You would have been 24 Sunday. In one of those weird cosmic twists that I can’t easily dismiss, your favorite band The Get Up Kids released their first full-length in seven years, There Are Rules, just two days later. I’m not sure where you would have stood on it, but I would have loved arguing the details with you. Deep down, I think you would have dumped on the album because it doesn’t sound like TGUK’s first two records. It’s less emo. But it’s still within your stylistic palette. You would have claimed it was disappointing, but you would know all the words anyway.
Personally, I like it. There Are Rules picks up where TGUK should have gone after On a Wire broke ties with emo for something more expansive and mature. Guilt Show, from 2004, was a creative misstep, opting to appease fans wishing for more of the sugary pop-punk of Something to Write Home About, but even that hinted at Rules with songs like “Is There a Way Out?”. “Lion and The Lamb,” from Rock Against Bush Volume 1, is also in line with these songs.
Rules marks the Kids’ transition into indie-dom. Four Minute Mile was steeped in Superchunk, making the band’s emo reign something of a detour. Here, the band turns up the bass and keys with help from Ed Rose and Bob Weston, resulting in something more dissonant and heavy. Certain hallmarks remain – Matt Pryor’s voice is always going to be at least a little nasal – but overall this record marks a new phase in the group’s career.
You would point out the lack of singles, though. It’s true, Rules is better as an album than as individual songs. Compared to their first three records, then, I suppose that’s underwhelming. But the album creates a mood and sustains it. Sure, I wish there were more sing-alongs, and I’m not sure how these new tunes will mix with the band’s catalogue live. But the record has menace and grit, two things not normally associated with the Kids.
Rules expands on the promise of Simple Science wonderfully. Let’s be honest: We both would have been glad to see The Get Up Kids return. And this is the first time in a while that I can listen to them without feeling guilty or angry. Mostly, though, I just wish you could give it a listen.
[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. With seminal ’90s emo act Braid reuniting, I figured I’d mention one more time which bands I want to see get back together. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]
Records: Discount’s Half Fiction (1997) on black, Jawbox’s For Your Own Special Sweetheart (1994) on black, and Jawbreaker’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (1994) on black.
Place of Purchase: Discount and Jawbreaker were spoils from hard-fought eBay battles. I picked up Jawbox’s Sweetheart re-release from Repo Records in Philadelphia.
Thoughts: Each of these reunions would be tricky for various reasons, but if Braid, Dismemberment Plan, Sunny Day Real Estate, and a slew of other bands can pull it off, so can the three bands I picked here. Discount’s big hurtle tour-wise would be frontwoman Allison Mosshart’s schedule – she’s already working full-time with The Dead Weather and The Kills. Artistically, she doesn’t really write in the emo vein anymore. Heck, if Discount’s final album, Crash Diagnostic, marked a move away from interpersonal relationships towards rock ‘n’ roll and surreal imagery. Still, Half Fiction is one of the best pop punk albums of all time. The title track is a perfect 106 seconds of longing and hope. Plenty of more rocking, catchy numbers follow. Yeah, it’s the kind of work that can only come from the young, but it’s still better than most.
Sure, Jawbox did technically get back together for that one-off, but I’d like to see something more. Frontman J. Robbins is a full-time dad now on account of his son Callum’s genetic motor neuron disease, so it would have to either be A) a brief East coast tour (It’s not that far from Maryland to Pennsylvania) or B) a new album. I think an album might be more realistic – Robbins could just do it from his own studio – and honestly, the guy never made a bad record, from Government Issue straight through to Channels. For evidence, check out Jawbox’s third album, For Your Own Special Sweetheart. I’m usually not that into remasters, but I wanted to get it on vinyl and the reissue was cheaper. Lo and behold, it really does sound better (Much like the Unfun remaster from around the same time). Go listen to “Savory.” It’s so droning and powerful and dissonant that it makes other bands’ entire careers irrelevant.
I… really, really like Jawbreaker. Got into them in high school because the lyrics appealed to my awkward, fragile ego. Stayed with them in college because the guitar/bass/drum interplay rules. I can’t single out a single person from Jawbreaker because they were one of the best power trios, along with Face to Face and The Police (Fuck Cream). 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is generally regarded as the band’s best album; it’s their catchiest at least. I’ve got a three-way tie for favorite song off the album: “Boxcar,” the top anti-punk punk song; “Ache,” which is super sad; and “Do You Still Hate Me,” which is super sad but also super rocking. At this point, I don’t know what’s keeping Jawbreaker from reuniting. Get it together, please.
Taking a few cues from ’90s indie and alt-country, Only Thieves’ new album Heartless Romantics takes the Springsteen sound that’s been popular with punk bands lately and tweaks it. Sure, they sound a bit like the Gaslight Anthem, but there’s Replacements, Slobberbone, Harvey Danger and Uncle Tupelo in there too. The result is a midrange rocker that can punk out when it wants (“All the Sad Young Men”) while still slipping in a piano ballad (“Heartless Romantic”).
Heartless Romantics, then, is essentially a tour through Only Thieves’ record collection. Turns out they’ve got good taste. The first few tracks should appeal to many a Lucero fan, what with all the rockin’ and/or rollin’ goin’ on. Only Thieves show pop leanings on songs like “Register,” though. Let’s put it this way: Many a spit-shined pop-punk band could have written this song, but it would have been overproduced and nasally and complete shit. OT actually give the song the grit it deserves, losing none of their rawness despite throwing in a boner-fried single.
