Articles

Grammys 2004: What a Fool Believes

24 Comments

Andre 3000's left and right nipplesIt was nice of CBS to hire the sound crew from Santa Monica High School’s winter production of “L’il Abner” for its live broadcast of the 46th annual Grammy Awards. It was music’s biggest night – or whatever – but pops, clicks, buzzes and feedback plagued both performer and presenter alike, causing even the coldest hearted French-Canadian dragon lady a few moments of very real frustrated bluster. The vocational school audio enthusiasts out in the sound truck unwittingly helped bust up the veneer that usually separates us from things like the fancy shmancy Staples Center Grammys.

The event was live – or at least live after a five-minute signal reroute meant to give CBS’ newly-installed naked boob-lancing SDI war machines time to power up and scorch the sky, the better to prevent the tainting of innocent cherubs. But this live-ish broadcast was fraught with clunky pacing issues and awkward teenage camera cue blues, making us wonder just how far forty years of televised music and media have really brought the medium.

This year’s Grammys became an unraveling ball of elaborate performance setpieces, distended award receptions, and unfinished strings of confused reaction shots and glittering, empty platforms – shards of a shattering mirrorball of an industry that no longer has the upper hand of cushioned celebrity detachment with which to burnish its often marginal product. Thanks, SMHS sound geeks. Your ineptitude demystified the illusion once and for all, unmasked Mr. Johnson. He might’ve gotten away with it, were it not for you pesky kids.

Continue reading Grammys 2004: What a Fool Believes →

Articles

Happy Birthday! Three is a Magic Number!

15 Comments

Rock and roll can change your life.It’s hard to believe that we’ve been doing this for three years. The big news this year is that we’re having a real birthday party. It’s very important that everyone comes to this or else we may never get to have another one! The other reason it’s important is that we are donating all of our profits from the event to the Elliott Smith Foundation, which helps abused children. So bring everyone you know. It’s a good cause.

The details:

• Friday, February 20, 2004 • 9pm.

• Beat Kitchen • 2100 W. Belmont, Chicago • Map

• Three great bands: The Millions, Riviera, and Quasar Wut-Wut

• Readings between the sets • lots of giveaways…

• $8 • 21+

So come on out. It’ll be a great time.

Continue reading Happy Birthday! Three is a Magic Number! →

Articles

Phantom Planet – Plantom Planet

12 Comments

Phantom Planet – Phantom Planet (Epic)

Don’t you just want to hate Phantom Planet? I mean, come on, the singer is a Gap model, for Christ’s sake! Their last album, The Guest, was a big fat disappointment, with the band insecurely trying to figure out whether they were the next big teen pop combo or a real fucking rock and roll band. While the songs on The Guest seemed like they might have been all right, the production reeked of radio-friendly, major-label polish. Except for that big hit, “California.” Now that was a jam! Good old Max Fischer beating the shit out of those drums like he was auditioning for the part of Keith Moon in an upcoming biopic. That was great! I bet they were good live.

Well, somewhere in between that album and this one, Max Fischer quit the band and started calling himself Jason Schwartzman. But who knows what his real name is because he’s just another Coppola like Nic Cage and the guy from Rooney. American showbiz dynasty there, yo. You’d think you’d miss his drumming on the new album since that was really the best part of The Guest. But the new drummer hits the drums even harder!

In the top social circles, people who know about these things are whispering that all the songs on Phantom Planet are secretly about how much the singer, Alex Greenwald, resents Schwartzman for quitting the group and allegedly stealing a bunch of the band’s cocaine while the rest of the band was sleeping. Just look at the titles: “The Happy Ending,” “Badd Business,” “Big Brat,” “Making a Killing,” “You’re Not Welcome Here,” “Knowitall.” That’s a lot of bitterness for a bunch of Hollywood pretty boys!

Especially when they made an album that sounds this good. The guitars are bigger and crunchier than ever. The drums are mixed up really loud and they sound monstrous. The vocal levels are where they should be for a band like this, unlike on The Guest where they were up way too loud and everything was too damn clean. This one has some feeling, some presence, some warmth.

Bottom line: if you think the Strokes are the perfect band but you wish that Julian would have some balls and ditch some of the distortion from his vocals (really dude, does it have to be on every song?), you’ll like this album.

Articles

The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows

5 Comments

The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows – (Record Collection)

The Walkmen are taking no prisoners. Family, friends, and loved ones aren’t safe from the waves of guitar and vicious vocals that resonate throughout Bows and Arrows. The band is following up 2002’s Everyone that Pretended to Like Me is Gone with an album showing they are ready to do battle, but didn’t bring enough artillery to win the war.

