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- Voltaire in Pitchfork Leaks Some of the 2008 Lineup I was hating on Animal Collective before it was “hip” to hate on Animal Collective. Hell, before it was hip to LIKE Animal...
Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is the greatest movie of all-time. Okay, maybe it’s no Godfather or Dark Knight. But it’s fucking awesome. My DVD of the movie is almost completely scratched from overuse. It’s perfect. I won’t argue that there’s anything…well, smart…about it, but it just doesn’t get old (even though the movie itself is very dated). I could go on about how in love I am with Riff Randell, or the whole rock music defeats tyranny (and mice) angle, but of course, the one thing that’s really important about the movie is the Ramones. If you take out the Ramones, the movie would be nothing.
Of course, the news sweeping the internet is that Howard Stern is backing a remake of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. I have a little soft spot for Stern since he was at my college graduation (his daughter was in my class), so I don’t want to really bash him. But the important question (after “why?”) is who will replace the Ramones? There’s really no one who can do it. It’s important to note that the Ramones were never the first choice for the movie, which was originally planned as Disco High, so the remake could very easily be made without a punk band (hopefully, not with a disco band, either). But, not only did the Ramones perfectly fit the movie’s stupid-but-awesome theme, they’re the type of band that could lead a rebellion. They don’t fuck around, they just get right to business. Their attacks are quick and overwhelming. And they had already hit the Billboard Top 50 by the time the movie was released. What, in today’s pop culture, can replace that?
A rapper seems fitting (although, I don’t know which one, Nas seems like he wants to revolt), but it’s hard to imagine Howard Stern wanting to stray away from the whole rock ‘n’ roll aspect. Jay Reatard could work, but who has heard of Jay Reatard? The Hold Steady has hit the top 30, but they’re not appropriate for high school. My guess: a reunited Rage Against the Machine. If they don’t just have a bunch of kids listening to Rocket to Russia and deciding to defeat their al Qaeda run school. What do you think?
Sure the warbling voice is frustrating, but are Bright Eyes and Conor Oberst irredeemable beyond the bleating vocals? Frankly, I couldn’t get past Oberst’s contrived sincerity in time to listen closely to the music or the words he was yodeling as Bright Eyes, so Conor Oberst’s solo album was my first real study of his work. I was ready for some hating, but then…
The first track played through and it’s really good. ‘Cape Canaveral’ wouldn’t stand up under academic poetic analysis for hanging on the same rhyme scheme for four stanzas, but it’s a mature and evocative love letter to thinkers that Oberst admires for being out of reach and also deep in the psyche. I’m absolutely hooked on this number. Bastard.
And just like the better moments of Bright Eyes cause me to say, “Maybe I’m missing something because [this one track] is kinda sweet,” the opening solo number suggested that the worst is over. But there is an entire album that follows…
In this era there is a different criteria by which we judge rock, and tracks 2-12 remind me what a bunch of pussies are the curs who have claimed the throne of rock ‘n roll. Conor Oberst, unlike the oft-compared Bob Dylan, is not of a lineage of men who fought with their battle axes the way to the top; who snarled their way to glory; who fucked to immortality. The new crew, of whom Oberst is a ringleader, can’t be bothered to put up their dukes, lest they spill some wine on their pants while posing as rockers. And unlike our forefathers and foremothers of Rock who demanded (and got) sex and drugs, these insouciants are begging to get laid. In that way, I guess rock ‘n roll is still about getting chicks, at least…
Back to Conor’s music…
Oberst hints at but fails to land the bulls-eye of Bon Iver’s facile moments of quiet underscore. So he takes a rocker’s stance, right? He doesn’t exactly do that either. Some advice to disregard: If you’re going to rock then rock, or just relax and quit the half-assery! He even sings it straight until track 6 ‘I Don’t Want to Die (In the Hospital)’ when someone handed him a working jackhammer during the vocal takes. Vibratory urgency aside, it all feels stiff where ‘Canaveral’ is slick. From loud to soft to adult contemporary, the album (sans excellent track 1) goes from track to track w/o a single emotional groundswell or a ballzy moment that doesn’t fall as flat a that one racist joke you once told when the black guy from accounting came up silently behind you during the punch line.
Forget relaxing to Conor Oberst, but I’m more ready for bed than ready to rock. The fans will love this shit because most are men who also beg for sex, or women that fall for it. Despite (or because of) my bandmates’ attempts to get me to dig this guy, I fail to see the imperfections as the sycophants do, that is, as genius. To my credit, I might add.
Merge Records
August 5, 2008
M.I.A. is a dirty dirty sellout. Never mind that she is ostensibly retired from performing, there is absolutely no reason to listen to her again, and her albums should be stricken from the historical record.
