exciting. Maybe I’ll get through the first day and realize what a mistake it is, or I’ll discover that I’m not much of a writer and get so frustrated that I become unmoored from reality forever, spending the rest of my days wandering in a state of delusion – even more so than I already do. Or maybe my novel will be such a hit that I become the Next Big Thing, appearing on talk shows and cutting ribbons and opening ceremonies, throwing out first pitches, that kinda thing.
Or maybe I’ll just take it for what it is: a bit of fun and a chance to extend myself as a writer. Yeah, I think I’ll go with that.
So from November 1st to the 30th, Sound Round will not exist as I immerse myself in this writing project.
Have a good month, and when I return, I’ll be ready and raring to go with even more album reviews for your pleasure.
The fascination with Them Crooked Vultures continues, despite them having not yet released a note of mus–
Wait a minute, what’s that? That’s no longer true? Tellmetellmetellmetellme!!!!
Well, I’ll let Pitchfork Media tell you, because I rely on other sources in order to provide the breaking news that you, faithful reader(s), deserve to be informed of:
Ever since the triple-headed stomp-rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures whirled into existence, we’ve been keeping up with just about every little scrap of whomp-ass they’ve released into the world.
Finally, on November 17, Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones will leave the shadows and come into the light. That’s when their self-titled debut album will finally hit North American shelves, via DGC/Interscope. (It’s out November 16 in the UK on Columbia.)
We’ve got the tracklist below, but all you really need to know is that Dave Grohl is back behind the drums and that there’s a song called “Mind Eraser, No Chaser”:
Them Crooked Vultures:
01 No One Loves Me & Neither Do I
02 Mind Eraser, No Chaser
03 New Fang
04 Dead End Friends
05 Elephants
06 Scumbag Blues
07 Bandoliers
08 Reptiles
09 Interlude With Ludes
10 Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up
11 Caligulove
12 Gunman
13 Spinning in Daffodils
I’m pretty stoked. Having been a massive Led Zeppelin fan in the days of my youth, I’m excited that John Paul Jones is still around and being creative in the most Jonesiest of ways. And, let’s be honest, we knew an album was going to be coming; why would Grohl, Homme, and Jones go to the trouble of writing a bunch of songs and playing them live, if they didn’t plan on releasing them as an album at some point? (And it has the potential to be a kick-ass album, going by some live recordings that I’ve, uh, heard.) But the secrecy was a nice touch in this age of immediacy, so kudos in that respect.
Anyway. Them Crooked Vultures, November 17th. That’s all you need to know, really.
Regular reader(s) of this site may recall that back in April, I drove out to the Indiana University of Pennsylvania to see Ray LaMontagne live. Not that I didn’t enjoy him or his music, but opening band the Low Anthem made a much deeper impression on me, with their haunting roots sound and the unusual choice of instruments: vibraphone, pump organ, banjo, dobro, and so on. I had wanted to pick up a CD or two of theirs, but my slight fear of enclosed spaces and a general misanthropic attitude resulted in a hurried dash for the door at the concert’s end; either that, or I really had to use the bathroom, and I had no desire to head back toward the vendors’ booths to get a CD. You decide.
Either way, I had tried to remind myself to buy one of their albums, but me trying to remember something is next to impossible, so it comes as little surprise to me that I finally got around to getting one of their albums – six months later. Lately I’ve been going through a sort of emotional upheaval and decided that the music I have is a little stale and familiar; searching for new music of the more indie persuasion, I looked over a list of suggestions that my friends Sarah and Steph and I had compiled at one of the first get-togethers we had last year. On the list was scrawled “The Low Anthem” (at least, that’s what I thought it said; my handwriting is notoriously bad), and I went out in search of some of their stuff. At first, I was going to buy it off iTunes, but I’m trying to get away from the whole digital download way of acquiring music and purchasing CDs again; of course, this is a whole load of extra steps, because I usually import the music into iTunes, put it on my iPod, and then listen to the music in my iJeep on my way to and from iWork. So instead, I went onto the band’s website and purchased Oh My God, Charlie Darwin directly from them. Included in the modest price of the CD was a digital download of the songs, so this is sort of a double-win for me: I get a physical copy of the album, and I can just go through the process of all the iImporting and have it immediately accessible.
