Wilco - 'Wilco (the album)'

This year, I fell for Wilco (the band). Hard. It started with 1996’s double disc Being There, a chance purchase that hooked me right away with opener “Misunderstood.” Ignoring the fact that it’s alt-country and not out-and-out rock ‘n’ roll, it spoke to me like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run minus the gang violence. I too was “short on long term goals” and “so misunderstood” and such. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot followed, and it was even better. Frontman Jeff Tweedy hit me with another strong opener, “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” and he did so seemingly effortlessly. Summerteeth finally confirmed it; I was a fan.

So I suppose there are pros and cons to hearing Wilco (the album) mere months after falling in love with the band’s best songs. Had I been around earlier, maybe I wouldn’t be as disappointed by its laidback quality. Some bands benefit from time numbing the sweet taste of their successes (God damn you, Cursive). Maybe I’m taking Wilco’s discography for granted. But at the same time, I feel that, with “Heavy Metal Drummer” and “Ashes of American Flags” and a bevy of Billy Bragg covers fresh in my mind, I might be the one to call the slightest of bullshits on the bevy of praise Wilco (the album) has garnered so far.

Wilco (the album) is an OK record. It’s not bad. It’s not brilliant. It is just OK, like a lot of the albums great bands tend to put out later in their careers. The record combines bits of humor and the macabre, but for the most part, it’s just a reliably solid alt-country disc.

“Wilco (the song”) opens with self-aware Wikipedia humor. “Are you under the impression / this isn’t your life?” asks Tweedy. “Do you dabble in depression / Is someone twisting a knife in your back?” he presses, as if he doesn’t know my answer. “Wilco / Wilco / Wilco will love you baby,” he reminds me over chiming bells and pounding drums. It’s no “Misunderstood,” but it’s still a welcome set of “aural arms open wide / A sonic shoulder for you to cry on.”

“Deeper Down” dials down the energy a little, with gentle steel guitar. Everything is easy/breezy until the record’s middle or so, when “Bull Black Nova” and “You and I” hit. Summerteeth’s “She’s a jar” casually dropped domestic abuse references, but “Nova” goes even darker, detailing a murderer’s paranoid perspective – “They’re coming up the shoulders / What have they found? / I wonder if they know / I’m in a bull black Chevy Nova / silhouetted by the setting sun.” Coming mere minutes after the goofs of “Wilco (the song),” it’s shockingly frank, with its list of all the places the victim’s blood can be found. Claustrophobic piano and guitar lines make it all the more foreboding. In contrast is “You and I,” a love song featuring guest vocalist Feist. The tune pledges fidelity and hope in spite of miscommunication and mistrust. A tender track, it retroactively makes “Bull Black Nova” all the more disturbing, as if it were its prequel.

After that tender number, though, the record drifts into a haze. All of a sudden, you’re at the twinkling outro of “Everlasting Everything” and the album is over. Images of Tom Petty and George Harrison float by (especially during “You Never Know,” which bites from “My Sweet Lord”). While Wilco’s records aren’t perfect, they’ve never so steadily slipped into such a relaxed, bland state. Which is perhaps why I feel so let down. Wilco (the album) is pleasant, but I’ve spent the first half of 2009 being completely blown away by Wilco (the backcatalog).

Playlist: 'Songs From the Black Hole'

[Playlist is usually an attempt to distill my favorite artists to 80-minute compilations. Today, I attempt to recreate Weezer's long-lost opus, Songs from the Black Hole.]

Fresh from the success of "Blue Album," Weezer wunderkind Rivers Cuomo had a whirlwind year - he enrolled in Harvard, had leg surgery, took a shit ton of drugs, and then somehow tried to write a sophomore album. A lot worked against him. Aside from the usual second album blues, there's the fact that he was hopped up on drugs, hence him writing songs like "Blast Off!" and "Come to My Pod." Then Matt Sharp, Weezer's bassist, went off on his own with The Rentals, allegedly take some songs with him for Return of The Rentals.

