From the archives: Don's review of XTC's Wasp Star album · May 14, 06:40 AM by Don
It’s fun seeing what bits of writing from my Milk mag days still live on via the internet. Here’s another one I found on the excellent XTC fan site, Chalkhills. Check it out:
XTC – Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2), TVT Records
Andy Partridge, Andy Partridge, Andy Partridge. Yes, Andy Partridge writes and sings most of XTC’s songs. But the rest are written and sung by Colin Moulding, the bashful bassist who penned the group’s first bonafide hit, “Making Plans for Nigel,” over twenty (!) years ago. How about a little equal time? Moulding offers up three numbers on Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2), the guitar-oriented sequel to last year’s ornate Volume 1. Moulding comforts his agoraphobic wife with sweet optimism in “In Another Life.” “Boarded Up” drearily laments the musical isolation of XTC’s hometown of Swindon with boot clomp beats, workbench percussion, a lonely acoustic guitar, and an air of matter-of-fact resignation. “Standing in for Joe” is an obvious contender for single status. Moulding plays Vincent Vega to Joe’s Marcellus Wallace, keeping Joe’s girl company while Joe is out of town. He lacks, however, Vega’s self-control. “Love,” as the song goes, “is like a river, you cannot stop its flow.” It’s fun to imagine Joe himself humming along to this effortless, breezy bit of pop perfection on his car radio as he drives home. Appropriately, the next song on the album is Partridge’s “Wounded Horse,” a self-pitying dirge about learning that your woman has been “riding another man.” Partridge’s divorce has proven to be quite the wellspring of inspiration. Volume 1’s caustic “Your Dictionary” and the egocentric “I Can’t Own Her” were cooked in a cauldron that now spews forth songs like “Wounded Horse” and “I’m the Man Who Murdered Love,” a giddy, gruesome confession that musically recalls the snappy XTC of yore. Ole Partsy is not all cynic. He lets the sun shine through with “We’re All Light,” a jaunty number propelled by a whirring siren a la Cypress Hill, the love-drunk “Stupidly Happy,” and “You and the Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful,” a hip-swinging song of reconciliation for his ex-wife. Divorce, deafness, and music biz politics caused XTC to woodshed for most of the nineties. XTC is boarded up no more.
Video: fan-made affair for “The Wheel and the Maypole,” the last song on Wasp Star
Blog of the Day: SoundRoots · May 13, 10:08 PM by Don
I was in a musical bind and Mr. Stevens and his SoundRoots blog helped me out. I’d read this piece at NPR about Umm Kulthum and wanted an mp3 sample of her work. Surprisingly, my local library system has exactly zero CDs of Ms. Kulthum’s music. Follow this link to a post featuring a lengthy (37 minutes!) song by the Egyptian music queen. Below is a short* documentary about the singer I found on YouTube.
*Or is it only part of a longer documentary?
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From the archives: Don's review of Empire State's debut album · May 13, 06:23 AM by Don
I found another old Milk mag review. This one, for the debut album by Empire State, is on the band’s official site. Check it out:
from milk magazine…
Empire State’s debut release sounds like Howard Finster’s sculpture garden come to jubilant musical life. The first song, “Collapse,” isn’t even really a song; it’s simply what sounds like warmly hissing steam. “Equal” is an oddly beautiful melange of Chinese-sounding gongs and bells augmented by car horns. The album is not all aural esoterica, however. When the Nackashi brothers, Jay and Tim, and Alex McManus graft lyrics and singing onto their sonic sculptures, the results are intoxicating. The briskly sung verses of “Pie Pan” find release in an infectious chorus reminiscent of eighties band The Balancing Act. The song concludes with a yearning lyric, “Home, I want to go home,” repeated as the song winds downs and expires. The album as a whole, though, feels slight. The instrumentals are admittedly inventive and captivating (the majestic horns of “La La Land” come to mind) but the expert songcraft of “Pie Pan” is frustratingly underutilized. Let’s hope the members of Empire State decide to couple their love of fun-trick noise-makers and penchant for pop more consistently for album number two. ?
Don Leibold
Video: “Dog-Faced Boy”
Monday Morning Video: "I See You" by Juliana Hatfield · May 12, 06:27 AM by Don
Here’s a review I wrote of Juliana Hatfield’s “I See You” single back in ’92 for the UWM Post.