What I remember liking about the Low Anthem was their swampy, trance-like Americana; it’s mellow, simple music with so many shades of light and dark that it’s damn near impossible to define their sound. But there’s a certain time and place for this kind of music, too; regular reader(s) will also recall that I associate most of my music seasonally, and there’s a definite autumnal sound to Low Anthem, something that should be listened to in the depths of a forest as the leaves turn color and eventually blanket the ground and the air becomes more brisk and crisp as the weak sun descends.
This is brilliantly portrayed in opener ‘Charlie Darwin’, a stark and sparse song with only falsetto voice and acoustic guitar dominating the first half, before a wistful harmonica and whining vibraphone (played with a cello bow and not with mallets; I know this only because I witnessed it with my very own eyes back in April) add some spice to the soup. ‘To Ohio’ is an ethereal travelogue of broken love and searching for meaning in this world, with the destination seemingly being somewhere in Ohio. Again, the versatility of the band is evident with the wide selection of unusual (or at least atypical for a folk trio) instruments: a breathy clarinet and a higher-pitched harmonica adds a deeper layer of melancholy to the love-torn lyrics and, depending on the mood of the listener at the time, this can be tremendously affecting.
It’s difficult to tell the band’s influences other than a warped kind of earthy folk, but there are three songs that allude to (or downright ape) Tom Waits’ twisted storytelling and barnstorming stomp: ‘Ticket Taker’, which is the third slower song in a row but is reminiscent of Waits’ sung-spoken character vignettes like ‘Frank’s Wild Years’ and ‘What’s He Building In There?’, but the main character is less demented and more broken-down. ‘The Horizon Is A Beltway’, meanwhile, is performed with the same kind of gargled-on-gravel rasp that Waits is known for, and supplies a much-needed shot in the arm by kicking up the pace and providing a lighter bit of relief on a generally downbeat collection of songs. The bonhomie continues with a whirlwind cover of Waits’ own ‘Home I’ll Never Be’, adapted from a Jack Kerouac short story, but whereas Waits’ version, as heard on the “Bastards” disc of his 2006 album Orphans, is more sublime and sentimental (but not in that schlocky, super-saccharine way), the Low Anthem’s version is a shit-kicking late-night drunken jam, sounding like something a gaggle of hobos would improvise after a bottle of gin while riding the rails.
The mood slows down with ‘Cage the Songbird’, performed on a pump organ (apparently restored from the first World War), and features some of the loveliest three-part vocal harmonies on the album. The title may be an allusion to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, but that could also be my slightly overactive imagination making tenuous connections to my high school English courses. ‘(Don’t Tremble)’ is more or less a solo performance by Ben Knox Miller, and continues the stark and stripped-back acoustic nature of the previous song, though it’s a bit more optimistic and upbeat in lyrical and musical arrangements. ‘Music Box’, meanwhile, is exactly that: two minutes of tootling on a music box with a melancholy pump organ wheezing away in the background, with only the occasional whirring of the crank mechanism or the slight gasping of its female operator. The inclusion of this “song” might seem strange, but I assure you it works extremely well within the capacity of the album; my only advice is to not listen to it too intently if you’re driving and tired.
The last two true songs on the album, ‘Champion Angel’ and ‘To the Ghosts Who Write History Books’, round out the disc in a dignified manner, with the former being a pseudo-blues growl reminiscent of the Black Crowes (even down to an imitation of Chris Robinson’s Robert Plant-esque squeal) and the most straightforward performance on the album, with comparatively few musical accouterments that adorn other songs, while the latter could have been written and performed by The Band.
