Saturday, June 24. 2006
I got a review copy of a British documentary about pop star George Michael, he of "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and extremely bad 80s hair and fashion fame, and was surprised and even a little dismayed to not only think it was a really good movie, but to find myself re-evaluating the man and his music.
No, I'm not going to try to sell you on the idea that "Young Guns" is a song that stands the test of time. But if you get a chance to see George Michael: A Different Story, you might want to set your prejudices aside and check it out. It's a tight, intelligent, almost subversive look at a very shy yet articulate artist who is a lot more (good and bad) than tabloid fodder and the maker of puerile bubblegom pop.
Comments from Sting, Noel Gallagher, Mariah Carey, Martin Kemp, Boy George, Elton John, ex-Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, Simon Cowell, and others are interspersed with some excellent concert footage (especially his historic appearance with Queen at a memorial tribute concert for Freddie Mercury), amusingly bad 80s video clips, and astonishingly compelling interviews with Michael himself.
I didn't want to like it, or him, but I did.
Wednesday, June 14. 2006
It's hard to imagine that a remake of the old Kansas chestnut "Dust in the Wind" could find new life as an indie/alt rock vocal over an eletcro-tech-trance-house dance beat. And even more bizarre, that it would be so fucking good.
But San Francisco dj/producer duo Josh Gabriel and Dave Dresden do all that and more on their debut album Organized Nature. From the massive club hit "Tracking Treasure Down" (don't miss the Francis Preve remix) to standout tracks like "One Step Closer" and "Enemy," this scorching mix of vintage guitar, high tech gadgetry, powerful lyrics, and engaging melodies is kicking dance floor ass all over the US and Europe.
Vocals on "Dust in the Wind," "One Step Closer," and two other songs are handled by Atlanta's indie rock vocalist Molly Bancroft, and four others, including "Enemy" are sung by London-based Josh Burton, whose voice at times bears an uncanny resemblance to that of David Sylvian.
It's true that Gabriel & Dresden are best known for producing the massive trance hits "As the Rush Comes" by Motorcycle and "Way Out West" by Mindcircus, but a little trance goes a long way with me, and I loved this album. Although frankly dance music and certainly electronic, it plays with the boundaries of many genres, including rock and pop, for a sound that's easily recognizable as their own.
Gabriel & Dresden have also done remixing chores on songs by Annie Lennox, Dido, Sarah McLachlan, Depeche Mode, and a number of other artists. This is the first release on their own label, also called "Organized Nature."
By the way, you don't have to take my word for it... the album is streaming free here.
Wednesday, May 17. 2006
Some new stuff out streaming.
The Pet Shop Boys new album Fundamental has no US release scheduled but is out in the UK on the 23rd. It's streaming here. I listened. I loved it and I'm going to plunk down the twenty-six bucks for the import. And I resented the eleven dollars I spent on Stadium Arcadium, which just tells you so much about me.
Depeche Mode has made their live shows available for digital download here - including their Coachella performance.
The April 19th London Erasure acoustic show can be sampled and downloaded here. In fact, there's a lot of interesting stuff to download on that site, including the 2004 reunion of Throbbing Gristle (by which I'm SO dating myself, but I can't help it).
The first time I heard Stadium Arcadium, the new double CD from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I loved it, in that way you do when everything you hear sounds really good, but you aren't listening that closely.
Then I listened again, paying attention, and thought... OK, it's not as good as I thought it was at first listen.
And then I listened again, and this time I started to fall under the spell of the pop-rock-funk thing they have going on. I was bouncingly happy to hear their funkier sound coming on strong on a number of cuts ("Tell Me Baby," "Warlocks," "Hump De Bump") because without Flea's funky bass it's not the Chili Peppers to me. Which isn't to say I don't like them getting all Jimi Hendrix or California beach pop rock on us either. It's hard to explain, sometimes, what this band is. "Make You Feel Better" is just pretty California beach pop rock (and I was born here, I know it when I hear it). And I kind of want to hate it, but I just can't, because it's just too sweet and everyone knows I'm a sucker for guitars that do that chiming thing. It blends into "Animal Bar," which goes rougher and a little sadder, but still holds you there near the Pacific Ocean, "swimming like a shark." And if there's ever been a more California song than "Dani California" I really don't know what it is. If I didn't live here already, that song would make me want to move, just like the poor doomed Dani of the title.
