Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Right now I’ve got a foot in three jobs.  The job I have, natch.  Plus putting the finishing touches on an academic career with a conference coming up on Saturday as well as looking for a new job, which includes attending talks, making phone calls, submitting resumes, taking a day off for interviews (Thursday) and on and on.

Oh, and I have a two-month old kid and we’re trying to move this summer (though so far that last thing is completely owned by My Baby, which is freaking amazing considering she’s carrying the bulk of that kid thing, too).

By now you recognize this as one of those all-too-frequent I’m-going-away-for-a-while posts.  I hate these.  It’s like admitting failure.  But hopefully when you hear from me next I’ll be done with my academic career, have my feet under me on my current job, and have a new job lined up.  Because I still have three J-mez CD’s to get through along with about 12 of my own.  Plus Mike Patton put out an album a few weeks ago and Melvins’ new one is out tomorrow.  So you know I’ll be back.

I can’t even remember if we were lovers
Or if I just wanted to
But I held her in my arms, I held her in my arms
I held her in my arms
But it wasn’t you
- “I Held Her In My Arms”

I’m not really sure what to make of Violent Femmes, which is partly due to not being sure what to make of this album, which is partly due to not being sure what this album is intended to be.  Add It Up (1981-1993) seems like it’s supposed to be a chronological greatest hits album covering the band’s first five albums, and it kind of is, but there are also a slew of odds and ends added in, like unreleased demos, live tracks, and an answering machine message.  Add that kind of diversity to an already diverse set of genres (they handle everything from country to free jazz, including a performance with John Zorn), and you’ve got a scattershot record.

Of course there are the hits.  There’s obviously “Blister In The Sun” from their 1983 self-titled debut, along with “Gone Daddy Gone” (with what’s likely to be the best xylophone solo in all of rock) and live versions of “Kiss Off” (with performances constructed to sound sloppy but that actually exhibit expert musicianship) and “Add It Up” from that disc that brashly exploded onto college radio.

That album was, and continues to be, the high water mark of the band’s career, though their remaining years weren’t a total loss.  1986’s The Blind Leading The Naked contained the Best Song Ever, “I Held Her In My Arms,” whose music perfectly matches it’s lyrics of unrequited longing by sustaining a long, held note on keys while the rest of the band reaches up to a higher register for the emotional chorus.  A b-side from the same year, “Dance, Motherfucker, Dance!” is another highlight, consisting of little more than the two words in its title and the exultant affirmation of the titular exclamation mark.

But those moments of fabulousness are ruined by so much unlistenable material.  I never knew the Femmes did “American Music” (“Do you like American music?”), but I also never noticed just how whiny it was.  A quick count comes up with no fewer than nine (of 23) songs that are abrasive in all the wrong ways, veering from Jonathan Richman-esque faux-naiveté to “America Is”,” a, frankly, quite disgusting, reactionary, and unpatriotic criticism of the United States that makes even me cringe and wonder where the band might be happier (honestly, what country doesn’t have hypocrites?).

So it’s not a total waste, but due to the haphazard flow of the album and the wide variance in quality, this gives a very hazy view of the 13 years covered by this disc.  But I have a feeling that is exactly what the band, seemingly a bit scattershot themselves, was going for.

Rating:

Best Song Ever: “I Held Her In My Arms”
Mixers: “Gone Daddy Gone,” “Dance, Motherfucker, Dance!”
Keepers: “Blister In The Sun,” “Gimme The Car,” “Country Death Song,” “36-24-36,” “I Hate The TV,” “Out The Window,” “Kiss Off (Live),” “Add It Up (Live)”
Filed Between: Vincent & Mr. Green (Vincent & Mr. Green) and Voivod (War And Pain)

I lost my innocence today
When I learned how to write this
- “Celebrate You”

It may be crazy to say about an album that only went gold and made very little impact outside of the hit song “Seether,” but this may be the album that wraps up 1994 better than any other.  Take the drop tunings of Seattle, the catchy chug of The Breeders, the breathy, sweet vocals of Juliana Hatfield and the disturbing lyrics of L7, throw in some Billy Corgan Chicago fuzz, put the Best Song ever (“Seether”) on top, and you’ve got this album.  There really may not be an album more representative of 1994’s zeitgeist than this.