The last five minutes are made up of two reprises of the first two tracks – ‘Charlie Darwin’ is now ‘Omgcd’, an abbreviation of the album title, while ‘To Ohio’ adds the subtitle “(reprise)” – and serve as a nice double conclusion, though as with most reprises, they add very little otherwise. It doesn’t matter, though; the first 10 songs were strong and memorable enough to convince me that Oh My God, Charlie Darwin is the perfect soundtrack to late autumn. It almost makes me want to give up the workaday metropolitan lifestyle I’ve carved for myself and become a mountain man, aimlessly wandering the Appalachian Trail and being one with nature.
Essential listening: Charlie Darwin, To Ohio, The Horizon Is A Beltway, Home I’ll Never Be, Cage The Songbird, To The Ghosts Who Write History Books
In a desperate attempt to increase readership to this blog, I’m reposting my original review of the RiffTrax Live show I attended back in August.
Or maybe it’s just because the encore performance is tonight, and I’m as excited as any nerd could possibly be. I’m going not only because I look forward to being entertained by the funniest three men I’ve ever seen, but also so I can expose friends Jim and Izzy to the brilliance. And also to catch some of the jokes I missed the first time round.
Or maybe it’s just because my “I’m Bob Executive. Which way is business?” t-shirt is en route at this very moment, which makes me even giddier.
Enjoy this review; I have a feeling not much of it will have changed at the show’s conclusion. If you’re reading this and even a little intrigued, don’t think about it – just go. You won’t be sorry.
As I delay the further writing of actual album reviews, today I offer something a little different, in that this isn’t an actual album review; it’s not even a concert review (though some music was played); I would call it a live event. I offer this prerequisite to justify the fact that I sat and stared at a movie screen for 2 hours, though somewhere in the world – Nashville, Tennessee – it was being played live to a crowded theater.
I’m talking about RiffTrax’s brutal and hilarious slaughter of Ed Wood’s terrible Plan 9 From Outer Space, a 1959 flick so bad that it’s been called the worst movie of all time – with good reason: the plot is nonexistent, the acting is wooden, and the unintentional camp and hilarity levels are off the charts.
For those unfamiliar with RiffTrax, it’s from the same guys who were the masterminds behind Mystery Science Theater 3000, except with a twist (there’s always a twist): instead of the silhouettes of two puppets and a Midwestern guy sitting in front of a screen lobbing degrading insults at a movie screen, an MP3 file is purchased (for a low, low price of $2.99) of three Midwestern guys lobbing degrading insults at a movie. Except the movie is up to you to acquire: if it’s something you own, great!; if it’s something you’ve wanted to own, now’s the time to purchase it; if it’s something you can’t see yourself ever owning, but need to listen to the RiffTrax out of sheer curiosity – or devout fanaticism to these comic geniuses – then hit up your local rental establishment or, if you’re a shut-in, order it anonymously from Netflix.
It’s not as complicated as it sounds, and I gave it a try a few years ago when it was first starting up, though I eventually calmed down once I began saving money for other things. Still, it’s a logical progression to MST3k, and with Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett being the masterminds behind it, you know you’re in for a hilarious treat.
I wasn’t planning on going to the live event, because I had no one to go with. (No, I’m not one of those shut-ins I described above, though I did use Netflix because I wanted to give it a try. I just don’t like going to movies by myself.) But figuring I didn’t want to miss out on an event that promised hilarity, I hedged my bets and asked my friend Laura if she’d be interested in going. To my pleasant surprise, she said yes – all in less than 24 hours before the show was set to begin. She’s a good friend.
We met at the Regal 22 Cinemas in Warrington, which was the closest venue (a 10 minute hike for me, but closer to a half hour for her), at 7 30 and purchased the tickets. Considering I don’t see movies all that often, I got a little chatty with the girl selling me tickets (not in a “hey what are you doing later” kind of way, but pleasant, inoffensive chit-chat); I asked her if she knew if the RiffTrax was funny. “I honestly don’t know.” At least she was honest.