“Pioneer Repair” predicts the record’s slower second half, culminating in the piano-laden bummer ballad “Heartless Romantic.” “Unsatisfied” picks up the pace in dance-punk fashion because, dang it, sometimes a dude just has to dance. It’s a random but welcome addition to the record. The closing tracks, “Bricks” and “What’s Wrong” are a little bit longer and spacier. They kind of kill off the energy “Bricks” builds up, but they’re definitely “album ender” material.
For all its ’90s intonations, Heartless Romantics has certain timeless qualities. The songs are catchy numbers about ladies (more or less). The guitars are loud. The drums are huge. The vocals sound lived in, but that doesn’t stop the band from jamming in plenty of whoas, ohs and ba-ba-bas. It is, in summation, a kick ass rock ‘n’ roll record.
[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. This week’s edition is dedicated to The Measure [SA], a pretty nifty punk band in the process of breaking up. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]
Records: The Measure [SA]’s seven-inch split with The Modern Machines (2007) on black, Songs About People… and Fruit N’ Shit (2008) on clear orange, and seven-inch split with The Ergs! (2009) on purple marble.
Place of Purchase: THE INTERNETS. I’m pretty sure all three came from No Idea Records.
Thoughts: While they only have two full-lengths to their credit, The Measure [SA] was constantly putting out material via seven-inches. This split with The Modern Machines is a good example of their style – “Portland” kicks off the release with pep and insight. The Measure was really good at covers too (They once joked that people always liked them more anyway). Here, they take on Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.” It’s sloppy, silly, and totally rocking. I love when they switch to cut time near the end of the last chorus. So good. While they’ve since released a seven-inch collection (with a second volume promised for this year), “It Ain’t Me Babe” has never been re-released, so this baby is a treasured find.
My favorite Measure release, though, is Songs About People. It’s perfect at eight songs, and while the band was shitting gold at this point, I love that they chose not to mess with such a solid tracklisting. Side One is pretty catchy, with rockers like “Drunk By Noon” and “Drama-Free Youth,” but I prefer the flipside. “singleseriesnumberzero” is the rare political tune from the band (It’s anti-Bush, natch). I feel bad for “Roof Beers” because it’s nice, but it gets in the way of “Hello Bastards,” probably one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s about growing up and trying to find a place in the punk community that raised you, and it’s catchy as all heck. “practice jam” is half the speed and just as emotionally resonant.
The Ergs! broke up in 2008, but much like Notorious B.I.G., they keep putting out releases. While That’s It… Bye contains their final recordings, they recorded four songs for a two-part split with The Measure prior to that. They cover each other’s songs, with the highlight being “Workage,” a Measure tune. The original appears on the second seventh-inch. While The Ergs! turn it into a big rock production, thereby juxtaposing the sad lyrics, Lauren Measure just lets the words hit full force. The chorus is “It’s the winter streets that kill me / And all the bars we hide in / ’Cause I know you won’t be there / And I get so much more done now.” This song reminds me of a lot of people.
[myPod is an attempt to edit down my CD collection as I import my music on to my brand new 160 GB iPod.]
Black Tambourine
Lo-fi twee/goth band that did Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s sound like 20 years before they formed. The songs are on the shoegazey end, but without My Bloody Valentine’s textures. Black Tambourine ends up as background music for me. I can’t drive to their complete discography, but it sounds positively amazing at 3:30 a.m.
Verdict: Keep.
Black Tusk
Another Savannah, Ga. sludge metal band. Black Tusk isn’t as good as Baroness, but man can they still kick ass. The group recently came into its own as a band. Taste the Sin, released last year, is my favorite metal record of 2010. Black Tusk is a fine, scrappy trio, and their songs are just so much more dedicated to kicking ass all the time. They don’t do ambience, which I love and respect. Here’s hoping they continue to grow and find a fanbase. It’s almost criminal how few people listen to them.
Verdict: Keep.
Blank & Jones featuring Robert Smith
Blank & Jones are a European techno duo… I think they’re German or some shit. Anyway, they remixed The Cure’s “A Forest” for the fuck of it, and Robert Smith decided to re-record his vocals and appear in a video for them. On the one hand, B&J do a good job with the song. On the other hand, it’s fucking “Forest.” That bassline is got-damn undeniable. Which might be why Smith so clearly doesn’t give a shit about the DJs on the bonus DVD. They try interviewing him and it’s… well, it’s awkwardly, deliciously goth. I bought this EP because I love The Cure, not because I love techno. The only reason I didn’t file it under “C” is because of the bonus tracks. And because then I’d have to listen to this after spinning Bloodflowers, and there is no way I am putting up with that.
Verdict: Keep… it’s an incredibad curio.
Blaqk Audio
Electronic side project from AFI’s Davey Havok and Jade Pudget. Fantastically over the top and sexual as only Davey can be. Some of the slower tracks lack punch, but overall Cex Cellsis an awesome dance floor raver. I can’t listen to this album too many times in a row, but it’s a great occasional erotic listen. And I mean, c’mon… who doesn’t love a good song about butt-fucking (“Between Breaths (an XX perspective)?”
Verdict: Keep.
