James Stutter

Caveat: I have in NO way come close to listening to all of James's albums. The overwhelming experience I have with them is in the albums James, Seven and Laid.  So when I stalk about things like the progression of James as a band I really don't know what I'm talking about.  I'm only pretending to know what I'm talking about.  So...there.

Stutter is one freaking crazy album.  I told you the other day that I wish I still felt this way.  I've tried to put my finger on what I mean by "this" but I can't really put into a cogent thought; just something like this: hopped up on youth and indecision and confidence and potential and romance and arrogance and talent.  I used to have all those things and when I did I was awesome.  But I don't still feel that way.  I'm an old cynic now.  I don't sense one moment of cynicism on this album.  Just crazy key changes and changes in tempo and hollering and ululations.  I see Booth jumping up and down and spinning and shaking his head back and forth while singing in the studio.  And is bandmates smiling and laughing at him and also expressing themselves in the same spirit in their own way.

I like superhero origin story movies.  I think bands have similar experiences.  One day they're like the rest of us and then their first album comes out and--for good or evil--they're never the same.  In movies the heroes usually become more adept at using their skills over time.  But I have to say Stutter doesn't feel like an origin story.  They definitely show steps of passing through the rights and passages of life but trace them back to Stutter and it feels like an organic process.

Especially Tim Booth's voice.  Man that doesn't show the least bit of immaturity.  It's as strong and steady and flawless as it is in future albums.  It's a finely sharpened glass edge from the get go.  Evidenced in the extended holding of the solitary note at 2:25 in "Why So Close." Thoroughly unflinching.  So impressive.  That's not the work of a superhero trying to find find their footing.  

Speaking of "Why So Close." Far and away the song on the album that resonates with me more than others.  First of all, I just love it.  Lyrics and interesting and I love the acoustic guitar.  And I love stories about the history of the American West.  Whether or not that was the intended thought behind the song, that's what I take from it.  And, like I said the other day, this song remind me of REM's "Swan Swan H." The acoustic guitar, the feeling of war and death and destruction and the poetic lyrics that describe them. 

I always wonder how foreigners view the history and settling of the American West.  I'm reading a book on the history of the Eiffel Tower.  I didn't know it was built in conjunction with the 1889 Paris World Fair.  As part of America's submissions to the fair Buffalo Bill came over with his Wild West Show.  His show was one of the first ways that people--even in America--had any experience with the settling of the west.  Anyway, so I think it's interesting to hear James use western imagery.

I also have some oddly personal connections to "Why So Close."  First of all I've lived in the west my whole life and I love it.  I love the history and the myth and the land and all that comes with it.  I know this is the land of someones forefathers and many of those forefathers are mine.  My ancestors came from Denmark and settled in Sanpete County.  There's something shadowy about saying "I feel the blood of my ancestors on the ground I live on" but I really do.  

Second, my dad's father was named Ivan which is so strange since he was born and raised in rural Utah.  I actually have no idea what the story is behind his name but he definitely didn't get it because he was from Russia.  So when I read about Ivan in the second verse I visualize my grandfather building a wall of lead around his house in Manti, Utah--furious and desperate.

Third, my dad's best friend growing up is named Wayne. To us, growing up, he was Uncle Wayne. We didn't see him a lot, but I think of him whenever I see/hear the name Wayne.  So he is part of this verse as my grandfather is part of the previous one.  So I envision my dad and his best friend Wayne watching my grandpa through dark glasses. Whatever that may mean.  

One additional thought about this song: I thought Booth was singing "Warhead phones since he was born" and I thought it was an awesome phrase--reminded me of "Miss Atomic Bomb"--until I looked it up and saw it was "Wore headphones..." and then I felt like an idiot.

So those are some thoughts on Stutter.  Clearly "Why So Close" is the stand out for me.  What a song.  

Josh's review of Hurley

 At this point in his career I have to accept that Cuomo knows exactly what he’s doing.  I’ve always felt like he was lost.  (Or hoped he was.)  That he’s been bumping around in a dark room for the last 25 years trying to find a trapdoor that will take him back to the Blue Album.  That he’s still trying to cover up for Pinkerton.

But I’m wrong.  This is the first time I’ve taken a critical look at one of their albums but I know it’s no fluke.  Cuomo knows exactly what he’s doing with his career.

I had some high school friends that started a band.  The named their band Blow Me.  Only at the risk of sounding offensive to adults they clamed that their name was Blowme (rhymes with “home”).  So it was wink-wink type of thing.

That’s kind of how I feel about 21st Century Weezer.  Layers upon layers of gags.  And it’s all lost on me.