What I take away from it more than anything else is how great the guitar solos are, which is surprising given how little emphasis the production puts on them, burying them down in the mix with the rhythm section.  Of course, it’s never really been cool for indie bands to be good at their instruments, but Nina Gordon and/or Louise Post can really play in a way that supports the songs and fall just short enough of virtuosic to maintain indie cred.  In “Forsythia” for example, the solo starts off with a simple scale that evolves into a headstrong argument with the harmony, a pattern carried even further into an all out screaming match in “25.”

One of the downsides of the band being so good at rawk is that the slow songs, even though well-executed, end up being an exercise in impatience.  “Fly” is gorgeous, but it’s really just something that makes me wait for “Number One Blind” and “Victrola.”  “Sleeping Where I Want” is good enough to have a place somewhere, just not on this album and certainly not at the end where it leaves an aftertaste of ennui not reflective of the enjoyment of the rest of the album.

1994 may have seen the cancellation of the World Series, but thankfully Veruca Salt’s reminded me of how good it sounded with its 50-minute summary, American Thighs.

Rating:

Best Song Ever: “Seether”
Mixers: “All Hail Me,” “Victrola”
Non-keepers: “Sleeping Where I Want”
Filed Between: Verdi (Otello) and Vincent & Mr. Green (Vincent & Mr. Green)

Well you heard about love givin’ sight to the blind
My baby’s lovin’ cause the sun to shine
- “Pride And Joy”

The blues have always been a bit of an enigma to me.  Give me a blues tune in isolation and I’m loving it.  But put a few blues songs back to back and I’m very quickly bored.  An entire genre built around the same three-chord, 12-bar progression?  It’s astounding the genre has so many performers and devotees.  Hasn’t it all been done?  What are they hearing that I’m not?  Is it like dog whistle music or something?

All of which becomes tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan that I like this album as much as I do.  Much like with the blues, I’d never understood the passion surrounding Vaughan, all of which seemed to spontaneously arise when he died in a helicopter crash following a show in Wisconsin when I was in high school.  I’d never heard of him before, and yeah, his technical prowess was amazing, but it kind of felt like the eulogizing exceeded the oeuvre.  As you can tell, I was all ready to write a review along these lines until I gave this album a few listens.

As a music reviewer, I consider it my job to find descriptions for enjoyment (or not) of music. Sometimes, though, I just can’t do it.  Much like with the Janis Joplin review I punted on, I’m tempted to regurgitate the same platitudes everybody gives: filled with soul and feeling, master of his craft, etc.  All of it’s true, but you’ve got better things to do than read that about a 27-year-old album.  Suffice it to say that this is one of those rare works of art that manages to be a pinnacle of the genre’s achievement as well as an excellent introduction to the genre, accessible to the neophyte and appreciated by the connoisseur.  It is to guitar-oriented blues what Kind Of Blue is to mid-century jazz and what Appetite For Destruction is to heavy metal.

So why only four lunchboxes?  Specifically, because I think the shuffle in “Tell Me” is played, “Rude Mood” is too much (too fast and dizzying) and not enough (derivative, uninspiring melody) all at the same time, and “Pride And Joy” is a little too easy.  Generally, well, maybe it’s just because I just have some trouble with the genre’s limits.  But that’s on the genre (and me), not on SRV, who kills this, far exceeding my expectations of what was possible.

Rating:

Mixer: “Love Struck Baby”
Non-keeper: “Rude Mood”
Filed Between: The Vaselines (The Way Of The Vaselines—A Complete History) and Velocity Girl (¡Simpatico!)

Even if I try to understand
It won’t ever be the same
Is there any left for me?
- “Nickel Wound”

Texas Is The Reason, their name a reference to JFK assassination conspiracy theories, a theme that continues through the song titles on the album, is the last band in J-mez’ collection that was new to me, and it was a good one.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is why I slog through so much bad music, because you never know when you’ll find some unknown band you love.

The only full length ever released by the band, Do You Know Who You Are? was produced by J. Robbins of Jawbox and Burning Airlines fame, which explains its awesomeness but leaves as puzzling its worst quality: its anemic sound quality.  “Anemic” is the exact right word, as there’s no depth, no low end, no warmth.