All of these factors eventually killed Cuomo's dreams for Weezer's second LP, Songs From the Black Hole. Well, that it's a rock opera about horny astronauts, which I imagine is really hard to write with a straight face. And while a lot of Weerez fans hold Songs From the Black Hole up as some lost gem, I think we all need to admit that a better Weezer album came out of the mix; Pinkerton. For a certain era of awkward kids with zits and worries and piles upon piles of angst, this was their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Catchy hooks, scatterbrained, lovelorn lyrics, and the slight feeling that the band might have a psychotic breakdown at any second make it one of the most beautiful, emotional records of all time.

Of course, being a Weezer fan means wanting more, and to that end, I've made myself a hypothetical playlist of how Songs From the Black Hole would have sounded. Obviously, some speculation and editing went into this idea. The record went through two proposed track listings, which I have combined. Other songs from that era that were never specifically linked to the album, like Weezer's "Why Bother?" and The Rentals' "Please Let That Be You," were included because A) They sound nice, B) They still fit thematically, even if they don't fit into the goobledygook story, and C) I kinda wanted to pad this thing out. I mean, it's still only 45 minutes long.

So here's my attempt at reconstructing Songs From the Black Hole. Feel free to post your own ideas.


Songs From the Black Hole
1. Rivers Cuomo - "Blast Off!", Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
2. Rivers Cuomo - "Who You Callin' Bitch?", Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
3. Rivers Cuomo - "Oh Jonas," Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
4. Rivers Cuomo - "Please Remember," Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
5. Weezer - "You Won't Get With Me Tonight," Buddyhead Presents: Gimme Skelter
6. The Rentals - "The Love I'm Searching For," Return of the Rentals
7. Weezers - "Come to My Pod," online only
8. Weezer - "This is Not For Me," online only
9. Weezer - "Tired of Sex," Pinkerton
10. Rivers Cuomo - "Superfriend," Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
11. Rivers Cuomo - "Dude We're Finally Landing," Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
12. Weezer - "Getchoo," Pinkerton
13. Weezer - "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams," "The Good Life" single
14. Weezer - "No Other One," Pinkerton
15. Weezer - "Why Bother," Pinkerton
16. Weezer - "Waiting on You," "The Good Life" single
17. Weezer - "Devotion," "El Scorcho" single
18. Rivers Cuomo - "Longtime Sunshine," Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
19. The Rentals - "Please Let That Be You," Return of The Rentals

I can't wait for Alone III to force me to redo this whole list. Or, ya know... an official Songs From the Black Hole release.

The Winter Sounds - 'Porcelain Empire'

[NOTE: This ran a year ago. Michelle and I are even more obnoxiously cute now.]
My girlfriend, Michelle, and I reached our one year anniversary recently, and to celebrate, we went to see the mighty Bloc Party at the Tower Theater about a week ago as of this writing. The Macabees and The Noisettes (whom Dan Brian simply loves) were good, but it was the Party that got the er… um, “party started.” Jangley guitars swirled all around us as frontman Kele Okereke enchanted us with his British accent. So charming!

What my love of Bloc Party has to do with Athens, GA indie rock band The Winter Sounds is this – the TWS debut, Porcelain Empire, wants to be Bloc Party some of the time, and, coincidentally, that’s when it’s at its strongest. Sometimes, it wants to have a more dialed-down cool like Interpol, and that’s kind of neat too. But deep down, the secret shame of Porcelain Empire is that it wants to be The Killers circa Hot Fuss. This explanation is a round-about way of saying that Porcelain Empire is continually trying to be anthemic, and that, more often than not, it’s bland, dull, radio-fodder.

The record hits it creative peek right away – the album cover depicts a fire-breathing swan, and that’s awesome. Track one, “Windy City Nights,” is slightly less awesome, but just by a hair. It’s got that great New Romantic vibe that the kids have been diggin’ on these days, and a killer hook to boot. While admittedly hokey, the heights Patrick Keenan and his bandmates soar to during the chorus are ridiculously uplifting. The song’s blend of guitar, drums, and keyboard is hypnotic. In short, “Windy City Nights” is a great song.