Bleach/Bleachmobile/Bleach03
All-female hardcore/punk band from Japan. I picked up a promo of their thrashy Detonator record from my college radio station. It was so much more aggressive and brutal than anything else I was listening to at the time. I’ve kept up with Bleach since then, and while subsequent records have skewed more towards punk, and even dance-punk, they’re still a really fun band. Too bad they keep having to change their name outside of Japan due to copyright issues.
Verdict: Keep.
Blind Melon
Did you know Blind Melon had other songs besides “No Rain?” Yeah, that song is the bee’s knees, but their greatest hits package Tones of Home delivers plenty more jams. It’s very white guy faux-fun in places, but it’s interesting listening to the band’s evolution, as they started crafting Led Zeppelin-style stompers and sensitive Juliana Hatfield-ish singer/songwriter songs. AND they covered “Three is a Magic Number” for a Schoolhouse Rocks compilation that went on to serve as the theme song to Tunez on GTW Channel-48, serving the Burlington and Delaware areas. Man, I miss having a dependable UHF station…
Verdict: Keep.
Blink-182
In high school, your opinion on Blink-182 said a lot about what kind of punk you were. You couldn’t just be indifferent about them; you had to love or hate them. Either way, you had to know all of their lyrics, which wasn’t hard considering my teens synched up with the band’s heyday. Looking back, it seems silly of me to have ever hated them, although the music they were putting out at the time really was kind of terrible. Take Off Your Pants and Jacket used to strike me as a sellout album for tweens. Now it just sounds boring. But Dude Ranch holds up as a solid pop-punk record, and ones Mark Hoppus sings lead on rule – the triple hit combo of “Apple Shampoo,” “Emo,” and “Josie” is killer. Eventually the band started listening to the Cure a lot, so much so that they included Robert Smith on their self-titled (sorry… “untitled”) final record, and it’s all the better for it. The songs are a little bit moodier, a lot less dependent on dick ‘n’ fart jokes. Hoppus explored that sound further with the underrated +44.
Two final notes: Tom DeLonge is a wiener, and it’s stupid that his songs always ended up being the bigger singles (“What’s My Age Again?,” “First Date”). Second, I own a bluegrass tribute to Blink from a band called Honey Wagon, and it is hysterical. I will never sell that shit.
Verdict: Keep… with some editing. Don’t tell 16-year-old me.
Bloc Party
Bloc Party fired strong out of the gate, but quickly ran out of ideas. Which is a shame; Silent Alarm is one of the best albums of the previous decade. It’s a catchy post-punk rocker crammed with hooks, romance, and nervous energy. Then the members got it into their heads that they needed to change everything about the band. Follow-up A Weekend in the City is cynical, and ham-fistedly so. The lyrics clumsily take aim at youth culture while the music minimizes the influence of drummer Matt Tong, who’s actually the best performer in the group. Intimacy is the big, dumb, loud finale – the songs don’t hit me on an emotional level like “This Modern Love” or “Banquets,” but they’re catchy and rocking. The album even has a few cute/quiet numbers, like “Biko” and “Signs.” It’s not great, but it’s a decent swan song (I refuse to acknowledge final single “One More Chance,” a piano-laden throwback club song that’s just embarrassing). Frontman Kele Okereke recently dropped a solo album, but I’m not buying. Bloc Party was great for a while and I have some fond memories, but the dream is over.
Verdict: Keep most of it. Weekend in the City is too douchebaggy to hold on to, and I’ve opted to sell off some of my singles. I cherish B-sides like “Always New Depths,” but those remix singles can go.
Blondie
Blondie was a little bit more palatable than the other original ’70s punk bands, perhaps because they transitioned into a broader sound the quickest. Sure, Talking Heads incorporated funk and world music, but Blondie could play punk (“One Way or Another”), disco (“Heart of Glass”), new wave (“Dreaming”), reggae (“Tide is High”), and even rap (“Rapture”). Yet their singles are remarkably cohesive. For all her sex symbol status, frontwoman Debbie Harry had the pipes to back up her appeal.
Verdict: Keep.
The Blood Brothers
Improbably, The Blood Brothers spent a few years as a choice group for pretentious hipsters. They dabbled in electronic and surreal lyrics, so I can see why the indie set dug them. Me, I thought they were a good hardcore band with crappy words. But that’s part of the fun. On earlier efforts like This Adultery is Ripe and Burn, Piano Island, Burn, they combined blistering discordance with nonsense lines like “What scarecrows think / will turn your eyeballs pink” and “Like a chorus of boiling lobsters / Ya gotta rescue me!” In a way, they were kind of like a midpoint between At the Drive-In and Mars Volta. I like Piano Island’s aggression quite a bit, but Crimes, my introduction to the band, remains my favorite. The record filters in some interesting funk touches, to great success on “Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck.” The group petered out by their last album, Young Machetes, but there’s no shame in that.
Verdict: Keep.
Blur
Blur is the definitive Britpop band for me. It’s partially because they had the best run of albums. It’s also because, like most Britpop bands, they were obvious about honoring/ripping off their heroes, and Blur had a lot of heroes. They loved The Kinks (“Park Life”), Ride (“She’s So High,” “This is a Low”), The Beatles (“Tender”), and the United States of America (“Song 2”). Granted, I still prefer the first two Oasis albums, but Blur wrote some damn fine songs.
Verdict: Keep.
Bonde Do Rolê
Insane metal/funk/baile/rap hybrid band from Brazil. I can only handle small doses of this strange party music. It’s kind of grating, but also weird and fun and goofy. Their closest contemporary would be M.I.A. circa Arular, when she worked with trashy, low tech beats.