$12.50 later, Laura and I found our seats and settled in. We were entertained by a multitude of things, the least of which was the screen in front of us, which showed what I thought to be generic “Did you know?!” movie trivia games that they used to show before commercials and endless previews took over. One that generated huge laughs was for the “Movie Mistakes” genre: “Keanu Reeves starred in The Day The Earth Stood Still.” Take that, Keanu! Laura and I spent a lot of the time watching the people coming in, and I observed that you could certainly tell who was there to see “normal” movie screenings and who was there to see RiffTrax. Considering MST3k attracts a generally nerdier crowd, there was an abundance of neckbeards, potbellies, and snorting laughter. I say this not as a criticism – just an observation.
The theater was relatively full, but not every seat was occupied. Unfortunately for Laura, two larger people sat down right next to her, despite the abundance of open seats in our radius; I offered to move over, but she laughed nervously and said no. What a trooper. At various points, the sound of applause and laughter could be heard, though the screen was still showing movie facts; this was a little off-putting at first, until the visual feed kicked in, and the event started in full. Mike, Bill, and Kevin bounded out and set up the premise, telling some jokes to get the crowd in the mood, and they promptly took their places to the side of a movie screen. We were treated to a short from the 1950s: Flying Stewardesses, which was more of an instructional thing for stewardesses flight attendants that also featured a bizarre boating sidetrip. There were also a lot of jokes at Ft. Worth’s expense, followed by many apologies. (Favorite riff, as generic-looking businessman excitedly steps off the plane: “I’m Bob Executive. Which way is business?” Runner-up: “Thank you for keeping the plane snake-free.”)
The riffers were on fire, and the audience was loving every minute. Occasionally, the screen would split to show the three riffers, with the movie taking up most of the space; this was good, because sometimes their facial expressions said a lot, even if they weren’t telling a joke. Kevin was clearly having a great time, and you could even hear him laughing off-mike at a lot of the “action” happening on-screen. Bill and Mike, too, were enjoying themselves, and occasionally strayed from the script to throw in an impromptu joke; if it wasn’t impromptu, then they certainly made it seem so, and that takes talent.
With the short now over, emcee Veronica Belmont (apparently an Internet sensation, though I had never heard of her, and I’m the end all be all of what goes on on the Internet) walked onstage while the riffers took a break. She seemed a little out of her element here, but she might have just gotten a view of the front row, and didn’t quite know how to react to all the pounds of stinky manflesh that lurked beneath ragged, yellowed fabric proudly sporting faded MST3k images. I thought she did a good job regardless, and she introduced Jonathan Coulton, another Internet star who sang two songs: one about a zombie attack, and another about flying (I think). I liked Jonathan, but he was a little too mellow and laid-back for the crowd, who had just been whipped into a (relative) frenzy with the short. Needless to say, his call for audience participation went largely unanswered at the Warrington 22, though I did my best to play along. The best part was Kevin making an apparently unscripted appearance to get the audience to sing along, as he mimed along to Jonathan’s words for the zombie song, turning in a very credible and impressive stint as a mindless drone in search of gray matter. What got the most laughs were the mostly unsuspecting Nashville audience singing along, especially two girls who were really big fans of Jonathan’s and knew every word by heart.
Mike then walked back onstage to hand out gifts and introduce Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, founder of the comedy site SomethingAwful.com, of which I am a member/goon. He introduced two “homemade” commercials, one of which was a hilarious grain expo commercial in a ludicrously overdone style (shouting announcer, unnecessary explosions and screen graphics, overenthusiastic witness reports), which got huge laughs, though the second one about a berry watch wasn’t as funny. I think by this time, the audience was ready for some Plan 9 From Outer Space hilarity.
And boy did they deliver. I won’t go into specifics, mostly because I can’t remember a whole lot of it, but this is the perfect movie for these guys to rip apart, and they had the audience in tears. I know there were a few jokes that were “missed” because the audience reaction was so vociferous; sometimes, just the riffers laughing was enough to send the audience into gales of laughter. At one point, I was crying from laughing so hard.