In some ways Stadium Arcadium plays like a greatest hits album, even though it's all new material. It covers everything about the Peppers, from their start as a sort of high school goof-off band, just stumbling around, drunk and obnoxious, with their instruments (and if you weren't around then to see it, don't get pissed off at me for telling you the truth) all the way to Californication, and then out beyond that to where all those things come together and melt and make you melt to listen to them.
And really, I don't want to melt. These guys have always been a little too testosterone-y for me, although their party til you puke and die days are behind them now. And the band is holding back a little too much, creating a radio-friendly sound instead of letting loose the way you know they can. Restrained but not in a "yeah, I have my panther on a leash, don't worry" way. More in a "if I really whale on this shit, they won't play this on FM radio" way.
And I absolutely refuse to work that last cliche, the one that says "there's a great album's worth or material here, too bad it's a double album," or even the one that says "double albums are the death knell." I won't say every track of the 28 on Stadium Arcadium is great. But whether you take the two CDs as separate albums, or mix and match your own little MP3 playlist of your favorites, or listen to the whole damn thing, it all works.
One last note... the CD comes digitally categorized as "alternative & punk," and I had to laugh - this is a rock album, folks, no matter what anyone might tell you. And it hit number one on the charts about ten minutes after it was released, so you do have to ask... alternative to WHAT, exactly?
Wednesday, May 10. 2006
John Cook in Slate on Sasha Frere-Jones' weird campaign to dub The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merrit a racist for not liking hip-hop music:
It would be one thing if Frere-Jones were just some disgruntled OutKast fan with a MySpace page. But he is in fact a disgruntled OutKast fan with access to The New Yorker's pages and all the credibility and authority that go along with that. He ought to take the things he writes on his blog seriously.
I confess The Magnetic Fields' "I Need a New Heart" is playing as I type these words, so maybe mine is not the most objective opinion you could get on this issue, but it's a great article, go read.
Tuesday, May 2. 2006
I really would have liked to go to the Coachella music festival down in Indio last weekend, but it was going to be like forty million degrees in the shade and I just can't do that; we have thin blood up here in Northern California. So because I simply don't spend enough time on the computer already, they put the freaking thing online for me to watch. I wasn't sure whether to thank them or curse them.
I picked up the stream with Depeche Mode doing "Enjoy the Silence." I love Depeche Mode, I love that song. But I could so have lived without the sight of David Gahan's pasty body. I understand it's hot there and he had to take off his shirt but this wasn't right.
Fortunately, he left the stage after that, presumably to drink the blood of a virgin so as to have the strength to go on with the set. A fully-clothed Martin Gore sang "Shake the Disease" - a less prettied-up version than the album cut. A song called "Shake the Disease" should never be prettied up. As a closer, a semi-clad Gahan did "Never Let Me Down Again," which is such a drug song, isn't it? It sounded desperate. I'm not saying that in a bad way. But I do think Gahan needs to stop doing drugs and get a tan.
She Wants Revenge came on next, all wearing not just shirts but jackets, so I'm now thinking Gahan was just being an exhibitionist and not suffering from the heat. (Or was he showing off his tattoos? I wish I could get the image out of my head.) Everything they sang was extremely depressing, very very very dark and delivered in a despairing monotone. I seriously think this guy should have been prevented from listening to Joy Division during his formative years. I couldn't stick with it. I like dance music that makes me happy.
