Vinyl Vednesday 4/6/2011

[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: Pretty Girls Make Graves’ All Medicated Geniuses seven-inch (2003) on black, Wilco’s Being There (1996) on black, and Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind (1972) on, again, black.

Place of Purchase: PGMG and Wilco came from Repo Records in Philadelphia. Music came from Smash Records in Washington, D.C.

Thoughts: I’ve been thinking about Pretty Girls Make Graves off and on lately. For a while, they were my favorite emo-turned-art-punk act. It didn’t matter if I was spinning their late period Discount rip Good Health or their dark, more post-punk-oriented follow-up New Romance. Either way, I was obsessed. All Medicated Geniuses was one of the first vinyls I picked up when I first got a record player. It’s probably most noticeable for a solid cover of Bow Wow Wow’s “C-30 C-60 C-90 Go!” but the originals are top-notch too. It’s a shame the Girls broke up, but I suppose it was inevitable after they started bleeding members and dropped the ho-hum swam song Elan Vital.

I bought Wilco’s Being There on a whim while I was waiting for my girlfriend to finish class. I’d been out of college for almost a year at that point and was doing nothing with degree. I had busted my ass to make honors and slogged through two journalism internships and came out with little in ways of fortunes. I felt like I had little value at the time; I think of 23 as my “lost year.” I tell you this because I heard “Misunderstood,” the opening track on Being There, while driving around Bucks County in this dejected mindset. The song is about being stuck in the same boring town with nothing better to do than grab a drink and forget. I put so much emotional investment into that one alt-country confessional that the lyrics became so much more. I get why people prefer Wilco’s later work, but Being There will always be my favorite album because of that one song. Heck, I don’t even think it needed to be a double album – that first record, with “Far, Far Away,” “Monday,” and “Forget the Flowers,” is all I need, although “The Lonely 1” comes close.

I feel like I’m being a bummer in this installment, so let’s talk about Stevie Wonder. I LOVE STEVIE WONDER. Prince led me to Wonder, and his ’70s run of records rivals Prince’s output in the ’80s. Shit, sometimes when I put on a Wonder record, I hear ideas that are still being ripped off to this day. The guy just oozed hits that perfectly mixed funk, blues, and soul. While some of his later work took on political intonations (Hotter Than July) and weighty concepts (Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants), Music of My Mind is a straight up party record through and through. Granted, there’s still some socio-political commentary at work, but I still can’t believe how effortlessly cool and alive these songs sound.

YEAH EVERYTHING IS GONNA BE OK.

The Raveonettes - 'Raven in the Grave'

Those who have really been paying attention will say that the Raveonettes have never truly made the same album twice. Sure, the Danish duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo have always dealt in quasi-gothic Jesus and Mary Chain-style noise-pop. But each album has been an experiment. Chain Gang of Love was written in the same key. Pretty in Black toyed with ’50s garage rock and ’60s girl groups. Lust Lust Lust was really, really loud. In and Out of Control was the group’s most overtly pop record.

Wagner and Foo have consistently dropped a new record every two years since 2003, and each time out they tweak their sound. Their latest, Raven in the Grave, is their most ethereal album yet. The band has always dabbled in shoegaze, but Raven really earns the tag, recalling My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and the Cure’s Disintegration at their most swirling and delicate.

Coming off of Lust and Control, then, Raven is another random switch-up, as it is neither as heavy nor as catchy as previous outings. Yet it’s still just as beguiling. At nine songs in 35 minutes, the record is a brief, hypnotic burst of ambient noise pop. It’s both exactly what Raveonettes fans want while still subverting expectations.

“Recharge & Revolt,” the longest song at five-and-a-half minutes, is both the opening track and the lead single. The Raveonettes strength lies in turning uncommercial ideas – in this case lengthy, droning songwriting – into gold. “Recharge” isn’t an obvious choice for a single (The vox don’t kick in until nearly the two-minute mark, a big radio no-no), yet it’s perfect. The drums plod on while Wagner strums and sings in his nasal, alien voice. A second guitar line and synths lay down a shoegaze dirge. It envelops the listener, segueing into “War in Heaven” effortlessly.

The songs cover the usual Raveonettes topics – death, sex, breaking up – but that’s not the point. Raven creates a headspace of dark ambience, but it’s also tightly constructed. Lust Lust Lust got a little overbearing; Raven’s songs aren’t too repetitious at all. It’s harder to single out songs here than on Control, but that’s because the record creates an overall mood of dreaminess. The Raveonettes have stayed faithful to a certain template for a decade now, but it’s one that’s flexible enough to encompass all the detours the group has gone on along the way.