Alas, that is not possible. Many people, perhaps one or two of the readers of this blog, have listened to and professed to liking her albums. And now, thanks to Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, she’s a pop sensation. So, you, with your superior musical knowledge, will inevitably be asked if you have listened to M.I.A. This will put you in a very tricky situation. You can’t say no, lest you lose yor well-deserved feeling of superiority. But if you simply say yes, you will admit that you listen to something the masses listen to, and that just isn’t possible. You’re better than them! Your response must reflect that. So, here is a guide that hopefully will allow you to deftly answer this question.
First, you must display a wry smile. A small, quick chuckle would also be appropriate. “Yeah, I listen to Ms. Arulpragasam,” you start, with a weary tone to your voice. Make sure you don’t confuse M.I.A.’s given surname with that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahminedjad. Nor do you actually say “M.I.A.” Quickly, you correct yourself. “Or, I used to.”
Your counterpart will surely have a quizzical look on his or her face. So, you’ll elaborate, “Her first album, Arular, was incredible. It was so real. It dealt with living in a state of extreme poverty and constant war. Her dad was in the Tamil Tigers, you know (you don’t know. I didn’t until I googled it just now. And I’m still not sure. Just go with it.). She’s much more of a gangsta rapper than someone like fuckin’ (insert contemporary gangsta rapper). Arular combined punk and electropop and Britpop and…” Now your voice will trail off. Shake your head and mutter, “it was unreal.”
Here’s where things get tricky. Her second album, Kala, wasn’t any worse (or so I’m told. I never actually listened to either album. Not really my style. But I digress). But “Paper Planes” was on the album. So say something like, “And Kala was great too. But they fucking (pronounce the g) censored it. ‘Paper Planes,’ you know, the song from the commercial, had these gunshots in them. Of course, the shithead suits didn’t like that. And now it’s in that fuckin’ commercial.” As you can tell, the level of profanity will rise exponentially as you get away from actually talking about the music.
At this point, you should have a diatribe prepared about how capitalism is ruining art. Something like, “She was explaining the awful conditions in Sri Lanka. And now she’s being used to shill stoner movies. Movies made by men who don’t care about the poor, and if they ever saw someone like Ms. Arulpragasam before she became famous, they would just walk right by them, not even stopping for a second. What a disgrace.” (You can also go into how great Freaks and Geeks was here also).
By now, the other member of the conversation, if he or she is still around, will regret even asking the question. You will have retained your elitist status, even if you, like me, haven’t listened to it. And if you have (which you probably should, people seemed to really like it), you can talk about how it made you feel or how you couldn’t stop singing it or something like that. There is only one way to end the conversation, however:
“Santogold is so much better anyway.”
Everyone w/ a laptop and a facebook account (which is everyone) is a DIY musician now, naturally replacing their Christian name with a handle apropos for a full band, right? What else is new? How do these souls get attention from the masses? (Tough question since they themselves are the masses, by and large). Sound quality is no longer an issue - being audible is enough for myspace and 128 kbps - and besides, any wannabe can, on a pittance, get decent enough equipment to make the days of 4-tracks as distant as piano rolls. And if solid storytelling were enough to capture the public’s attention then Michael Bay would be out of a job (and what a wonderful world that would be), so unfortunately, good sound and good material might not be enough in today’s world. Which could be a problem for Lost On Purpose.
Will Holland of (is, that is) Lost On Purpose has an album’s worth of iTunes downloads that falls under the name Not If But When, which, if you’re tired of self-aggrandizing one-man-bands, is worth a listen. It could even simplify your life and quell your troubled mind with instrumentation and wry observations that don’t waste time.
Take the track ‘guts’, for example - it lasts just over a minute but makes me laugh with the line, “I wish that you broke up with me so I could write 20 songs, but stop in the middle and get drunk.” NIBW has more than a few of those moments that you will unconsciously regurgitate as advice to a sad friend, or a punchline at a party that will make you think, Did I make that up? Wow, I’m cleverer than I thought…
Being wry and casual is nothing new, but works in a pinch. Pretensions, on the other hand, don’t win over many friends, and track 6 ‘ksu interlude’, in which a news ticker plays over a nice melody says very little except, “I can use a laptop real good.” Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Silent Night’ is a disquieting juxtaposition of lullaby and dirge, but here it’s just a throwaway. Still, the rest are sharp little vignettes full of fill-in-the-blanks imagery, mortality with a funny face, moments within a sprawling one-act (‘The 70’s’ is a particularly choice cut - I recommend it).
It’s not a bad thing to resist giving everything you have for a single project, and Not If But When is more a sample of the goods than the full delivery. The songs aren’t a Floydian journey to far-away psychic shores, but lines like, “You remind me why I left Ohio,” bring listener and singer close together. It helps too if you’ve ever been to Amherst, OH - you’ll understand where native son Holland gets this angle, but anyone can find a reason to want to leave their place of origin. NIBW has plenty of moments like this - sample some Will Holland when you’re done w/ GarageBand junkies that pummel w/ proof of how different they are.