After two hours, precisely, the show came to an end, and everyone at the Warrington 22 clapped and whistled. Laura and I walked out and chatted in the parking lot for a while, still marveling over the hilarity; I was worried at the kind of reception she would give the event, as I’ve noticed that when I watch some of the worse movies from MST3k, not even the riffing can save it, and I lose interest pretty quickly. (I needn’t have worried – she loved it.) Luckily, that wasn’t the case here; it was like Ed Wood created this movie just for RiffTrax to tear it to shreds. So thank you, Ed Wood, for your horrible delusions of grandeur, and thank you Bela Lugosi, for the minimal five minutes that had been filmed of you walking around a graveyard before, ironically, you died. (Thanks also to Mr. Wood’s wife’s chiropractor, who stood in for Mr. Lugosi following his death, even though you looked nothing at all like Mr. Lugosi.) And thank you, John “Bunny” Breckinridge, for your flamboyant smugness as the Ruler of Homotania.
More importantly, thank you, Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, Jonathan Coulton, Veronica Belmont, the people in Nashville, and the people at RiffTrax. We should do this again soon. How’s next week for you guys?
If you haven’t already, check out www.rifftrax.com for tons of information and sound files that will occupy you for hours – even days!
Whenever I head off for a lengthy road trip, there are certain albums I queue up on my iPod. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve listened to them, but albums like King of America, All the Roadrunning, Harbor Lights, or A Momentary Lapse of Reason will always be played. A lot of it has to do with the time of year it is: Harbor Lights and King of America are summery albums, while Momentary Lapse is more of the spring persuasion. One album that will be played regardless of season, temperature, or climate is Pete Townshend’s Psychoderelict, by far my favorite of his solo albums for reasons I can’t explain.
See, it isn’t the best in terms of lyrics; that honor, for better or worse, goes to All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. It’s not made up of consistently brilliant rock songs, like Empty Glass or Rough Mix. But it somehow manages to combine the best of Townshend’s warped creative genius with the best of his abilities, conscious or sub-conscious, to write a catchy tune or several, throw a plot and some dialog at it, and still make it sound brilliant.
Now critics have complained that it’s overly pretentious, that the dialog is weak, and that the songs are substandard dabbles in synths and drum machines. To which I emphatically say, bullshit. Yes, there is some pretense, but when is Townshend not pretentious? Yes, there is dialog, but it’s part of the story, and some of it is downright hilarious:
Ray High: “I’m not going in there. That bloody cow Ruth Streeting uses this pub. She hates my guts.”
Rastus Knight: “It’s her job to hate your guts. She’s a journalist. Oh sod it, I forgot, she won’t be here! She’s in the States! Ahh, come on, let’s go in anyway. You’ve gotta get back in the mainstream sometime. C’mon, you own shares in the place.”
Ray High: “That cow wrote that I’m ugly.”
Rastus Knight: “You are ugly.”
Ray High: “I’m not.”
Rastus Knight: “Yes, you are.”
Ray High: “No, I’m NOT!!!“
Rastus Knight: “Well, you are, actually.”
And yes, there are synthesizers and drum machines, but see my point about pretense.
The point that I’m trying to get at is that Townshend is at a creative peak, writing a story that’s both interesting and engaging, and writing a bunch of songs that rank among his very best. For those who need the backstory, it’s this: Ray High is a washed-up rocker from the 60s, whose best days are behind him and has become an alcoholic recluse, living off his past royalties while evading the public eye. Exasperated manager Rastus Knight is trying to get him out of hiding and earn him a much-needed latter-day hit, but Ray wants none of it. Music journalist and sexy sleaze Ruth Streeting, who despises Ray for no other reason than he’s a pretty despicable character, hatches a scheme that is a little dangerous (hint: it involves an underage sex scandal, and yes, I’m aware of the irony) for Ray but is guaranteed to get to the general public’s morbid curiosity. It works, Ray’s career is revived, and the world is a happier place.