Everything Falls Apart - 'Ghost'

Hailing from Buffalo, N.Y., hardcore act Everything Falls Apart sounds an awful lot like Crime in Stereo circa The Troubled Stateside. And I’m pretty OK with that. The group’s Ghost seven-inch only delivers two songs, but they’re both mighty fine and hopefully a promise of more to come.

“Ghost” graces the A side with passionate vocals, chiming, needling guitar and a propulsive drum beat. It’s a pretty straightforward song. “Brace Position” picks up the pace a little. At least on the surface it sounds like a happy song thanks to Derek Raybeck’s guitar lead, although by the end it starts to take on some Black Flag dissonance circa My War. It’s arguably the better of the two tunes, and the more experimental to boot.

Lyrically, though, both tunes get pretty bleak. “Ghost” is about falling out with a friend. The closing line sums it up best: “I’ll propose a toast / ‘Here’s to your ghost / May you never find your way home.’” “Brace Position” is even more a bummer. This one’s about a plane crash, by Berlin of all places. But hey, if you like dark songs with good backbeats, this one’s for you.

Monument - 'Goes Canoeing'

After a string of curious demos and EPs, Washington, D.C. act Monument finally delivers on all that promise with Goes Canoeing, a stellar set that recalls the spastic edge of Cap’n Jazz with a bit of CSTVT’s ambience. At a brisk 10 songs in 29 minutes, it’s yet another great release for 2011.

The record opens with the white noise of “Untitled” before segueing into “Roots Run Deep,” one of the more convulsive numbers. Shouted vox, heavy guitar and even a paroxysmal trumpet solo come together to make a nifty two minutes and 41 seconds of rocking. “Roots Run Deep” pretty much sets the M.O. for the record, and I’ll bet it makes a strong opening number live. “Glass House” mellow outs slightly for a sec before ratcheting the energy back up for a big chorus.

Monument finds a nice blend between the arty and the poppy throughout Canoeing, but especially so on “This is 113.” The tune dials down the tempo a little, slowing down to more of a mid-’90s emo/indie rock clip with a big ol’ “whoa” at its core. I’m not saying it sounds astonishingly like the Promise Ring or anything – that noodle of a guitar solo is too out there – but it sure does satisfy a similar craving.

From there, the second half just keeps turning out the hits. “Diamond Age” is another catchy ditty. “Breakfast” is another pendulum swing towards the subdued, powered by a simple bass line and some ambient guitar before quietly building itself up into a post-punk barn burner. Goes Canoeing might be a little tongue-in-cheek in its title (And what’s up with that guy giving a mountain a handjob on the back cover?), but the songs are a serious blend of post-rock atmosphere and post-hardcore fury. If this had come out 15 years ago, it would have been an emo classic.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - 'Belong'

While they should be applauded for developing beyond their fuzzy debut, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem to have experienced some growing pains on their second full-length, Belong. While early ’90s alternative seems to have done wonders for their sonic palette, clumsy lyrics ultimately undue the record.

Give the band credit for consistency, though. Belong is steadfast in its goth attitude – line after line talks about wanting to die, languishing in bed and not belonging anywhere. This isn’t too far off from The Head on the Door in terms of sound and sentiment, but the whole thing comes off as dull and underwhelming. Blame the lack of variation or the slower tempos, but what once seemed cute and twee on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart gets annoying on Belong.

Some of these lines are just obnoxious: “My Terrible Friend” might unload the biggest clunker of the bunch with “What did you take? ’Cause that’s what I’ll take / And I can’t take it without you.” I can only justify the opening lines to “Strange” (“When everyone was doing drugs / We were just doing love”) by assuming the band was high when they wrote them, but that can’t be right. There’s just a lack of eloquence, not to mention rhyme scheme diversity, at play here.

Still, the band at least gets the music right. It’s startling how closely Belong approximates the guitar tone of Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream at times, but then, Alan Moulder mixed both albums. The bulk of the record is still in an ’80s template, but the band seems less indebted to early My Bloody Valentine now.

The best and worst thing I could say about Belong is that any of its songs would fit in perfectly with the Pretty in Pink soundtrack. It’s steadfast in its juvenile depression, but it lacks the Cure’s manic depths or the Psychedelic Furs’ sleazy come-ons. It’s the kind of album you need to hear in your teens and need to sell in your twenties.

myPod: Ca-Ce

[myPod is an attempt to edit down my CD collection as I import my music on to my brand new 160 GB iPod.]