Sunday was Madonna and her amazing muscled arms, the perfect antidote to David Gahan. And something like forty million other bands. (Forty million is my number of the day.) Tool were said to have brought the house, er, tent, down, and Sigur Ros, the world's most famous Icelandic band (they sing in a made up language, because they decided Icelandic was insufficiently obscure) got rave reviews too from a friend who was there.
Although the weather stopped me, many braver souls than I did make the journey and they want to tell you all about it and even show you videos. And AT&T keeps promising to make the live stream available on its Blue Room site, I'll update when I get news.
Saturday, April 29. 2006
We can't promise you backstage passes, limousines, or groupies, in fact, we can't even pay you, but we can guarantee two things - someone will read what you've written, and someone will disagree with what you've written.
We are looking for a few good writers who want to blog about the alternative and indie music scenes from a variety of locations, perspectives, and genres. Applicants must enjoy music (of course) and be able to write good well.
If you're interested in blogging here, drop us a note and let us know where you're located, what kind of music you like, and what your background with music and writing is. Like we said, this is not a paying gig, you have to do it for the power and prestige alone.
Thursday, April 27. 2006
I believed Apple when they told me I have to take all my music with me everywhere I go, and thus have taken on a Herculean task: Putting all my CDs on my iPod. Daunting though this may seem, it does have its payoffs, one of which is now and then hearing music as if for the first time. And that happened to me last night when I decided it was time to load up all my Velvet Underground.
I originally discovered the Velvet Underground around 27 years ago, listening to a bootleg of Patti Smith singing "White Light, White Heat" live. My friend said, oh, that's a Velvet Underground song, and I said, the who? So she played the original of "White Light/White Heat," and I just lay on the floor and thought: This is unbelievable. Who knew? And then she played "Pale Blue Eyes" and I was lost, lost, lost.
The Velvet Underground got their start as proteges of Andy Warhol, who designed the cover of their first album, 1967's The Velvet Underground and Nico. The lineup was Lou Reed on vocals, guitar and songwriting duties, John Cale on crazy electric viola, Sterling Morrison on guitar, Maureen Tucker on drums (girl drummer in 1965, how cool is THAT?), and for their first album only, Nico singing on three tracks ("Femme Fatale," "All Tomorrow's Parties," "I'll Be Your Mirror") of the cool dark pop Reed was writing then - if you can write pop songs about heroin and sadomasochism, which he could. And did.
Nico didn't stay with the band, Warhol lost interest, and in 1968, with Reed handling all the vocals, they released their second album, White Light/White Heat. And this time, they unleashed something primal and hard and cacaphonuous, that got rough in a way that still sounds modern today, unlike the music of many of their contemporaries who were, at the time, better known. They used feedback and distorted sound, and "Sister Ray" clocked in at SEVENTEEN AND A HALF MINUTES LONG - not even the most Ecstasy-drenched, mindnumbing electrotrancedance song gets away with that. This stuff was just weird and out of step with the 60s and anything remotely acceptable or marketable back then; this is the song that gave birth to punk rock.
Cale left after a huge feud with Reed, and was replaced by Doug Yule. The group released their third album, The Velvet Underground, in 1969. This one was more muted and less "anti-beauty," with a couple of standout rock tracks and a handful of chiming pop songs ... "Pale Blue Eyes," "Candy Says," and "Jesus," three of the best songs Lou Reed ever wrote. And of course, "Sweet Jane," possibly one of the most covered songs ever.
It made me absolutely crazy to see Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" listed on a "One Hit Wonders" playlist on iTunes, although I suppose the real problem is that "hits" are a piss-poor way to define the impact of a musician or a group on the music world. Reed and the Velvet Underground could have never had a "hit," and they'd still be more important than groups that churned out top forty hit after hit during the 60s. They influenced Patti Smith, Brian Eno, David Bowie, and so many others it would be impossible to list them. (Eno is supposed to have said that almost no one bought their first album, but everyone who did went out and started a band.)