The sonic style may have been a choice, as it fits the rough and straining voice of singer Garrett Klahn, whose vocal style is charming in the same way as that of a favorite high school band might be (I’m reminded of the fantastic early 90’s Mankato band My Friend Stu).  So the style may have been a choice, but as with A Man About A Horse (in fact, the bands and albums are very similar), it holds the product back.

The songs are amazing compositions expertly piecing together catchy and powerful riffs reminiscent of Sunny Day Real Estate’s Seven, but the sound just leaves me with the feeling of a once-loved project left to molder as the changes the band members went through after graduation made it impossible to keep in touch more than superficially.  In some ways it adds to the appeal, like I’m some omniscient being able to vicariously enjoy some fantastic teenage friendship through the art it left behind, making them my new favorite band.  But in another way it keeps it from attaining an extra half lunchbox.

Rating:

Mixers: “Johnny On The Spot,” “Back And To The Left”
Non-keeper: “Do you know who you are?”
Filed Between: Testament (The Ritual) and Therapy? (“Misery” cassette single)

You’ll wanna see the band playing bish bash bosh tonight
- “Tonight”

Supergrass is one in a long line of over-hyped bands from England that pretty much flopped in the United States.  Stone Roses, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys…help me out…there’s so many.  “Flopped” might be too strong a word, especially in the case of Oasis, but these bands never live up to their hype: they’re always supposed to be “the next Beatles,” and not only do they not live up to that impossible standard; their eventual impact hardly ever makes them next Rick Astley.

In It For The Money, the band’s second album (so they’d already been vetted and discarded in the States by this point), starts off with a real good groove on the title track and I begin to think the Yanks may have had this one wrong.  But they immediately ruin the whole thing by going with the chorus too many times at the end and then screw up, I can only guess intentionally since making it awesome should have required next to no effort, the transition to the next song, “Richard III,” one of the best on the record.

And that’s kind of how it goes through the whole album: unrealized promise.  The first three tracks kick it hard, then there’s a couple of mediocre tracks, then another great one, then the worst song on the album (“Going Out”), and so on.  There’s enough quality on this that it’s hard for me to grant it three lunchboxes, my lowest rating for a CD I like, but given that it never seems to achieve greatness for more than a couple minutes at a time, the inanity of the non-keepers, and the lack of easy enjoyability (it’s just hard to sink into), three lunchboxes is what it deserves.

Listen, I’m not saying Brits have bad musical taste.  They probably do, but that’s not what I’m saying right now.  What I am saying is that two places separated by an ocean, no matter how similar their cultures or how easy technology has made media distribution, will develop different tastes.  Furthermore, those tastes will diverge as younger generations grow up hearing different songs in their youth, creating different and divergent aesthetic sensibilities.  And so STOP FUCKING TELLING ME I’M GOING TO LIKE WHATEVER SHIT ALL THE WANKERS IN ENGLAND THINK IS THEIR NEXT FUCKING GIFT TO AMERICAN RADIO AND THEN WRITING CONDESCENDING ARTICLES ABOUT HOW AMERICANS DON’T LIKE WHAT SOUNDS SO OBVIOUSLY FUCKING FANTASTIC TO YOU!

I’ve been holding that in for over a decade.  F**kin’ music critics.

Rating:

Mixers: “You Can See Me,” “Sometimes I Make You Sad”
Non-keepers: “Late In The Day,” “Going Out,” “Hollow Little Reign”
Filed Between: Sunny Day Real Estate (The Rising Tide [Japanese Import]) and Matthew Sweet (100% Fun)

Ten Summoner’s Tales is an exemplar of a type of CD that makes me re-evaluate what a CD review means on MPL.  The tradeoff these CDs pose is whether to write from more of an evaluative perspective or a personal one.  Due to the style of the non-CD review content of this blog, I’ve always come down on the personal side, but coming across a well-executed CD that does not grab me always causes a re-assessment.

When I was taking my reviewing class four(!) years ago, my instructor pointed out that you should review something to give others an idea of whether or not they’d like it.  His gig was primarily movies, so his example was, "If you don’t like horror movies, when you review a horror movie you should evaluate it on whether or not somebody who likes horror movies would like it."  I don’t disagree with that approach at all, and use it as one of many guideposts in my reviews, but for a couple of reasons, it’s not really what I do here.

For one, I think it’s a bit of an old media mindset.  I don’t mean that as a pejorative; I just think that in an era when there were fewer sources of information and opinion, this quasi-objectivity made sense.  Now, though, you can get all kinds of opinions on musical artists and their output, and I feel the only reason to be read is to be interesting.