Juliana Hatfield’s latest CD5 is a fine little EP. Besides featuring her current single, “I See You,” and another song from her solo debut, Hey Babe, the disc boasts three new songs. “Rider” is a scathing and venomous attack on groupies that rocks as hard as anything she has done since the breakup of the Blake Babies. “Here Comes the Pain” is a document of resignation and despair, saved from utter dejection by the musically uplifting coda. “Feed Me” is similar in theme and style to “Ugly,” the other LP cut here. Both offer despondent portraits of women in conflict with their bodies. This CD5 is a gem. Pick it up.
mp3: Juliana Hatfield – Rider :: from the “I See You” single (1992)
mp3: Juliana Hatfield – Here Comes the Pain :: from the “I See You” single (1992)
mp3: Juliana Hatfield – Feed Me :: from the “I See You” single (1992)
From the archives: Don's review of Radiohead's Amnesiac album · May 11, 12:09 AM by Don
I found a site that had the text for a review I wrote for Josh Modell’s Milk mag site. Check it out:
Radiohead – Amnesiac (Capitol)
Anyone can play guitar, and maybe that’s why Radiohead has slowly mutated from a straight-up rock band to a gaggle of techno-savvy Luddites interested in stretching the limits of rock music. R.E.M. and U2 at different times in the recent past have flirted with musics outside the realm of rock but neither went as far as Radiohead did with last year’s Kid A. Some critics and fans heard Kid A as audacious, some heard it as pretentious. However, the mouth of anyone with an opinion was agape when the album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s album chart. This had nothing to do with the music itself and everything to do with the fact that Head-heads were simply anxious for new material. Some were no doubt disappointed by the fact that the album was cut from a cloth distinctly different from the fabric used to fashion OK Computer and The Bends.
Amnesiac ostensibly seeks to split the difference between Kid A and the band’s earlier material, even though more than half the album embodies the experimental spirit that dominated Kid A. The first song, “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box,” begins with ping-pong percussion and glowing organ notes similar to the ones heard in Kid A’s opener, “Everything in its Right Place.” Singer Thom Yorke plays the part of the modern male victim, a character found in many Radiohead songs. The song’s memorable refrain, “I’m a reasonable man, get off my case,” is repeated mantra-like in an effort to cope with disappointment, victimization, and unfulfilled longings. The music of “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” sounds like an infinity of revolving doors clacking, clattering, opening, closing, suggesting the endless course of actions one could take in response to the most major, or minor, of events. In a distorted voice, Yorke describes the plethora of portals that one could pass through. Reliably paranoid, he saves the worst for last: “And there are trapdoors that you can’t come back from.” A gritty, vaguely rockabilly-style guitar dominates “I Might Be Wrong.” Here Yorke trades pessimism for cautious optimism, singing, “Open up and let me in. Let’s go down the waterfall. Have ourselves a good time.” The most direct link to Kid A, besides the black and red cover art, is an alternate dirge-like take on “Morning Bell” titled “Morning Bell/Amnesiac.” The most indulgent song is “Dollars and Cents.” Though it begins dramatically enough with stentorian strings, the song meanders, making a mess of itself. It would have made a tolerable b-side. “Hunting Bears” is a quiet guitar interlude that contrasts with the electronic textures the band has favored of late, but also sounds like nothing the band has done before. Yorke’s voice is distorted again on “Like Spinning Plates.” Other odd sounds include music-in-reverse that sounds like the Millennium Falcon traveling backward through hyperspace in slow motion and the high, lonesome whistling of a sonic-whip tube toy (I used to have one. What were those things called?). Yorke sings about being cut to shreds, recalling the violent imagery found in some Kid A lyrics. Amnesiac’s closer, “Life in a Glasshouse,” provides another clear link to Kid A: horns. The helter-skelter marching band that stumbled through Kid A’s “The National Anthem” is replaced by jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton and friends providing New Orleans funeral-style accompaniment to the slow death of Yorke’s sanity. He sings, “Well of course I’d like to sit around and chat, but there’s someone listening in.” Again with the paranoia!
Radiohead does throw a few bones to long-time fans clambering for epic ballads like “Fake Plastic Trees” and “Exit Music (for a Film).” “Pyramid Song” is a lush, majestic evocation of transcendence. Yorke sings of jumping in a river where all his lovers, pasts, and futures swim. With “nothing left to fear and nothing to doubt,” he travels to heaven in a little rowboat. The magical river motif suggests Radiohead may have been listening to Billy Joel’s River of Dreams for inspiration. I might be wrong. “You and Whose Army?” half-heartedly taunts some unnamed oppressor, builds in confidence with a surging middle, then devolves into self-pity. Yorke is let down and hanging around, again. The most conventional song on Amnesiac is “Knives Out.” The smooth, clear vocals don’t do much to help the listener unravel the meaning of the cryptic lyrics, though it is possible to suss out common Radiohead themes such as desperation and violence.