“Time Flies” is my favorite song on the album and I really, really like it.  I like the steady drum beat, the 8-track sounding vocals, the acoustic guitar  It doesn’t feel like he’s trying to play a trick on me. It sounds like a great recording of a live performance.  It’s no secret I like lo-fi music that sounds like it’s only partially finished and that’s how I feel about this song.  I really like it.  

“Ruling Me”: they lyric “my ocular nerve went pop, zoom” is so freaking stupid.  

“Unspoken” is a pretty good song.  Second favorite.  I appreciate that he acknowledges that he wrote it after getting married.  I really like that.  No jokes.  Feels really sincere.  Not like he’s talking about girls while he and his friends light bottle rockets in the empty field behind his house.  The flute at 1:30 reminded me of Dave Matthews.  I totally dig when the song blows up at the end.

“Smart Girls”: When Make Believe came out and the single Beverly Hills was released I was talking to a friend of mine name Jordan.  I was lamenting what a stupid song Beverly Hills is and he defended it as an attempt to make an ironic statement about people chasing after the empty rewards of money and fame.  I just kind of laughed at him until I realized he was serious.  And maybe he’s right.  And that’s how I feel about “Smart Girls.”  Like I laugh at it until someone tells me it’s legitimate.  

I just can’t grasp Cuomo’s obsession with “girls.”  I wonder if there is a Weezer song that doesn’t mention or refer to “girls.”  The best I can tell Cuomo hasn’t even come close to passing the Beckdel Test.  Like, not the same galaxy.

Where’s My Sex: Incompresibly stupid.  I can’t even describe how stupid it is.  Like offensively stupid.  This seems like Weezer’s absolute nadir. 

To sum up: I like Weezer but I hate their music.

Hurley

Hurley should be terrible. The name and the album cover are utterly disposable, it came a year after another disposable album with a terrible name and a stupid album cover. So, I had zero expectations when I put it on, especially after the fairly dispiriting listens of Maladroit, the Red Album, the White Album, and Pacific Daydream each of which just kept hammering home the point that Weezer isn't really the fun, brash, nerdy, charming band that I thought they were with the Blue album. They are, in fact, the very essence of The Ugly American: loud, crass, dumb, and immature. 

Honestly, so much listening to Weezer reminded me of the criticism levelled at America by the British botanist in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World:

And this positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms! In all my time in this wretched, godforsaken country, the one thing that has appalled me most of all is this preposterous preoccupation with bosoms. Don't you realize they have become the dominant theme in American culture: in literature, advertising and all fields of entertainment and everything. I'll wager you anything you like: if American women stopped wearing brassieres, your whole national economy would collapse overnight.

But, ohmygoodness, that first listen of Hurley was a shocker. It was like like they had figured out how to take the sound of 00s punk pop and married it with the traditional 90s Weezer sound AND it seemed that Rivers had finally figured out how not to write lyrics that were (a) misogynistic, (b) completely obsessed with how to get girls, and (c) basic. (I don't even know how to describe that last criticism. It's like talking to someone who is actively trying to bore you so that you will leave them alone, so they provide a stark description of what they have done in a day with no adjectives.)

Trainwrecks was the highlight of my first listen. A soaring teenage/early 20 somethings anthem that celebrates life even when it's a disaster. I played it five times in a row and thought, "This is the best thing they have done since the Blue Album." (Yeah, I know, total cliche.) But everything else seemed uniformly good except for the excretable "Where's My Sex?" 

(The scene: Rivers, sitting on a piano bench in his front room, strumming a couple of chords, humming to himself, scribbling some thoughts, playing another chord, sits straight up, and, in awe, says, "That's it." He starts writing furiously and then calls to his wife. "Honey, the muse has spoken to me! Listen to this!" He then plays "Where's My Sex?" on acoustic guitar after which his wife takes his guitar gently from his hands and snaps the neck over her knee. She then calmly picks up the lyric sheet, holds it an inch in front of his face, and says "Where is it? I'll show you where it is." Ripping the lyric sheet into long strips, she licks each strip, rolls each into a spitball, and shoves each ball up Rivers's nose. )

I should have written my review right then. Instead, flush on excitement about my new favorite Weezer album, I made a crucial mistake. I pushed play again. And again. Like frolicking through a verdant meadow, those second and third passes revealed some unfortunately rank things that sunk deep into the treads of my soul.

Like any decent tragedy, the seeds of my sadness were sown in the very thing that I once loved. Up top, I said that Hurley's title and picture seemed so disposable that it was for 2010 only and nothing beyond. Well, Trainwrecks has a jarringly disposable line: "We don't update our blogs." It's so banal and completely out of place with the larger theme of the song. It's lazy and, eleven years later, so anachronistic. (Blogs?? Who does that any more?)