Verdict: Keep.
NEXT TIME: B is for... New Jersey bands, bands named after other bands, and Bouncing fucking Souls.
Outside of open hostilities, there’s something to be said for taking a hiatus instead of outright breaking up forever. Post-punk founders Wire have come in and out of existence over the course of 30 years, dropping a few classics and then taking breaks when needed. Their latest, Red Barked Tree, mixes shades of shoegaze, post-punk and industrial, and it’s surprisingly good coming from a band that’s been around so long. The sounds Wire is playing with now are contemporary – swirling, murky, fuzzy – but the band outpaces most of the upstarts out there.
Red Barked Tree is a lot of things. Sure, it sounds like Wire. “Please Take” nods to the mellower Object 47, while the beats that propel “Now Was” and “Two Minutes” should be familiar to fans of the band’s classic trilogy of ’70s albums. But it manages to be both one of the group’s quietest and loudest works in equal measures. Opener “Please Take” and “Clay” certainly have an ambient charm, but just a few tracks away is “Two Minutes,” a punishing 120 seconds of dissonance and bile.
And then there’s “Bad Worn Thing,” an infectious dance floor filler that builds and builds. It’s one of the best Wire songs of the last decade, if not the group’s entire run, and proves that for every experimental avenue Wire goes down, they still have a firm grasp of pop dynamics.
That said, there’s a caveat one needs to make. Wire is good at mood and noise. But their lyrics have always been surreal, which can at times also mean that their lyrics are terrible. “Bad Worn Thing” really is a great song, but it also opens with the line “Jam sandwich filled with Uzied peelers.” That’s just awkward.
But when Red Barked Tree is on, with guitars blaring, drums pounding and mood in full effect, Wire is revealed as a vital force. Punk isn’t minimalism. It’s catharsis and fire. Wire displayed those qualities in great amounts on Pink Flag, and Red Barked Tree proves that the band still has those qualities, albeit in a new form. Yeah, they still bash and crash, but they can bend the noise to something greater, something that comes with experience.
The fates conspired to keep me from arriving at the Barbary Sun., Jan. 16. But since Lemuria and Mikey Erg! (of Ergs! fame) were playing, my girlfriend and I braved the freezing temperatures and used some creative driving to get around the fact that the block of Frankford Ave. the venue sits in was closed. See, indie act Lemuria just dropped a mighty fine record by the name of Pebble. It makes me feel warm inside even though a lot of the songs are bitter. And Mikey Erg is on track to be revered as one of the greatest songwriters of all time ever and forever, like the Burt Bacharach of punk.
Ah, but the fates, they are cruel. They tried to demoralize me with the opening act, Byrds of Paradise. These Byrds dealt in lo-fi punk as only a Brooklyn band can. Their sound is fuzzy, murky and occasionally cool. But their lyrics about breaking up were boring and too on-the-nose. Frontman Jared Jones kept asking the sound guy to adjust the vox. Given that Byrds’ style depends on sounding like ass on purpose, that seemed silly. Also silly: When bassist Brenden Britz’s instrument stopped working, so he settled for stumbling around the stage with a dazed look. Byrds of Paradise had an off-night, but the kids seemed content with their sloppy brand o’ punk.
After an interminable wait, Mikey Erg took to the stage with a guitar and treated the crowd to solo renditions of Ergs! tunes. He ranted about Queen for a little bit before launching into “Introducing Morrissey,” one of the group’s best tracks. While some of the songs suffered from a lack of band dynamics, like “Books About Miles Davis” and “Anthem For a New Amanda,” it was still neat hearing Ergs! tunes one more time. Considering some of the songs were release posthumously, like “Amanda” and “Encyclopedia Self-Destructica,” it was a real treat.
I noticed something about the Ergs!, though. All those super fast, catchy songs about heartbreak are straight up depressing when slowed down with the lyrics forced to the front. Still, I got to hear “Running, Jumping, Standing Still” one more time. Erg also threw in a couple of new tunes, one from a split with Lemuria’s vocalist/drummer Alex Kerns on Asian Man Records and one from an upcoming Paper + Plastick release. Both were in the traditional pop-punk vein and should rock balls upon release.
The few new tunes Mikey Erg introduced fit in with his general sound. The same can not be said for Lemuria. The group made their name with catchy, cute songs about making out. Pebble is not any of those things – it’s slower and sadder. Wisely, the band chose not to play too many new songs, and the few tracks they busted out clashed greatly with the old material. “Hours,” from their split with Kind of Like Spitting, got the biggest reaction of the night, but then new tune “Gravity” sucked the energy right out of the room, for example.
Still, the new songs sounded great live, even if they do seem to come from a different band. The tracks off of Get Better sure succeeded, with opener “Pants” going over hugely. Lemuria is in a transitional period, but there’s no denying the energy between vocalist/guitarist Sheena Ozzella and Kerns. The duo, aided by a touring bassist, drew from the crowd and dished out amped up, poppy indie rock over and over for about a half-hour, with Ozzella headbanging quite aggressively. The audience in turn thanked them by dancing and, on one occasion, diving off of the Barbary’s tiny stage. Ozzella and Kerns were humble and funny the whole time; ask them about their “comfy punx” group sometime.
After a solid set, Lemuria bowed out to applause. I visited the merch table and then hit the cold head on.