After such a strong opening, though, Porcelain Empire just kind of… phones it in. “Gone to Save Mankind” ups the spastic post-punk ante, “A Call to Arms” proves that the band can jam out a lil bit, and “Poor Sailors” shifts the band’s dramatic element slightly with some violin, but mostly the record is new wave-y indie rock by numbers. The group claims to be influenced by “early ’70s underground rock, punk, anti-folk, chamber pop, and early-00’s indie rock,” but it’s hard to discern anything outside of that last attribution. By the time the second half of the record comes around, the swelling of each chorus, plaintive twinkling of each keyboard part, and the ethereal swirl of each guitar line becomes so predictable that there’s barely any reason to listen to the album at all.

V/A - 'We Do What We Want'

It hurts when you realize you could’ve seen a beloved band before their end. The Ramones, Nirvana, The Smiths… I know I never could’ve caught them in their heyday. But Discount, Jets to Brazil, Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros, and Latterman were all within my reach. I even remember specifically choosing not to go to what would end up being Latterman’s last Philadelphia show. I am a fucking idiot.

Another band to add to my list of never saws is Shorebirds. The band’s two new-ish seven-inchs came in the mail two days after I read about the band’s break-up. I’ll leave the Something’s Wrong/Shorebirds split for another writer; right now I want to focus on We Do What We Want: Olympia Punk Comp Vol. 1. Packaged with a zine and sleeve made from a polka compilation (Note to self: Check out Frankie Yankovic’s “Pennsylvania Polka”), the comp has an intimate D.I.Y. feel before even putting needle to wax. It also boasts five top-notch Washington punk bands, three of whom have already broken up as of this last writing. As for the last two, I’m just assuming they’re still together since I can’t find anything saying otherwise online.

The accompanying zine claims “We’re smart. We’re beautiful. & We’re Loud,” which pretty much sums up the five bands. Son Skull opens the comp with “Down the Street.” Bottom-heavy, lo-fi, and short, “Down the Street” has a rough charm to it. Son Skulls is one of the two bands whom I suspect may still exist, so maybe one day I’ll experience this track in person. Contrary to what the record’s label says, Shorebirds follow Son Skull with “Bubz Song.”

Shorebirds is almost certainly the band you all want to hear about here. Good thing, too, since they don’t disappoint. “Bubz Song” has the same world weary “what the fuck am I doing with my life?” tone of Shorebirds’ eponymous debut, but somehow the band sounds more triumphant about it here. Could be the energy in the vocals. The slurred ending gives the song a “you heard this at a party” vibe, which helps. While it doesn’t surpass older Shorebirds material, “Bubz Song” definitely gives me my Matt Canino fix, or at least until that full-length drops. Small complaint, though: ex-Jawbreaker bassist Chris Bauermeister’s performance feels phoned in. If the low end was handled by someone I’d never heard of, I wouldn’t care. But because it’s the guy from Dear You, his lack of command feels slightly disappointing. Regardless, would’ve been nice to hear this one live.

Comin’ Up Roses, the other active band on this comp, closes out Side A with “Look Out Your Eyes.” It’s a little more atypical than Son Skulls or Shorebirds, but if you dig Hot Water Music and Leatherface, there’s no reason not to dig this track. Unless you’re one of those jerks who hates fun. Way to be, jerk.

Side B comes with a double dose o’ defunct, starting with Black Bear’s “We Fight This With Our Flesh.” This song depresses the heck out of me, but only because Black Bear broke up after the release party for this friggin’ compilation. Appealing to fans of HWM, Nakatomi Plaza, and Ugly Organ-era Cursive without ripping any of them off, “We Fight This With Our Flesh” is my favorite track on We Do What We Want. Boasting violin (viola?) over dirty power chords, this one is a powerful dirge. So if any former Black Bear members read this, do you have any other songs recorded? Being a capitalist born and bred, I will pay for them.