There’s also an underlying theme of Ray’s own abandoned concept, Gridlife. This is a nod to Lifehouse (not the band), a conceptual rock opera Townshend developed in the early 1970s that was going to be The Who’s next album after Tommy; instead, it merely became Who’s Next, one of the greatest rock albums of all time, though the failure to produce his vision to his own satisfaction sent Townshend into a tailspin. Regardless, he would return to the concept several times over the next 30 years, and finally released the comprehensive six-disc box set Lifehouse Chronicles, chock full of demos intended for the album, orchestral works, and a lengthy radio play. (Well worth picking up if you’re into impenetrable rock operas about the future.)
So Psychoderelict is itself slightly impenetrable, and if you’re a moderate Townshend fan, is probably not the place to start. But a cursory listen to the actual songs reveal some of his strongest, certainly better than predecessor The Iron Man (another conceptual album, this time based on Ted Hughes’ children’s book of the same name): opener ‘English Boy’ is a scorching rocker, with Townshend unrestrained on guitar and howling the lyric of his wild boy persona, while ‘Let’s Get Pretentious’ takes a potshot at critics already sharpening their knives at Townshend’s musical excess. The more emotional songs – in particular, ‘Now And Then’ and ‘Fake It’, the two best songs here by a long shot, and even maybe in Townshend’s solo career (seriously) – come nearer to the end of the play, and are naked and revealing in lyrical matter but at complete odds with each other, musically: the former is set to a stark backing, dominated by bass and featuring Townshend’s voice to the fore, while the latter is more jubilant, with a jangly 12-string Rickenbacker giving it a Byrds vibe. (The spoken word interlude – “I am prepared to put up with this because I love you so much, and I know that you probably don’t love me in the same way, but if you care for me at all then take me in your arms” – really hits my emotional core, because I’ve been in situations almost exactly like that. The less said about that, of course, the better.)
What’s most important is that Townshend sounds like he’s having fun on the album, whether it be little improvisational vocalizations or the practically unhinged delivery on ‘Predictable’; he also adds some of the most raucous and gritty guitar work in recent years, especially on the epic reprise of ‘English Boy’, squeezing in layers upon layers upon layers of guitar to dazzling effect.
Not all of it is great, of course. ‘Don’t Try To Make Me Real’ rambles a bit, despite its intensely personal lyric, and ‘Outlive The Dinosaur’ is a tad overwrought. ‘Flame’, the only song not to be written or cowritten by Townshend (the credit to Townshend is not to Pete but his younger brother Simon), sounds too much like the generic one-hit wonder power ballads of the late 1980s; with vocals by Chyna (within the story, this is supposed to be Ruth Streeting posing as Ros Nathan), it brings back horrid flashbacks of The Iron Man, and that’s enough to ruin anybody’s listening experience. Mercifully, it’s brief, so at least it’s got that going for it.
One of the neat gimmicks is that the album also serves as a pseudo-Scoop album, containing four demos of songs originally written for the Lifehouse project: ‘Meher Baba 3′, ‘Meher Baba 4 (Signal Box)’, ‘Meher Baba 5 (Vivaldi)’, and the “Irish jig” conclusion of ‘Baba O’Riley’. These are interesting if you’re an anorak who appreciates good demos, but serve merely as musical backing or transitional interludes between the more consequential songs.
Remarkably, Psychoderelict was greeted with general indifference from the record buying public, resulting in Townshend’s worst-performing solo album to date. Attempting to salvage something from the debacle, he presented a unique “music only” version, cutting out the dialog completely and giving the songs proper beginnings and conclusions. My advice: avoid the “music only” version (unless you’re like me and like to make your own compilations of a single artist, and require only the most complete versions available, devoid of dialog or cross-fades), because it is far inferior product and, quite frankly, an insult that Townshend would acquiesce to those who didn’t “get it” and pander to their inability to listen to something apart from a collection of four minute rock songs. It might take a few listens, but you’ll come to appreciate the dry humor and inventive plots, even if they don’t all completely make sense. Or maybe they’ll just drive you derelict – but at least you’re not mature.
Essential listening: all of it, unless you’re lame and get the “music only” version, in which case: all of it