Lemuria’s new album Pebble is strangely compelling. I can’t get comfortable with it, but as soon as I turn it off, half the album gets stuck in my head. The Buffalo indie rock group masquerading as a punk band certainly circumvented expectations on Get Better, but here they truly emerge as an altogether new band.
It shouldn’t be so surprising though. Lemuria stopped writing in the Superchunk-meets-Discount vein a couple of years ago, as Get Better marked their transition into softer indie fare. But Pebble straight up rewrites their sound. I like it a lot, but just about everything that drew me to Lemuria – Sheena Ozzella’s vocals and raw guitar, the overtly sexual lyrics that bordered on Prince levels, the pop-punk fringes – is gone. Well sort of.
Here’s what the band does differently this time out: Ozzella and drummer Alex Kerns share the mic more, so much so that Kerns takes over the album during the second half. The lyrics are less sexy and more bitter, although maybe it’s best that Lemuria avoids topping songs like “The Origamists” (Sample lyric: “Today we never put on our clothes / We tried to set a record / We came close”). Oddly enough, the instrument that stands out most is the bass, which is the one thing played by a session guy, Kyle Paton. Still, J. Robbins’ production provides a healthy, hearty heaping of low end.
The music oscillates between indie and slight post-punk. I’ve always enjoyed Lemuria’s lyrics because of the angles they take. New tune “Different Girls” is about staying faithful on the road, which is an old rock ‘n’ roll trope. But Kerns turns out a sarcastic series of lines that should confirm all of his lover’s fears before Ozzella reminds “It’s in your imagination of course.” It’s kind of douchey, kind of catchy. Other tunes switch up gender roles, like “Bloomer,” while others offer up great lines, like the put down “Gravity will destroy,” directed at a homewrecker, from “Gravity.”
Even without prior awareness of Lemuria’s songs, it takes a while to adapt to Pebble. It’s really catchy, but it makes you dig to find the hooks. A lot of people in the punk community have already written it off as boring, but these songs shine. Yeah, Lemuria is a different band, but they’re still a good one.
We're only two weeks into 2011 and I already have my first rock 'n' roll casualty: New Jersey's seven-inch enthusiasts The Measure [SA] are breaking up. They promise a few farewell shows sporadically throughout the year, including The Fest X in October, as well as a final seven-inch anthology, but other than that, the band is done.
I first heard of The Measure through O Pioneers!!!, a folk-punk act from Texas with line-up issues like whoa. OP!!! frontman Eric Solomon is the kind of dude who doesn't just push his band, he represents all of his friends' bands too, and he actually talked me into picking up Historical Fiction, The Measure's full-length debut. While I dabble in a lot of genres, pop-punk is my lifeblood, so I was enticed by the album's passion and hooks. Lauren Measure quickly became one of my favorite songwriters with tunes like "Union Pool," "Hello Bastards," and "Letters." I started snatching up the group's copious collection of seven-inches.
Songs About People... and Fruit 'N Shit was the EP that really made me fall in love with the band. It was just a perfect collection of songs that seemed to improbably get better with each track. After that, though, The Measure took a creative slide. They released a few more seven-inches, but their next full-length, Notes, just seemed really monotonous and dull. Less than a year later, the band called it quits.
A whole batch of New Jersey punk bands have come and gone. The Ergs! broke up. Static Radio NJ faded away. The Gaslight Anthem turned into a classic rock tribute band. Now The Measure joins them. Well, at least The Bouncing Souls are still together.
[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]
Records: The Byrds’ Greatest Hits (1967) on black, The Doobie Brothers’ Toulouse Street (1972) on black, and The Nation of Ulysses’ Plays Pretty For Baby (1992) on black.
Place of Purchase: Byrds twas inherited from my Uncle Mike. Doobies from my Aunt Jenny. Nation de Ulysses came from Hideaway Music in Chestnut Hill, which is weird if you’ve ever been there. They don’t really seem to care about records released after like 1980.
Thoughts: I got into vinyl because it was cheaper than CDs. These days, I spend way too much on the format via Jawbreaker singles and such, but for a time it was a nice money saver. Another penny pinching method: Scoring my elders’ record collections. My Uncle Mike gave me some top picks when I got my first record player. Most of it was power-pop a la Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, but he also threw in this curious collection from The Byrds. They straddled the lines between folk, country, and psychedelia. Also, I find it funny that four of the tracks on this best of were written by Bob Dylan. With some hindsight, I can see this gift as a precursor to my interest in alt-country acts like Wilco and Venice is Sinking, or, if you prefer, the beginning of my downfall into dad rock.
Here’s a tangential story for you: I heard “Jesus is Just Alright” for the first time on Freaks and Geeks, during the episode where Lindsay (Linda Cardellini) throws a kegger to impress the titular Freaks. Her old Christian friend Millie (Sarah Hagan) tries to set the drunks straight by playing “Jesus is Just Alright,” to no avail. It’s a funny/dorky moment in a show rife with them. Millie at least gets friendly stoner Nick (Jason Segel) to sing along, presumably because he knows the Doobie Brothers version of the song (Byrds? Maybe. The Art Reynolds Singers? Probably not. And the CD Talk version was still like a decade away). So when my aunt gave some of her vinyls prior to moving, I got a good chuckle out of this particular record. And “Listen to the Music” is totally uplifting.