If you have never heard them, and you're a fan of punk, post-punk, indie, lo-fi, or any other possible genre or hyphenation of alternative music, go find their stuff and listen to it. Then see if you can believe this music is forty years old. I was in kindergarten when it came out. You might not have even been born. Then tell iTunes to choke on their "One Hit Wonders."
Tuesday, April 25. 2006
Via WiredBlog from News.com:
For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.
What does this have to do with music?
From WiredBlog:
If you're feeling guilty about all the music you're downloading without paying for it, perhaps reading about new attempts to double down on the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) will help assuage that guilt. The "Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006" includes some frightening expansions of current anti-piracy efforts, making it illegal to "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" anything that can be used to circumvent copyright protection. It also allows authorities to use wiretaps whenever copyright infringement is suspected (as opposed to in general, without permission?), doubles copyright-related prison terms, allows for the seizure and destruction of anything used for copyright infringement, and more.
From BoingBoing:
The new law would send you to prison for attempting to infringe copyright. It would make it even more illegal to own tools that could be used to remove copy-restrictions, like DVD-ripping software -- it could even bust Symantec for making software that removed the Sony rootkit malicious software that the company distributed with its CDs last year.
And why are they doing this? Back to WiredBlog:
According to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the problem is that the money made by infringing businesses is being used "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities." Sure, buddy.
I'm trying to comprehend where the money comes in with peer to peer sharing .... but OK. Go delete Limewire from your computer right now or the terrorists win.
Monday, April 24. 2006
Via Dave at Line Out, a 2003 gem from the Onion (need I say more?):
(M)y mind has features your iPod will never have. Does your iPod have real-time remixing? No?! Well, if I don't like the original lyrics to Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son"—zip, zip, zing—my mind can change them! Adding a cool bass line or a rocking keyboard flourish to any piece of music? No problem! Adding images of myself performing on stage with the band? Done!
Sunday, April 23. 2006
From The Stranger:
Blame Thomas Dolby if cell-phone ringtones piss you off. Nah, he didn't write that egregious "Crazy Frog" tune. But the '80s synthpop legend best known for the international hit "She Blinded Me with Science" is responsible for the polyphonic squawking of mobile devices worldwide, thanks to audio software developed by his company Beatnik.
More here.
Thursday, April 20. 2006
The last guy I'd ever expect to see without his synthesizers is Erasure's Vince Clarke, but their just-released Union Street is an all-acoustic remake of songs from earlier albums. They didn't touch any of their hits, and there are no dance songs, just lots of silvery guitar from producer Steve Walsh behind Andy Bell's vocals. (Walsh is also the owner of the studio in Brooklyn that gave Union Street its name.)
I was living in Europe when Clarke, an original member of Depeche Mode, broke up his wildly successful synth-band Yazoo and started searching for a vocalist for a new group. I caught one of Erasure's very first shows, at a small club in London, where Andy Bell managed to sound disturbingly like Yazoo's Allison Moyet, and they brought the house down - most especially when Bell sang Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme" in leather jacket, motorcycle boots, and a pink tutu.
Erasure topped the charts in the UK and had some pop success in the US as well, but have usually been seen as the lightweights of the holy trinity of surviving 80s synthpop bands (the others being Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys). Certainly DM and PSB are musically more complex and topically darker, but while there's no shortage of critics who don't think much of Erasure as musicians, the real problem is that they write pure pop love songs, and that is just so not cool.
Union Street's first cut was also the first single, and if they wanted to set the bar high, they succeeded. "Boy" is killingly beautiful, and had been all but lost in its original version on 1997's Cowboy. I wondered, in fact, how I had missed it, and just put Cowboyin the CD player and thought... ok, that's how.
Is the rest of the album as good as "Boy"? No, it's not, but most of it's very good indeed. For instance, their little trip through the back catalog turned up "Tenderest Moments," a b-side I'd never even heard before and that almost hits the heights of "Boy." And the guitars in this one, by Clarke as well as Walsh, are almost as purty as Bell's vocal.