“What’s In It For Me” is a return to the shimmering guitar that marked the debut and lead singer Hamilton Leithauser’s gravelly voice complains, “You never come over anymore,” before giving way to an avalanche of guitar. The song is little more than an extended intro that plods just a bit too long. They would have been wise to either cut it in half or do without it all together—if for no other reason than to get to the blitzkrieg that is “The Rat.” This is a song that can only be described as being behind the wheel of a car going downhill with no breaks. You stand no chance of surviving. The guitar work is relentless, and the drum strikes each time you think you might get a chance to catch your breath. It’s not until Leithauser sings, “When I used to go out I knew everyone I saw. Now I go out alone if I go out at all,” that you feel just how close to putting his fist through a wall he is.

“No Christmas While I’m Talking” completely halts the momentum and is a retread of the opening track. Certainly it’s hard to follow a song as brilliant as “The Rat,” but there are really no excuses for placing such a slow tempo song next. It’s not until “My Old Man” that the momentum has built again, and the band has their weapons drawn once more. Playing like the soundtrack to a family argument, the guitar and drum bring to mind the members of the family storming off to their rooms and slamming the doors: “I refuse to talk this out. ‘Cause I don’t need this now.”

“Thinking of a Dream I Had” delivers a driving drum that fails to quit even as the guitar takes brief breaks from another high-speed chord. The song balances an aggressive guitar with a sweet organ. “Bows and Arrows” is a mid tempo song that perfectly captures the feel of the album with the lyric, “Your head is bent out of shape, but your feet are on the ground,” capturing that uneasy feeling of coming out of a relationship positive you are a better person, but not entirely sure of how to go about picking up the pieces. And throughout that shimmering guitar is kicked up one more level denying you the ability to hang your head.

Bows and Arrows has moments of undeniable brilliance with songs that take you to the edge, but talk you out of jumping at the final moment. It’s just unfortunate that the Walkmen allow your heartbeat to slow on such a consistent basis.

Articles

Meditations on Janet Jackson’s Right Breast

22 Comments

I'm-a have you nekkid by the end of this song...To be sure, the fact that Justin Timberlake removed a portion of Janet Jackson’s Genghis Khan-like costume during the MTV-orchestrated Super Bowl half time show is well known. Presumably, this has more to do with the fact that Janet’s career is about as over as M.C. Hammer’s: they can both do a great job of bustin’ a move, but who the hell has been thinking about buying discs from either of those two? Since Janet posed a few years ago for a Rolling Stone cover with her breasts covered by a man’s hands, it is evident that she’s not in the least bit shy about showing her well-rounded skin. What’s somewhat interesting about the whole thing is that unless someone was watching the CBS telecast with a high-definition plasma screen about the size of something found in a multiplex, the exposure was something that would be best measured by physicists at Argonne National Lab, as it had the half life of one of those new transuranic elements that have just been found.

Continue reading Meditations on Janet Jackson’s Right Breast →

Articles

Califone – Heron King Blues

Leave a comment

Califone – Heron King Blues (Thrilljockey)

Heron King Blues is the most chaotic of Califone’s studio releases, and though they share the same cavern in Rutili’s memory, this album maps something entirely new for the band and for rock music. It has been likened to the band’s two live releases Deceleration I and Deceleration II: soundtracks composed and performed live with a feature film, or improvised alongside film loops. These live recordings prove how daring the band is, but they are not for the weak of heart—and certainly not for the weak of heart who, on a whim, decides to play the CD (especially Deceleration II) while driving alone at 3AM—or for listeners unwilling to be a little scared.

While some of the album is a result of in-studio experimentation, improvisation, and jigsaw-like puzzle-piecing, the songs on Heron King Blues are complete—not just half the presentation. Rutili’s lyrics provide the wholeness that the Deceleration releases leave for the imagination. His voice and images easily substitute for what’s lost when listening to the movie soundtracks without a projector in the back, flaring.

In “Lion and Bee,” Rutili sings in quiet, enigmatic intricacy: “Beggars breathe / all one lung / all one engine choir / looking lost / and left undone by the riverbed / sending off winter.” The song ends with Wil Hendricks’ fading organ. “Two Sisters Drunk on Each Other” is vastly different. It begins with a drumbeat like Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” that sends the speaker reeling, a funky piece of the nightmare.

Only Califone’s previous listeners will admit they’ve heard anything like this before, but these same fans will no doubt admit that Heron King Blues is altogether new and unheard-of. New listeners are in for the greater surprise, but should beware: it’s the kind that leaps from behind a corner squawking like the a heron and laughing as the victim collapses to the floor, curled in the fetal position.

Rock and roll can change your life.