Oh shit, better up the punx. The Nation of Ulysses are essentially the midpoint between Minor Threat and Refused. They played hardcore but they also read reactionary political literature. They wore suits and stole ideas from jazz (which Refused in turn stole from them). I bought Plays Pretty For Baby pretty much on a whim – there was a period during my college years where I bought anything with the Dischord logo attached – and it’s paid off handsomely. Opener “N-Sub Ulysses” has always been a favorite for me, although “A Comment on Ritual” and “Mockingbird, Yeah!” are pretty great too. Dig that line “My t-shirt shows everything.”
“N-Sub” is my mantra, though. I get so annoyed when people talk about music A) being better “back in the day” and B) being soulless, terrible tripe now. There will always be complainers – check out the average Lester Bangs article from the ’70s for proof that there was always bullshit being cut in studios. It’s up to us to sort through the crap to find the good stuff. Art is not a passive medium. It does not come to you. “N-Sub” taps into that philosophy, negating baby boomer nostalgia to live in the now. Sure, that song is now nearly 20 years old, but the point remains: There will always be a new “anti-parent culture sound.”
I’m calling it now: Philadelphia is the place to be for punk rockin’. Sure, we’ve had many a band from Dr. Dan Yemin, but with acts like the Menzingers, Stay Sharp and the Holy Mess delivering a golden shower of sexy hits, it’s clear that things are going well in the city of brotherly shove. Add to that list Restorations, an indie-tinged punk act that is either a spacier Lucero/Gaslight Anthem-type act or a punker Broken Social Scene. Either way, their new-ish 12-inch EP Strange Behavior is tops.
The first side of the EP is all business. “Title Track” and “Linear Notes” are throaty rockers. The flipside is where the band starts tweaking their formula. “The Reappearing American Hobo” is a little sadder, slower, and atmospheric, but it doesn’t kill the energy as the song recounts what sounds like a pretty awkward conversation between a guy and a gal about the merits of Jack Kerouac (Side note: Anyone else think On the Road reads like an anti-drug PSA?).
“Documents” closes out the vinyl in epic fashion. Oh sure, it’s still gritty in the vox department, but there’s an insistently spacey guitar line that works its way through the song as the band builds the song up. It’s pretty cool in a Castevet, er, CSTVT sort of way. I could see this being really awesome at the end of a live set. Strange Behavior is a tad slower than the punk mindset might be able to handle, but it hits that sweet spot of post-hardcore and post-rock. Restorations are the Snickers of music (Jokerz if you’re vegan).
Comprised of a bunch of punk lifers, Bitter Pills pick the best elements of underground music from the last 30 years and play only what they like. It pays off; their self-titled debut EP is a lo-fi fuzz monster with nods to ’70s NYC punk, ’80s Midwestern hardcore and ’90s indie rock. The result splits the difference between late period Hüsker Dü and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
Instrumental opener “Let Go to Me” lurches forward with menace and mood before going big with the catchy “Take Control.” That one’s the single - the verses are pretty catchy, and then the chorus just up and explodes. And they’ve got tambourine to let you know that things are about get fun up in here. “No Surprise” is a little slower, but it’s a nice comedown in between “Take Control” and “Null Pointer.” “Done Deal” and “Partisan” repeat the same tricks, but this point the formula is set. No need to mess with a good thing. The spoken word track “Kiro” curiously closes out the EP in Japanese. It’s like the band turned into the Pillows all of a sudden. It’s still a cool moment though.
Bitter Pills is hopefully a signifier of better things to come, but on its own it’s still a nifty document and a tour through the members’ favorite records. Has Slumberland heard this yet? They might want to look into it.
Yet there are glimmers of hope. Introductory track “We’ve Done It From Scratch” almost justifies Union Jack’s style, which it has dubbed “bad ska.” I’m not even going to touch that name. “The 13 Ways” comes stuffed with oi chants and enthusiasm. But taken as a whole, the repetitive upstrokes and paranoid lyrics get frustrating fast. Songs deal with capitalism and politics, but still often come off as sloganeering.
Still, Urban Freedom is enthusiastically played. It seems at times to be just a second or two away from greatness. But it’s still typical ska with typical street punk leanings. The scratching is novel at best. If this were a nu-metal band, I would write if off as conformity and question why a DJ was present. Here I have the opposite problem but the same conclusion: It’s unexpected by still just as useless. Union Jack means well, but that doesn’t necessarily make them good.
[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. This week’s installment celebrates the best of 2010. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]
Records: Bars of Gold’s Of Gold (2010) on clear orange, Crime in Stereo’s I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone (2010) on clear, and Smoke or Fire’s Prehistoric Knife Fight seven-inch (2010) on black.
Place of Purchase: Actually, only two of these were purchased – CiS and SoF came from Interpunk.com. Bars of Gold came from the band’s publicist.
Thoughts: Bear Trap PR has always been good to me. Case in point: I got a limited pressing of Bars of Gold’s semi-self-titled debut. Made up of former members of Bear vs. Shark, the group essentially updates that beloved group’s sound and adds plenty of Modest Mouse-y twists. This record was a joy to review, and a real scoop too. I get high off of breaking great new bands, and debuting Bars of Gold to the Org crowd was awesome.
I’m still a little shocked by the break-up of Crime in Stereo. They wrote some of the best post-hardcore tunes. While their shows got a little hit or miss near the end, they were a band I felt compelled to watch as often as possible, thanks to a passionate songwriting that walked between melody and dissonance. They get compared to Brand New a lot, but honest, CiS had the better discography. I’m still holding out hope – the guys did break up almost as many times as, say, Sunny Day Real Estate. But for now, I have to settle for spinning I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone and screaming along to “Type One” and “I Am Everything I Am Not.” Oh, and, uh, Drugwolf forever.