The main reason I tend to give more weight to my reaction, though, is that this blog is about me.  It’s essentially a public journal.  It may seem like I’m writing about a CD or a politician or a baseball game, but I’m really writing about my reaction to that thing.  Offhand I can only think of one regular reader I’ve ever had who didn’t know me personally.  I’m fine with that because, again, what I want to do with MPL is create a record of my life, and a record of how I’ve felt about collections of music serves as a pretty damned good proxy of my life.

So while I could spend time writing about Sting’s intelligently-written music, the proficiency of his supporting musicians, his clever lyrics, or the expertly-engineered sound, none of that captures the fact that these songs just do not grab me.  Where I should hear passion I hear chilliness and distance.  I respect the music, but I can’t love it.

I have always felt this sense of detachment from Sting’s music, and it’s always amazed me how passionate his fans are about his music.  No matter how much I listen, I cannot understand how he affects so many people so deeply.  I imagine that a KEN who loved Sting would be one that would write a review like this for, say, Faith No More’s Angel Dust, praising its execution and brilliance, but left alienated by the overwhelming assault on his ears.

I like plenty of music that might be described as passionless.  In particular, big chunks of the avant-garde music and death metal I praise do not grab me in the same way this doesn’t.  The difference is that those CDs tend to be more cerebral, exciting the puzzle-solving neurons of my brain, which in turn engage me in a sort of passionate way.  Sting’s music is smart, yes, but it’s not quite at that level of stimulation.

So, in the spirit of my reaction to this album, let’s polish this off professionally but dispassionately.  High points are the clever lyrics in "Seven Days," the emotional depth of "Fields Of Gold," and the nearly emotional "It’s Probably Me."  Low points are the ridiculous spoken portion of "St. Augustine In Hell," the ponderous incessance of "Heavy Cloud No Rain," and Sting’s insertion of his opinions of politics, war, and technology into a love song ("If I Ever Lose My Faith In You").

If I were evaluating this album on its terms, for what it intends to be, I would have no problem giving it my highest rating.  For MPL, though, I’ll just shake its hand, thank it for the occasional stimulation, and be on my way.

Rating:
  
Mixers: "Fields Of Gold"
Keepers: “Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven),” “Seven Days,” “It’s Probably Me," "Shape Of My Heart”
Filed Between: The Steve Miller Band (Greatest Hits 1974-78) and Stinkfish (…Does It Again)

I won’t make promises I know I cannot keep

- “Beautiful Girl”

Anything reminiscent of Pigs In Space has to be good.  Other than the name of the band, though, the only thing this recording has in common with that Muppets Show sketch is that it hearkens back to a 70’s subculture.  There’s a little sci-fi in here, but just enough to recall the spaced-out, swaggering riffs of this album’s targeted subculture flashback: British glam rock circa T. Rex.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of who’s singing on this disc.   While the Langdon brothers are the credited vocalists, they channel Mick Jagger on “Anonymous” and Axl Rose on the album’s highlight, “2nd Avenue,” and they do an amazing impression of Michael Stipe on “Almond Kisses.”  Wait, that actually is Michael Stipe…wow, that makes it even harder.

But that’s about the only thing that’s hard about this disc.  It struts right out of the speakers with its leather pants and flashpots from the get go, ripping off a soaring guitar solo here, adding chorused vocals there.  It’s all immediately in your face, completely unashamed of what it is.

Unfortunately it blows its wad a little early, like a 19-year-old boy pulling out every trick he knows on the first f**k.  It doesn’t make it any less good, its just that on the fifth go-around the thrill is a little bit gone, the promise slightly unfulfilled as you realize, oh yeah, I did get it all the first time or two…that was great.  This is an album you wish wouldn’t have called after that first encounter so you could have in your head how great a long-term relationship would have been instead of the disillusionment, albeit an enjoyable one, you’re now stuck with.