And, just like that, things started spinning out of control. I started picking up the classic Rivers loutishness in Memories, Ruling Me, Run Away, and Smart Girls and my excitement turned into bitter disappointment at getting suckered by Weezer yet again. The other day, I gave Hurley a farewell listen, and, to my surprise, I realized I had short-changed about half the album: Unspoken, Hang On, Brave New World, and Time Flies are all really good songs and I found myself able to acknowledge that Trainwrecks considerable strengths outweighs its one bad line. Which makes this the best album ever named after a character from Lost.

 

 

Paul Simon Pulls a David at the Convention

Watching Paul Simon perform Bridge Over Trouble Water at the Democratic Convention and I couldn't help thinking of that story that Nathan tells David in the Bible about the rich man who kills the one lamb of the poor man so that he can feed his guests and then Nathan thunderously condemns David as being that man.

Paul Simon has a rich and long writing and recording history. He has won Grammys, he has platinum solo albums, he has critical acclaim as a songwriter, has has fame, he has everything. To top it off, he was tasked to be the Official Democratic Troubadour for the convention.

What does Garfunkel have? He has one song that he didn't write but that he can sing really well. Really well. It's a song that everyone wants to hear him sing. That song is the only reason that people will ever go to a Garfunkel concert. It's his ace in the hole for being able to negotiate Simon and Garfunkel reunion tours that get him that extra few millions to survive another decade.

And you know Simon hates it. He hates that he wrote the song but let Garfunkel sing it. He hates that the reason they can pack hundreds of thousands of people to Central Park or the Colosseum in Rome is not to hear him sing 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover but to hear Garfunkel sing Bridge Over Troubled Water. I cannot imagine the countless times he has ground his teeth in rage as Garfunkel sings lead on one song and his clear tenor dissolves the audience into weeping and cheers.

I don't know who came up with the idea of Simon singing Bridge Over Troubled Water. It could have been a Clinton staffer trying to unite the party and like all incompetent politicos didn't have a clue about pop culture. Or, they could have asked Simon to sing a song and he thought, "Now's the chance, my time has come at last! Under the guise of unity, I will reclaim the song I lost 46 years ago!"

And he went out on stage, hauled out Garfunkel's little lamb, and slaughtered it in front of God and his country.


(Shine on, Art.)

Doug goes to Wave Records

Contrary to how they are depicted in popular culture, record store clerks in the US have never been particularly interested in talking about music or helping me find a record. (It is very likely that they look at me and think that this nerd isn't worth my time. My prime example of this is when I went to Disc Go Round as a teenager and there was a sign that said: "Please let me know if you know which song has these lyrics." I looked saw the sign and looked at the girl at the desk and said "That's High by Feeder." And she looked at me like I was insane. "The song with those lyrics. It's High by Feeder."   I could tell that she did not believe that the person in front of her would know the song and she didn't. "I have the song. It's Feeder. They are British." Finally, she just said: "Oh, ok." And that was that.)

But the record store clerks in Europe have been great. In Budapest, I went to a place called Wave Records. It's one room that is absolutely packed with CDs and LPs (including a Kraftwerk LP way high up on the wall). I looked around at all the English-language CDs mustering my courage to ask the tough-looking Hungarian clerk if he had any indie rock Hungarian bands he would recommend. The poor guy spoke hardly any English, but he spent the next twenty-five minutes browsing through the latest Hungarian CDs and selecting three for me to listen to. One was the most popular Hungarian indie band, one was a band that he knows and has seen live, and one was a band where he explaines that their sound has evolved over the last three albums into aomething that he thinks is really great and different. And you know what? He was right! That last CD was very different but very cool sounding. I bought it. And that was despite the language barrier and that I was dressed in my work clothes so did not look at all like a typical patron. Just some top notch clerking. 

(The sad thing to me is that all young Hungarian bands sing in English. I asked for Hungarian language bands and he only was able to find one for me and unfortunately, I didn't like their sound. Maybe there are others that he doesn't know about, but I just wish more bands sang in their native language.)

Hungarian Folk is Rock Music

British Sea Power's Do You Like Rock Music? baffled critics because the critics thought that the BSP boys were trying to play rock music. Instead, in the liner notes BSP noted that they were, in essence, equating rock music with goodness. And much of the album (notably No Lucifer) dealt with the battle of good and evil, with BSP coming down on the side of deer, old bicycles, darker skies, the wind in your hair, innocence, and immigration.

This somehow relates to my experience watching Hungarian Folk music and dancing. I promise.