Smoke or Fire sort of, kind of, maybe broke up somewhere between 2007 and 2010. But they announced their return with an onslaught of new material. Joe McMahon dropped two releases March 16, 2010 – an acoustic split with The Lawrence Arms’ Brendan Kelly and this fine seven-inch. It’s a lot rawer than what eventual full-length The Speakeasy turned out to be, which I respect and enjoy. Mostly I’m just glad to have the boys back.
[myPod is an attempt to edit down my CD collection as I import my music on to my brand new 160 GB iPod.]
Big D and The Kids Table
Depending on what I’m listening to, my favorite ska band is either Less Than Jake or Big D and The Kids Table (No offense to The Specials or The English Beat. I loves you too). But D has shown the most variety in their work. Their early material up through How It Goes is stuffed with stellar ska/punk. Strictly Rude was more two-tone, while Fluent in Stroll was a new genre altogether, a blend of two-tone and swing. Their non-full-length material could be even more experimental, ranging from techno to international to spooky Halloween music. Sometimes it works (I listen to Salem Girls so much every fall). Sometimes it fails (Porch Life). My fandom took a severe hit when the band chewed me out over a negative review for their remix album, Strictly Mixed and Mashed, but I still love the music. Besides, it’s not like that time Tom Gabel freaked out on me via Twitter…
Verdict: Keep most of it. I’m not that keen on their split with Drexel from back in the day. It’s too indistinct for me. The band didn’t start coming into their own until Good Luck, an album that I love more and more with each passing year. And I like Fluent in Stroll just as much, so eat it, bitter Big D fans.
Bikini Kill
I didn’t even plan this, but today I drove around Norristown listening to Bikini Kill whilst wearing my “Fight For Women’s Rights!” baseball tee from a women’s rights benefit show at my college. HA HA HA. Anyhoozle, I got into Bikini Kill near the end of high school, and was blown away by how angry they sounded. Minor Threat taught me about straight edge, Bikini Kill taught me about equal rights betwixt genders, and between the two I formed some sense of morality. I get way more excited than anyone else when “Rebel Girl” comes up on Rock Band 2.
Verdict: Keep.
Mike Birbiglia
Mike Birbiglia and Patton Oswalt are locked in a deadly battle for my heart. I love Oswalt’s nerd rage, but Birbiglia takes about failure, something I’m quite familiar with, so well. The basic tenant of his comedy comes back to this quote: “I have a tendency to make awkward situations more awkward.” That’s my life, and my girlfriend and I get tons of laughs out of his bits. Here’s a clip:
Verdict: Keep.
The Bird and The Bee
I have a lot of memories attached to the first Bird and The Bee album. It came out around the time my girlfriend and I first started dating, and its electro-twee tunes soundtracked our budding romance. Of course, that album contains “Fucking Boyfriend,” one of those coyly crass tunes in the tradition of The Vaselines, so it’s fitting. Less awesome is follow-up Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future. At 14 tracks, it feels a little bloated, and none of the hooks are as big as “Again and Again” or “I’m a Broken Heart.” Inara George’s vocals are still quite pretty though.
Verdict: Keep the self-titled, sell Ray Guns.
Bjork
I forget how much I like Bjork. She’s rarely my first choice for music, but I’m so happy every time I put on one of her first four albums (or her remix disc Telegram). As weird as she gets, Bjork always challenges herself on each album and tries to come up with a new direction for her sound. Certain hallmarks remain – electronic atmosphere, that huge voice, lyrics crammed with emotion and fantasy – but overall, each disc is its own universe. Debut is her most traditional; it’s basically a dance record with heart. Post is where she starts experimenting, going from big band jazz to industrial. Its companion, Telegram, reevaluates the songs. It doesn’t so much remix the songs as offer new perspectives, and I view the two as one piece of work. Sometimes I prefer Post, sometimes I prefer Telegram. The orchestral version of “Hyperballad” kills me. It’s quiet during all the scene description of Bjork destroying beautiful things while her lover’s sleeping, for the sake of getting that nature out of her system so she can go back to being normal, and then explodes during the choruses. It’s perfect. Homogenic and Vespertine are less eclectic and more moody. One’s trip-hop and the other’s just straight up mellow, but for a while I listened to these records every night as I slept. In between the two, Bjork dropped Selmasongs, a mini-album soundtrack for her film Dancer in the Dark. It’s not as good as her proper studio records, but its got some cool tricks and continues some of the ideas she presented on Post.
Medula is when things started to slip. Largely a cappella, the record oscillates between full arrangements and vocal exercises, and it doesn’t quite flow that well as a result. At its best, it’s like an a cappella version of Debut (“Triumph of a Heart,” “Who Is It”). At its worst, well, it’s boring. Volta felt like an overview of her other sounds, and just doesn’t add up for me. It’s pretty repetitive. Ballad “The Dull Flame of Desire” sucks so, so much, while singles “Earth Intruders” and “Declare Independence” take great hooks and run them into the ground. Still, I’d consider myself a Bjork Dork all the same.
Verdict: Keep, although I’m going to edit Medulla a bit. And never speak of Volta again.