What is next for Radiohead? Amnesiac debuted at #2 on Billboard’s album chart. A summer tour is selling out. After taking a break from singles and videos, the band has made a video for “Pyramid Song,” and another for “Knives Out” is in the works. Is another soul-deadening run through the media wringer in order? Commercial success, lengthy touring, and video-making in the wake of OK Computer’s release in 1997 precipitated Radiohead’s temporary music biz burnout. Can we expect to see a new Radiohead documentary in 2002 titled, Meeting People is Easy 2: Kid A Not OK? Or will the band withdraw after the summer tour and hibernate with its synthesizers, six-strings, and Billy Joel CDs to craft something even more weirdly moving than the one-two punch of Kid A and Amnesiac? (Milk – 04.07.01)
Josh had several of his writers review Amnesiac.
Click here to read Josh’s review
Click here to read Jeff Norman’s review
Click here to read Clancy Carroll’s review
Click here to read Keith Brammer’s review
Click here to read John Bergstrom’s review
Video: “Pyramid Song”
Monday Morning Video: "The Dead Heart" by Midnight Oil · May 5, 05:59 AM by Don
Tomorrow, check your local music retailer (or local computer) for a 20th anniversary Legacy edition of Midnight Oil’s American breakthrough record, Diesel and Dust.
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the U.S. chart debut of Diesel and Dust in 1988, an expanded edition of the album will now contain the long-lost 11th track “Gunbarrel Highway”, coupled with a bonus DVD of the one-hour 1987 Blackfella/Whitefella Tour documentary – its first appearance on commercial home video (with bonus clips of “The Dead Heart” and “Beds Are Burning”). Newly remastered for the first time in two decades, and complete with band member Rob Hirst’s original liner notes, the new package will arrive in stores May 6th on Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAIN MENT.
Click here to read a Billboard article that includes quotes from guitarist Jim Moginie.
mp3: Midnight Oil – The Dead Heart :: unplugged in London (1993)
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Songs in the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 format are offered for a limited time only. Songs that are no longer downloadable can be streamed at the Timedoor page at Hype Machine. Dead mp3 links take you to the top of page one.
Support your favorite artists by buying their music at your local independent record store (mine is Atomic Records) or eMusic. And read about ‘em at TrouserPress.com.
Recording with a ghost: Former Go-Between Robert Forster on the late Grant McLennan and his new album · May 1, 01:17 PM by Don
Robert Forster wrote a piece for Times Online about his new album, The Evangelist. He movingly details how his late partner in the Go-Betweens, Grant McLennan, influenced the creation of the album. Read the first two paragraphs below.
We had started on our 10th album. It had begun the same way as all the others. I went over to his place during the day and we’d play the songs each of us had written.
I’d find him in either of two locations: pottering around the kitchen or lying on his bed, reading. The first 10 minutes would always be a little tetchy. Although we’d known each other for almost 30 years and worked closely together for a good half of that time, he’d be a little gruff; it was as if, each time I saw him, he had to get to know me again. So, he’d make coffee and I’d sit in a chair in the kitchen and pepper him with questions in an attempt to bring him around to good humour. This is where having known him for such a long time helped, because I knew the buttons to push, the silly things to say, the cheeky remark about an album he liked, the films of a certain actor I’d know he’d trash, a bit of local rock-scene gossip. Anything really, and after 10 minutes, he’d be the person I’d always known.
Click here to read the entire piece.
Click here to go to the That Striped Sunlight Sound blog to download a Robert Forster in-store performance.
The fan-made video above is for the Evangelist song, “Pandanus.”
mp3: Grant McLennan – Black Mule :: from Watershed (1991)
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Songs in the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 format are offered for a limited time only. Songs that are no longer downloadable can be streamed at the Timedoor page at Hype Machine. Dead mp3 links take you to the top of page one.
Support your favorite artists by buying their music at your local independent record store (mine is Atomic Records) or eMusic. And read about ‘em at TrouserPress.com.
WTF? Clearasil and "Peaches" · Apr 28, 07:52 PM by Don
It seems Clearasil hired someone to write and perform a song that completely rips off “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches. The song, by Miss TK and the Revenge, is ironically titled, “No Biterz.” Or, Miss TK and co. just shamelessly emulated Peaches on their own and then Clearasil came calling. Either way: lame.
Click here to listen to “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches via Hype Machine.
Update: Someone representing Miss TK and the Revenge has left a comment on this post. I’ll reprint it here:
Comment: Uhhhh, I don’t think so…
Shamelessly imitating PEACHES? This band has been around for years, as long as Peaches too (as Miss TK and Zero Zero). Perhaps you should engage your brain and do some research before opening that trap of yours.