Indie rock is not for the weak. While Chicago welcomed Pitchfork for a mere 3 days, this past weekend was a 4 day marathon of free, outdoors shows, just in time for a heat wave. Ted Leo, the Fiery Furnaces, and Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow all played on Thursday night, with Deerhoof the next day, and the Liars, Fuck Buttons, and Team Robespierre rocking out in the sweltering Sunday heat. But the crown jewel of the weekend was Saturday’s Siren Fest, the annual migration of hipsters from Wililamsburg and outside of the city to Coney Island.
There is an annual tradition of complaining about how this year’s lineup sucks, and goddamn the Village Voice for not exhuming the Beatles and letting us see them for free. Usually, this looks somewhat foolish by the end of the night, as most people who go have a good time, especially considering they get to eat from the original Nathan’s. This year was different, though. Headliners Broken Social Scene delivered the goods, even bringing up some random girl they had met an hour before to be a substitute Feist. They were outdone, however, by Brooklyn’s own Parts and Labor. Maybe because they sounded better because they played at 2, before anyone was drenched with sweat, but Parts and Labor played a spazzy, but accessible, raucous set that impressed everyone around me (”that was fucking ace!”) (”who are these guys?”). Unfortunately, they were followed by the Dodos, who were really, really boring.
The Parts and Labor/Dodos dichotomy exposed the key to throwing summer concerts. If it’s going to be during the day, it has to be loud, and people can’t just stand still the whole time (this was proven by the great Liars/Team Robespierre show the following day). If you’re going to be watching music, and it’s 95 degrees outside, you don’t want to just stand there, wondering if you’re about to melt. If the concert were indoors, or if it was a little cooler, the Dodos may have very well stolen the show. But given the heat, it was a lot more fun to grab a hot dog and beer and wait for Times New Viking.
It would appear as if Times New Viking would be the perfect remedy for the Dodos folkish stylings. While they weren’t bad, they fell victim to Siren’s notoriously bad sound system. They were just too loud for Siren, and it was hard to really stay into the show the whole time. But when the sound system accomodated them, they were pretty great. Harkening back to bands like the Dead Boys, they were punishing - but in a way that was a hell of a lot better than feeling like you were baking. And, best of all, afterwards, it was a good excuse to get more beer and switch to the second stage.
Over at the second stage, it was time for the New York debut of Jaguar Love. They weren’t ready to come out yet. They’re actually a trio of former members of the Blood Brothers and Pretty Girls Make Graves, but they sounded more like a really bad Rage Against the Machne ripoff. After a few songs, I cut my losses, and headed to the beach. Seeing how this is far too long already, and you don’t need to hear more about Stephen Malkmus or Broken Social Scene, I’ll cut my losses here too. After all, pretty much anything beats roasting in the heat without good music to listen to. Maybe next year, they won’t book Siren the same weekend as Pitchfork.
It’s hard to resist writing a tome about this album, but the 11 tracks on Noah And The Whale’s Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down do a lot without Big Noise or circumlocution, so I’ll at least try to return the favor…
The swinging and crippling melodies of the titletrack and ‘Shape of My Heart’ belie the torment within… is someone conflicted internally with themselves and externally with the presence - or absence - of love? Tension is everywhere on this album, and both absence and fulfillment are equally represented, and beautifully at that. But whatever the lump sum of praises vs. rejections of God, spirit and love, the music nets a victory for joy. If our narrator is torn between an existential celebration of the Self and an undeniable attraction to the Almighty, the music says, “whatever it is, it’s going to be all right,” and it’s easy to believe. It’s a tribute to life (”life is fleeting, and I love you, and love surrounds you like an ether,”) and death (”let’s leave [the baby] to the wolves so they turn it to food; its flesh keeps it alive, oh and death helps life survive, and life can be kind in its own way”), love and hate, despair and hope.
But wait… there’s levity here too. All of this happens without heavy-handedness, and the melodies would be just as emotive if they were singing the recipe for vegan pancakes (just trying to imagine the blandest food conceivable). It’s sometimes difficult to believe Bob Marley when he sings, “Every little thing gonna be all right,” especially during the months of January through March. But NATW convincingly frame heartbreak and death - the death of a newborn at the hands of lycanthropes, nonetheless - to be a thing of benevolence and comfort. It’s like the Altman movie Prairie Home Companion… sucks that you have to die, but at least it’s Virginia Madsen that takes you to the Next World.
Unfortunately, the frustratingly catchy ‘Five Years Time’ is going to turn a lot of people, and out of context it should… no matter how much you end up hating (or loving) the song, you’ll accidentally whistle along and its cloying melody will be stuck in your cerebral cortex for good. It’s too bad they chose this song for the single - there are plenty of superior songs on the album (10 of them, to be exact) that are guaranteed not to piss you off nearly as much as this one. For the kids, I guess…