Black Flag
What a weird shift after all that Bjork! I got into Black Flag pretty late, sophomore year of college. By that point, my interest in primal punk had surpassed, or so I thought. A friend recommended Black Flag’s My War to me during a rough patch, and I connected with its aggression and honesty. At times, it’s an embarrassingly raw record, something my girlfriend reminds me of every time I put it on in the car. But that’s part of its charm. It’s an emotionally stunted, sometimes immature record, but that makes it all the more cathartic sometimes. Damaged is even better, knocking out a series of rapid fire, occasionally humorous hardcore anthems. My favorite, though, is The First Four Years, a seven-inch compilation. Black Flag went through a ton of lead singers before Henry Rollins, and Years makes a compelling case for Keith Morris, who went on to found Circle Jerks, as the best Flag frontman. Excursions into the band’s later albums proved unfruitful, but these three albums kick my ass all the time.
Verdict: Keep the first three, even if songs like “Damaged I” and “Machine” are a little ridiculous.
Lewis Black
In Tom Shales and James A. Miller’s book Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests, the authors write about how comedians love laughter and hate applause. Laughter means they think you’re funny, but while applause signifies agreement or respect, it also indicates that they don’t think you’re funny. For the last five years or so, Lewis Black has been stuck in the applause zone. He plays to massive sold out crowds, but his material has increasingly become watered down liberalism. The audiences aren’t hard to impress, and thus Black gives them sub par material. I used to love Black’s vitriol, but his stand-up has become increasingly marred by weak observations. It also hurts that his humor usually comes from commenting on current events. Hence, his Grammy-winning 2006 album The Carnegie Hall Performance hasn’t held up well. The crowd claps with little provocation, and plenty of jokes don’t even have punchlines. I’m more forgiving of the Luther Burbank Perfoming Arts Center Blues, an album that recycles older material but has A) good points and B) good jokes. It’s primarily an analysis of the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake incident from the Superbowl (You know the one), which would come off as dated if the humor didn’t so often overlap with the stupid shit we put up with from contemporary hot topics like Lady Gaga and gay rights. I used to love Black, but quite frankly these jokes aren’t funny anymore.
Verdict: Keep Blues for now, but Carnegie can go.
The Blackout Pact
Underrated post-hardcore band from Colorado. Hello Sailor was one of my favorite albums of 2005, and it still gets me super stoked for bearded, gruffly sung jams about zombies and drankin’. TBP only came through Philly once, to my knowledge, and that was as an opening act for Yellowcard. I passed, thinking they’d be back soon. Then they broke up. Fuck.
Verdict: Keep.
Black Sabbath
It took me a while to get into Black Sabbath. In fact it wasn’t until the end of college, which is weird considering they were one of the most important metal bands of all time. I probably should have been 12, not 22. My love slowly blossomed, starting with the group’s infamous second album Paranoid. I eventually started picking up more records – Master of Reality remains my favorite, partially for it being the best stoner metal record ever and partially because John Darnielle wrote a book about it. Volume 4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath both expand on the group’s sound to grander, greater effect. Sabotage skewed too much towards pop, so that’s where I cut myself off as far as the Ozzy years go.
Ronnie James Dio’s run with the group sounds like a totally different band, but he briefly turned Sabbath into a good fantasy power metal band for Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. This is one of those bands I love just as much for their shortcomings as for their successes. Every time Ozzy shouts “Ya gotta believe me!” for no particular reason or Dio makes another groan-inducing rhyme ( My favorite is “You were a fool / But that’s cool” from “Voodoo”), I get kind of stoked. Yeah, I’d rather just listen to Tony Iommi drop another sludgy riff, but the hoaky parts are just as endearing.
It should have been a comedic goldmine. Henry & Glenn Forever, by the artistic collective Igloo Tornado, takes two of hardcore’s most famous icons and pitches them as “special friends” living in an Odd Couple-style arrangement. Their neighbors are Hall and Oates, who for whatever reason are cast as Satanists. This book should satirize all of the homoeroticism/homophobia inherent in hardcore, not to mention the alpha male images of Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig, while occasionally sprinkling in the occasional Hall and Oates joke about “Private Eyes” or something.
Instead, Henry & Glenn plays out like a punk rock Will and Grace, with surface level gay jokes. This book is skimpy to begin with, but the writers still saw fit to use the same bit where Danzig asks Rollins if his butt looks big in his black pants like three times. Rather than tell a cohesive story, the book settles for single page gags – hell, mostly single panel – about two queer guys. The art fluctuates wildly, which would be fitting for a collection if some of it didn’t look like ass.
Henry & Glenn had such huge potential, and perhaps a sequel could tackle the idea more thoroughly. But as is, the book doesn’t hit hard enough. The gay jokes get old fast. I’m a big Black Flag fan and I love his spoken word, but even I can admit Rollins is ripe for mockery. Have you seen his movies? Yet the material rarely taps into his bravado or affinity for violently over-the-top imagery. Danzig proves easier for Igloo Tornado to handle, although the humor blurs into typical goth stuff. The quips about Danzig’s book collection are still solid though.
What the book amounts to is a cash-in on other people’s celebrity. The humor derives entirely from the reader first being aware of Black Flag, the Misfits, etc., and then laughing at the idea of two dudes making out. It’s a fleeting, juvenile joy. Yeah, that cover, featuring Rollins giving a tearful Danzig a massage, is funny. But inside the book lies little else.