I did some research and it seems I’m not the only person who thought, “That sounds like Peaches,” after viewing the Clearasil commercial above.
“foxyriderx16x” writes, “Sounds like a mix between Peaches and CSS” here.
“Boomshoggalogga” writes, “this song reminds me of Peaches and that band with the ‘Music is hot sex’” here.
“girlg0newild” writes, “what is the name of this song? it sounds like its by Peaches.” here.
In the screencap below, one of the related videos is “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches.
Comment [2]
Monday Morning Video: "Standing in the Way of Control" by the Gossip · Apr 28, 06:14 AM by Don
About a week and a half ago, the Gossip promoted its new Live in Liverpool release by tearing through “Standing in the Way of Control” on Letterman. I saw the Gossip open for Sleater-Kinney at shows in Milwaukee and Detroit. At the time, I appreciated that the band existed (whatever that means), but didn’t really like the music. In other words, I wanted to like the band, but didn’t. “Hey, if Sleater-Kinney likes ‘em, maybe I should like ‘em,” I thought. But the more I thought about it, I didn’t like ‘em. Then I saw the band in 2006 at the Metro in Chicago. Erase Errata was the opener and my main draw. But I stuck around for the Gossip. Chaka and my wife were in attendance and we all agreed that the band kicked a fair amount of ass. This Letterman video reminded me of that show.
mp3: Gossip – Standing in the Way of Control :: Le Tigre remix (2007)
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Songs in the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 format are offered for a limited time only. Songs that are no longer downloadable can be streamed at the Timedoor page at Hype Machine. Dead mp3 links take you to the top of page one.
Support your favorite artists by buying their music at your local independent record store (mine is Atomic Records) or eMusic. And read about ‘em at TrouserPress.com.
Concert Review: Colin Meloy at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee · Apr 27, 04:29 PM by Don
Head Decemberist Colin Meloy paid a visit to Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater last Tuesday. Below is my set list and some thoughts.
1. (Title unknown to me. Lyrics includes the following words: 500 men, coal black steed, May Margaret, Willie, castle, stables, rushing rivers. If you know the title, leave a comment below.)
After the song, about a rushing river separating two lovers, Meloy joked about how the song was from a time when humans did not enjoy the convenience of bridges.
2. Shiny
3. The Perfect Crime No. 2
4. O Valencia!
Meloy added a psychedelic intro to “O Valencia!” with an $80 digital delay. He also joked about how going on tour was simply an excuse to go on a month-long hummus binge.
5. New Decemberists song: The Miner’s Funeral/A Coffin for David
This is one of two new songs played that Meloy said could end up on the next Decemberists record (to be recorded this summer). He did not say a title (I made up the title above), only that it as a two-part song.
6. Wonder
7. California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade
8. New Decemberists song: Valerie Plame
9. Cupid
Meloy performed this Sam Cooke cover with help from opener Laura Gibson. The song is featured on Meloy’s new EP of Sam Cooke covers, available only at your local merch table. After “Cupid,” Meloy offered this droll segue: “I’m going to move on to some songs about killing people.” He then played “Shankhill Butchers,” from the most recent Decemberists album, The Crane Wife.
10. Shankhill Butchers
11. The Apology Song
12. A Cautionary Song
Meloy began this song by again having fun with his digital delay. Perhaps the next Decemberists record will have a psychedelic bent to it?
Encore
13. Red Right Ankle
14. Southern Girls (Cheap Trick cover)
As I walked out, I overhead this exchange between a man about my age (perhaps a little older) and an older woman (his mother?).
Woman: So what do you call that?
Man: Indie rock.
Woman: That’s indie rock?
mp3: Colin Meloy – Shiny :: from NPR Live Concert Series (1/28/06)
You can stream the complete 2006 set at NPR.org.
Photo credits: top photo by “Uncle Jack,” bottom photo by me.
Update: Matteo Rathbun wrote in thinking that that first song I can’t name is a cover of Joanna Newsom’s “Bridges & Balloons.” I know for sure that it is not that song, but I do appreciate the stab at assistance.
Click here to listen to The Decemberists’s version of Joanna Newsom’s “Bridges & Balloons”.
Click here to listen to Newsom’s original.
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Songs in the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 format are offered for a limited time only. Songs that are no longer downloadable can be streamed at the Timedoor page at Hype Machine. Dead mp3 links take you to the top of page one.
Support your favorite artists by buying their music at your local independent record store (mine is Atomic Records) or eMusic. And read about ‘em at TrouserPress.com.
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