Rating:
  
Mixers: “Goodbye Violet Race,” “Mungo City,” “2nd Avenue,” “Carry On”
Non-keeper: “Skylark”
Filed Between: South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut soundtrack and Sparks vs. Faith No More (“This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us”)

Little things that just don’t matter
Still could get me mad as a hatter

- “Hot Shit”

Quasi either took a sharp left turn on this record, or I just wasn’t paying close attention before. In the past their lyrics seemed to lie firmly in fantasy, describing Seuss-like worlds where fluent animals in unlikely situations acted out impossible and nonsensical scenarios. There’s a little bit of that on Hot Shit!, but the lyrics are now much more strikingly and overtly political.

Released in 2003, the anti-war message is inescapable. Explicit insults are handed out to W and the administration in “White Devil’s Dream” and the 9/11 imagery of “Seven Years Gone” is unambiguous. Here, though, lyricist Sam Coomes still does let the esoteric creep in by assigning playground nicknames to members of the cabinet. “Seven Years Gone” also seems to foreshadow Bush’s political isolation at the end of his presidency by drawing a comparison between him and The Flying Dutchman, while  “Master & Dog” excoriates both parties as “the elephant wields the rod while the donkey throws you a bone/I’d rather have a bone than a beating I suppose,” in lyrics that are applicable at times when Democrats are in power, too. By the end of the song, Coomes goes the full kill-‘em-all, all-politicians-are-corrupt proletariat route and throws up his hands at the whole system: “Master is the country squire/And the housedogs lay by the fire/But it gets pretty hard for the dogs in the yard.” As much as I try to make lemonade out of our political system, it’s hard not to let these lyrics resonate as our squires let yard dogs without health care die every day…to take the analogy to its non-poetic ends.

Things changed far more for Quasi lyrically than they did musically onthis release. Take away the lyrics and this fits right in with their previous catalog. What Quasi does best they do even better here, namely mix dissonance and atonality into wonderfully crafted pop songs in a way that’s impossible not to notice but is also very appealing. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this band to anybody that liked catchy melodies and safe music, but they push the boundaries everywhere. They’re like the perfect introduction to experimental music.

In the past the band has tended to separate these two elements, leaving an abrasive song here and a song from The Beatles’ lost tapes there. On this disc, though, it’s all put together perfectly. Every song is the perfect mix of everything Quasi does and the album itself is crafted without flaw, with each song being the perfect one to follow the one it does, resulting in what might be the most palatable middle finger to consonance of all time.

Rating:

Mixers: “Seven Years Gone,” “Drunken Tears,” “Mama Tried,” “No One,” “Good Times”
Keepers: everything else
Filed Between: Quasi’s The Sword Of God and Queen (The Platinum Collection)

I’ve just about got this down to a science now. I knew I was going to detest this album and that the distress of spending any more time than I had to with it would take years off of my life, so I held on to a great album preceding it until I knew I would have enough clearance in my schedule to get through this one quickly. In the spirit of just pushing ahead, I’m not going to go into too many details about why this CD is as awful as it is. I will give you just two things to hate on.

First, every single song here starts off with some simplistic guitar riff that cuts through the rest of the instruments, lasts 2.5 to 3.5 bars, pauses for the remainder of the four-bar stanzas, and is repeated either four or eight times before the vocal track comes in. There’s no composition, it’s just annoying-riff/pause/repeat. Every. Single. Song. I’m not sure how nobody noticed this, because it bugged me for the only two Soup Dragons songs I’d heard before I got this CD (one of which was “Divine Thing” which is the song you probably know from this disc and has some redeeming qualities).

The second hate-worthy feature is the inanity of the lyrics. I’ll provide a couple of examples.

The first example is from “Getting Down.” “Every way you move/And everything you choose/Has a special flair/That’s apparent by your hair.” I don’t know…I guess he really wanted to rhyme flair. Then there’s “Dream-On (Solid Gone),” which goes “As your lips reach mine/It just feels like heaven.” “Just”? Needed another syllable and couldn’t come up with anything better?

Okay, I can’t leave it there, because there’s also the most insipid rock lyric ever, from “Everything”. “You elevate in a special way/You turn the night into day.” Wow…night into day…I’m breathless…where did you come up with that?

Oh, and I have to share The Soup Dragons’ artist page on VH1. The “featured album” is this album’s follow-up…from 1994. And the latest “News” is that singer Sean Dickson is turning 31…in 1998. Put that in the you-know-a-band-is-dead-when column.

Rating:

Mixers: none
Keepers: “Divine Thing,” “Everything”
Filed Between: Soundgarden (Down On The Upside) and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut soundtrack