Will this risk pay off for Erasure? Reviews so far have been mixed, so maybe, maybe not. But as Mallory O'Donnell said over on Stylus:
Erasure have taken a chance with Union Street, but then their continued insistence on making music this purely honest, tender and revealing is in itself taking chances in the face of hipster irony and designer miserablism.
And don't we all need that now and then?
Sunday, April 9. 2006
P!nk was packaged as just another pop princess on her first album Can't Take Me Home, got disgusted with the way she was being marketed, and went out and got one of my heroes and hers, 4 Non Blondes' Linda Perry, to slap everyone silly on her sophomore album, M!ssundaztood. Her third album, Try This, sold badly and she herself has spoken negatively about it, but there are some great songs there - "Trouble," "God is a DJ," "Catch Me While I'm Sleeping."
But her fourth album, I'm Not Dead, is going to blow everything else she ever did right out of the water. If this isn't P!nk's year, I'll eat this blog. And if that means my indie/alt street cred gets flushed down the toilet, I really don't care. If this foul-mouthed, smart, badass gets even one teenaged girl to ditch the "itty bitty doggies and the teeny weeny tees" and take karate or something, then it's worth it. If I had a daughter I'd not only want her to have P!nk as a role model, I wouldn't mind one little bit if she actually grew up to BE P!nk.
"Stupid Girls," the first single and video from the album, is something I'd like to have piped into the bedroom of every girl in America, although I don't actually have to arrange that, as they seem to be listening to it on their own. "Dear Mr. President" is unabashedly melodic, lyrical, and political - and not for those who like George Dubya, with its shout-out to Cindy Sheehan and backup harmonies from the Indigo Girls; I loved it.
The other single/video release, "U+Ur Hand," harkens back to the subversive dance floor P!nk of M!ssundaztood:
Keep your drink
Just give me the money
It's just U + Ur hand tonight...
You're high fivin' and talkin' shit
But you're going home alone tonight - aren't ya?
Pure rock-pop: "Who Knew," the anthemic "Long Way to Happy," the heartbreaker "Nobody Knows," "I'm Not Dead."
I'm also trying to wrap my brain around the number of people on Amazon who reviewed this album negatively because of the lyrics to the rock/dancey "'Cuz I Can" and the R&Bish "I Got Money Now." I think the schools of America need to teach Sarcasm 101 or something.
I didn't love every single song on I'm Not Dead. I could have lived without "The One That Got Away," P!nk's homage to Janis Joplin. The lyrics are pretty witty, but didn't Melissa Etheridge corner the market on being the reincarnation of Janis already? And I'm maybe too old for "Conversations With My 13-Year-Old Self," but that probably won't dimish its impact on P!nk's main audience, girls far closer to those hormonal and tragic days than I.
Long story short: I'm Not Dead is tight, raw, mean, warm, sexy, and smart. Just like P!nk.
PS: For the two people out there who admit to liking dance music, I also have the remixes of "Stupid Girls," one of the very small number of songs I like enough to pay ten bucks for three remixes of. Noize Trip Remix is better IMO than the album version, and about the same three-minute length. The Junior Vasquez & Dynamix Club Remix could be less synthy and more percussive, but I love what they did with her vocal, and it may win the award for "most times the word 'fuck' appears in a song not about sex in the history of dance music." (Oh shit, did I say "dance music"? Is that allowed on this site?) I was kind of cool on the D-Bop at Crash Mix at first, but it heats up a lot in the middle, so I did too. It's not on iTunes, at least not yet, so you'll have to buy the whole CD; start saving your allowance. Long story short: For dance music and serious P!nk fans only, but we'll love it.
Friday, April 7. 2006
Pigs fly. Hell freezes over. Morrissey gets laid.