Around the corner from my hotel in Budapest, is an old building. (That's a joke. Everything is an old building.) In this particular old building on the European second floor (American third floor) is a theater and in that theater, a Hungarian Folk Ensemble performs nightly. The theater is full of tourists and not just any tourists, but Old Tourists on Cruises. Budapest is one of their Port of Calls and apparently, part of the deal is going to see this Folk Ensemble. So, you would think that this would just be a Grade A tourist trap, like going to the Bar F in Cowboy Town, USA and watching three men in chaps, cowboy hats, and bandanas play Old Suzanna on the guitar with some funny lyrics while you eat pork and beans and wish you were dead. But you would be completely and utterly and gloriously wrong.

Because these Folks bring it and bring it hard. They seem unable to do anything at half-speed and how could they? Hungarian Folk Dancing isn't like square dancing or maypole dancing or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers dancing. It involves boot stomping, boot slapping, hand clapping, thigh whacking, ground slapping, chanting, and yelling. Some times, it almost seems like they are trying to sing to the music, but then it goes back to chanting. The women periodically unleash these "YEEEE-AH"s that pierce your soul. But, in the end, the dancers are a mere distraction away from the musicians.

The musicians are exactly what you would imagine folk ensemble would look like if you pulled them from a Hungarian village one hundred years ago. Mostly middle age, some older and pot-bellied, only one slightly younger, most with thinning hair, and one guy who looks like he could be a vampire, skinny, with thinning, slicked back long hair, a weak goatee, and a sallow complexion. At first sight, it looks like a farce. And then they play and they play with the intensity of the best rock bands I have seen. No sheet music. Each takes turns being the lead and as the lead, he sets the pace and the others watch to keep up. And when those dudes take solo turns, they shred like the great guitarists. The clarinet might be the worst instrument ever created, but this Hungarian absolutely destroyed his solo in Brahms' Hungarian Dance. I have never seen anyone yield a reed instrument in any comparable way. Left me stunned. The violinists played like their fingers were on fire, like the devil was chasing them, like the entirety of their life, the tragedies and the joys, were all being expressed through their instrument.

They joked with each other, they pushed each other to play faster, they played because they loved the music and it just so happened that an audience was watching. It was thrilling. Even if there had not been an audience, I think they would have played the same way.

It was Rock Music.

Using Brexit to leverage change in the UK's approach for Eurovision 2017

The morning after Brexit, there was some concern among the British citizenry that exiting the EU would also mean that Britain was exiting Eurovision. Thankfully, David Cameron provided sterling leadership in a time of crisis and explained that participation in Eurovision was independent of membership in the EU.

But, what Cameron did not address is that the UK is abysmal at Eurovision. Over the last four years, it has finished no higher than 17th out of 26 countries and the music has been generally pretty insipid, even by Eurovision standards.

Here is Bonnie Tyler with a terribly cheesy song in 2013:



Someone named Molly in 2014 singing about Children of the Universe:




A complete mess in 2015:



2016 was pretty decent in my mind. Kind of Coldplayish arena stuff. But it was not well received by the other Europeans.



As a huge Anglophile when it comes to music, it bothers me to no end that the UK keeps submitting such banal songs. I know they are trying to suck up to the Eurovision votes with a "we are the world" kind of aesthetic, but every year they are soundly rejected. And after Brexit, there is no way that the UK can bring that message to Eurovision in 2017. Even if they did, they will be roundly booed for being hypocrites and will be crushed.

However, as Rahm Emmanuel says "Never let a crisis go to waste." Knowing that they are going to lose anyway, now is the opportunity for the UK to pivot away from schlocky, crappy, high-minded tracks. Other countries don't hew to the winning formula and they are incredibly more interesting.

For example, here is Cyprus's 2016 track about being a werewolf:




The better example for the UK is (unfortunately for the UK) France in 2013. This performance is so unlike any other Eurovision performance that I have ever seen. It's intense, dark, seductive, and goes completely crazy by the end. (I don't know what she is saying but I am pretty sure it's not Kumbaya.) Naturally, Europe hated it:



This is what the UK needs to bring to post-Brexit Eurovision 2017. It needs to be snarling and unapologetic. It needs to be about materialism and greed. It needs to be massive and it needs to have the potential to explode/meltdown on stage. You know where this is going.

The UK needs Oasis.

And I can't think of anything else that would cause Liam and Noel to get back together than an opportunity to melt faces at Eurovision. But, if that doesn't work, I am sure there are 100 other bellicose lad-rock bands that would be more than willing to rip it up at Eurovision. You don't often get a chance like this, UK. Make the most of it.