We Do What We Want closes out with “Penelope” by Hooky, another deceased, Canino-featured band. Matt only plays guitar here, though. Erica Freas and “Chainsaw” are the ones who deliver the vocals. “Penelope” is a Lawrence Arms-like quick shot, with vocal cords soaked in whiskey and ripping apart. Like with Black Bear, and the rest of We Do What We Want, I wish I had more to hear. Get on it, Rumbletowne!

Wire - 'Object 47'

Post-punk pioneers Wire returned this July with their 47th recording, the aptly titled Object 47. The new record marks a subdued downturn in the band’s style; somewhere along the line Wire morphed into frontman Colin Newman’s other band, the more ethereal Githead. 154 aside, Wire has always had an edge to it, nearing an industrial curb stomp on records like Send and Chairs Missing. While a handful of tracks come close to that dissonant style, like “Hand Currency” and album ender “All Fours,” the record steers towards more of a mix of bass-heavy groovers (“One of Us”) and burned out subtle jams (“Circumspect”).

Object 47 has a very ethereal quality to it. It gets its rocking out of the way early on with catchy opener “One of Us,” although “Hand Currency” and “All Fours” come close to that level of pep. For the most part, the record is breezy and easy on the ears, or at least as much as a Wire album can be. With nine songs totaling about 35 minutes, it’s a quick ride as well. The interplay between the needling guitars and Newman’s own otherworldy voice makes for a dreamy experience. And while the record bears a strong resemblance to Githead’s own output, Object 47 is, compared to Wire’s backcatalog, a 180 degree turn. It’s certainly more ambient than the recent Read and Burn 03 and Send records; perhaps it’s the result of Newman consolidating his songwriting style. But it feels so much more layered. It's an effortless listen, but the vibe is psychedelic enough to offer more. Either way, Object 47 is a decently entertaining record for the faithful, although those looking for a starting point would be better off checking out Wire’s first three records or Githead’s Art Pop.

The Weakerthans - 'Reunion Tour'

As the not-so-late, still-great Paul Tsikitas once wrote, season dictates music taste. With the onset of fall, I’ve shed my summertime pop punk plumage for mellower, more ethereal tunes. Jets to Brazil, My Bloody Valentine, Silversun Pickups, The Mountain Goats and The Dresden Dolls’ cover of “Such Great Heights” have been lulling me to sleep at the 2 a.m. mark in the last few weeks. Gaining fast, however, is The Weakerthans’ latest release, Reunion Tour. The title is more than just a little literal. Released four years after the band’s last album, Reconstruction Site, Reunion Tour is littered with nostalgic imagery of former lovers, heroes and homes. Oh, and a cat. There’s a cat. Her name is Virtute.

At the surface level, Reunion Tour sounds pretty much on par with everything frontman John K. Samson and his band of not-so-merry men have released. Musically, The Weakerthans still craft indie country rock. The lyrics are still hyper-literate, hyper-poetic, hyper-descriptive. Samson is still a master at creating whole worlds for his listeners in just a few minutes, and they always resonate with melancholy here.

But oh, how the subtle differences stand out. Where the music of something like Left & Leaving went from furious highs (“Aside,” “Exiles Among You”) to depressive lows (“Left & Leaving,” “Everything Must Go!”), Reunion Tour tends towards the middle. While tracks like “Relative Surplus Value” and “Tournament of Hearts” have a good bit of pep to them, they curb the shreddability of lead guitarist Stephen Carroll. Carroll’s solos are less fervent here, but they still serve the music perfectly.

What remains the same, however, is Samson’s fondness for somber details. Whether writing through a character or as himself, he finds the slightest intricacies of a scene to express the most dramatic of emotions. Lines like, “I wonder if the landlord has fixed the crack that I stared at instead of staring back at you,” bring the listener into Samson’s viewpoint easily. When he sings through characters like a patient (“Hymn of the Medical Oddity”), a business man (“Relative Surplus Value”) or Virtute the cat (“Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure,” the thrilling sequel to “Plea from a Cat Named Virtute”), they spring forth with deep back stories and hummable lines.