That unexpected new chapter in the saga of Mr. Never Loved No One Ever was enough to get me to listen to Ringleader of the Tormentors, despite having disliked every post-Smiths album Morrissey ever released, and having cooled on even some of the stuff I used to like when I was following the Smiths all around Europe just about the time Hatful of Hollow came out. (I helped translate "William, It Was Really Nothing" into Italian. Such are the things we waste time on when we're young and obsessed.)
I heard the news of this transformative development in the life of the world's unhappiest man on a music blog I read, and thought..... surely not. Surely when I actually listen to the song it will all turn out to be either some metaphoric excursion into poetic excess (from Morrissey? imagine that!) or some kind of sarcastic joke. But no. It was pretty much just what it seemed to be: The boy got some. And he was actually happy about it.
I wish I could tell you the album had such a happy outcome. Although the Moz fans are rhapsodizing all over iTunes, to my mind there isn't that much going on with it. I do like the single, "You Have Killed Me," and "Dear God, Please Help Me," the song about getting laid, is not bad; it's just that overall, Ringleader is nothing but the usual droney, boring story from our Stephen, only totally over-produced... I guess I should have suspected something like that, given he posed with a violin on the cover, but there is ORCHESTRATION on this thing.
And here we all thought love could fix anything. Guess we were wrong.
Wednesday, April 5. 2006
I liked the Smiths as much as anyone, in fact, I liked them to the point that I saw them 20 times in six different countries. I loved them, OK?
But that was a long, long time ago baby, and they ain't comin' back. Plus, you know, I grew up and everything. You can only be Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now for so long.
So I just don't get why people were so frigging disappointed when Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr released his snakily-named solo album Boomslang a few years ago. It's not like he hasn't done anything and everything since the Smiths broke up, from playing with the Pretenders and Bryan Ferry to the Pet Shop Boys (what that chiming guitar did to "Birthday Boy" could make a stone weep).
I also don't get the criticism of his voice. Does someone, somewhere, think MORRISSEY has a great voice? PSB's Neil Tennant? The The's Matt Johnson? Distinctive voices, yes, but great? Not so much. Marr's voice is fine, neither great nor bad, and fits the music well. Do we need more, when he plays guitar like that?
Boomslang came out to great expectations and decidedly mixed reviews. Rolling Stone hated it, Guitar Player loved it. And I'm damn glad I heard it before I read the forty-plus reviews on Amazon, because I probably would never have bought it if I'd read them first, and that would have been a shame. Because I really don't care if I'm in the minority, I think Boomslang is terrific. And I think the reason the legions of Smiths fans didn't like it is because it's a straight-up progressive rock album and it doesn't carry even the tiniest little tinge of angst or agony.
If you like your guitars to thrash and scream, you won't like Johnny Marr's guitar playing. It's subtle, layered, textured, and yes, can definitely be poppy. It's also technically astonishing, and a lot of musicians think so, too, given that he's played with the Pretenders, the Talking Heads, the Pet Shop Boys, The The, Kirsty MacColl, Bryan Ferry, Billy Bragg, Beck, and his group with Joy Division/New Order's Bernard Sumner, Electronic.
Electronic has produced some very good albums, but they're definitely not for your average rock fan .... which I suppose is fairly obvious from the name of the band. If you are allergic to dance/electronica but want to check them out, start with Twisted Tenderness, their third album, as Marr's guitar comes to the forefront (and it was criticized by many New Order fans as being "too rock").
But Boomslang isn't going to send rock fans into shock. There are no synthesizers, and Marr is backed by Zak Starkey (the most recent drummer to put his butt in Keith Moon's seat behind the Who, as well as current drummer for Oasis, which I try not to hold against him since he's a much better drummer than his father, Ringo Starr) on drums and Kula Shaker's Alonza Bevan on bass.
I'm not trying to mislead you; this is not a rock classic, and you won't die if you never hear it. His lyrics are kind of bland, and his voice is average at best.
But oh, that guitar.
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