Verbose and melancholy, The Weakerthans have served up a satisfyingly mellow effort with Reunion Tour, even for them. Building on a new direction first hinted at on Reconstruction Site, the band has embraced its more atmospheric qualities to produce an album that is subdued, but gloriously so. It may not supplant Left & Leaving in some listeners’ hearts, but Reunion Tour should at least sit nearby. Perhaps it will reside in the superior vena cava, pumping its autumnal pseudo-sadness through fans’ bodies around 2 a.m.

William Tell - 'You Can Hold Me Down'

I hate it when bands implode. Case in point: Something Corporate. Arguably one of the strongest piano rock groups of the new millennium, the perpetually touring band finally took a hiatus in 2004, and a swell of con artists like The Rocket Summer and Mêlée have risen up in the band’s absence. Meanwhile, SoCo’s primary songwriting team of frontman/pianist Andrew McMahon and lead guitarist Josh Partington have focused their attentions on a side project, Jack’s Mannequin. With Something Corporate stalled, rhythm guitarist William Tell, whose songwriting skills were severely underutilized in SoCo, opted to pursue a solo career in 2004. On the plus side, the split has proven amicable, as demonstrated by Tell’s finally-released solo debut, You Can Hold Me Down. The album boasts strong performances from McMahon, SoCo drummer Brian Ireland and, of course, Tell himself.

At 10 tracks, You Can Hold Me Down walks the middle between the soft-spoken singer/songwriter style of Howie Day and the slick pop rock of Something Corporate. Light and tuneful, it makes for good summer music.

The album opens with the mid-tempo rocker “Jeannie.” Tell proves himself a VH1-ready singer on this track while Ireland, who performs percussion on the entire album, ably keeps time and bashes around a bit. “Jeannie” is an atypical rock song about a girl who finds love in all the wrong places, but it’s got a winning formula.

Potential single “Slipping Under (Sing Along to Your Favorite Song)” follows “Jeannie,” and while it veers into extra-rote territory, it’s still catchy. But it does mark the first half of the album’s shift towards a more Starbucks-y singer/songwriter style, one which is further propagated by track three, “Trouble.” You Can Hold Me Down’s weakest track, “Trouble” is painfully melodramatic, something that Tell later further exudes on lame numbers like “Like You, Only Sweeter” and “Maybe Tonight.” Amid all this melodrama, though, is track four, “Fairfax (You’re Still the Same).”

“Fairfax” is three-fifths of a SoCo song. It’s got Tell, Ireland and a special guest appearance from McMahon on piano. Oddly present beneath the three is the beatboxing of Ryan Tedder, which is annoyingly spread throughout the song. Regardless, “Fairfax” is a slightly funky, mostly fun Something Corporate tune for fans who miss Something Corporate.

The rest of You Can Hold Me Down’s middle sags a bit. Tell and SoCo can both deliver quality pop, but this stuff is too heavy on the fluff. Things start to get interesting again, though, with track seven, “Young at Heart,” but really take off on the following song, “Sounds.”

Originally released online to SoCo fans as “Radio Sound,” “Sounds” details Tell’s mixed feelings about leaving Something Corporate, among other things, and it is unquestionably the best song on all of You Can Hold Me Down. It rocks like a Jimmy Eat World single, with a closing chorus that is truly righteous, blending a cornucopia of voices into a wall of delicious sound. The album then gradually cools off with its last two tracks, “Just For You” and “You Can Hold Me Down.” But while they don’t quite top “Sounds,” they’re still mighty anthemic.

You Can Hold Me Down is a tight album, unfurling 10 tracks in 32 minutes. While at times too predictable, it does reveal Tell was an untapped talent during his Something Corporate days. Tracks like “Sounds” and “Jeannie” are ready-made summer anthems begging to be played at the beach.