Caution!

It’s weird listening to Caution!, my high school band. The group represents a compromise of the different genres my friends and I were into, and it shows. Ultimately, I realize that we would probably be called an emo band in the mallcore sense of the term. There are breakdowns and angsty lyrics galore. We wrote a song called “Bleeding From the Inside Out” and it sounds like the last Linkin Park album. But while there are plenty of embarrassing moments, I’m still proud of us for self-releasing a seven-song EP. “Where You Are,” the first song we ever wrote together, holds up. “Clearview” has one of my favorite piano hooks off all time. “Falling On My Face” was a tossed-off punk tune, but we added an R&B-style spoken word bridge that still cracks me up. I hear a lot of mistakes when I play these songs, but I hear a lot of passion too.

Verdict: Keep. Besides, who would buy this from me?

John Cena

My love of John Cena left the confines of irony long ago. So it was only a matter of time before I picked up his rap album. It’s hilariously awful. The music is indistinct, the rhymes are simplistic, and most of the lyrics are contradictory (“Just Another Day
posits Cena as being both poor and rich at the same time) and silly (“Don’t Fuck With Us” explains that Cena is badass like a well-stocked deli, meaning he is prepared for any situation. In this metaphor, the cheese selection represents guns and/or sick rhymes). I can’t get through this album in one sitting, but when broken up, it’s up there with anything Hulk Hogan ever put out.

Verdict: Edit.



Cetus

Cetus is the catalyst into my newfound love of metal. While they are a cornerstone for the Lansdale hardcore scene, their technicality and rhythm set them apart. The band’s debut EP Archaic was promising, but the group hit on something fierce with their first full-length, These Things Take Time. Drummer Matt Buckley once told me that what he loves about Meshuggah is that as intricate as their songs get, there’s always a discernible downbeat to anchor everything together. That’s how I feel about Time and its follow-up, Centrifuge. For all the passion and anger and musical dexterity, there’s a groove that flows through the songs. I get sent a lot of technical hardcore albums for review, and most of them come off as masturbatory compared to Cetus, all math and no heart.

Verdict: Keep.

The Changes

Yacht-rock-tinged indie popsters. They put one pretty nifty album and then vanished. Just listened to it at work and, five years later, it’s still pretty great.

Verdict: Keep.

Channels

Channels were a short-lived project from husband/wife duo J. Robbins (ex-Government Issue/Jawbox/Burning Airlines) and Janet Morgan. Darren Zantek from Kerosene 454 played drums. Robbins solidified his songwriting style by Jawbox’s third album, so folks of that band or Burning Airlines will enjoy Channels’ slinking guitar dirges and pulsating drums. There are little differences, though. Channels were arguably Robbins’ most danceable project, thanks to Zantek’s beats. The songs dip into indie rock territory more than post-hardcore. And Channels’ full-length Waiting For the Next End of the World is easily Robbins’ most political album. My only real complaint is that Channels didn’t last long, but that’s because Robbins and Morgan’s son, Callum, was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy in 2007. The band fell by the wayside so the pair could be full-time parents.

Verdict: Keep.



Cheese on Bread

So, in high school I was good buds with a fellow named FITZ!. FITZ! had a sister. This sister of his was one-half of an anti-folk duo known as Cheese on Bread. He gave me his sister’s album. I enjoyed it, what with the humorous lyrics and pretty harmonies. I still bust it out on occasion when I need to hear a good tune about veganism vs. cheese. Favorite lyric from the record: “If I ever let you kiss me again / We’ll have to change your whole personality.”

Verdict: Keep.

Chemical Brothers

One day I realized I knew at least four Chemical Brothers songs, so I purchased a greatest hits package from the group. It’s missing “Salmon Song,” but I get “Galvanized” and “Let Forever Be,” which I used to watch obsessively on Tunez (serving the Burlington and Delaware Country areas!). Those two songs are so good for driving that they’re almost dangerous. I’m not the biggest fan of electronic music, but between Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk, I get my fix of repetitive beats.

Verdict: Keep.



The Chickpeas

A few of my friends circa high school were in a jam band called The Chickpeas. The ’peas put on insanely fun shows. They’d crack jokes in between songs and serve baked goods to the crowd. It was like a variety show. Their recorded output never matched their live show, but their first full-length Lickety Split has some catchy tracks, like “Rock Stars Are Dead” and “Back From the Dead Again.” Listen to it all these years later, though, a lot of faults crop up. The drums are a little buried in the mix. The lyrics are a little too nonsensical. I graduated high school in 2004. It’s time to move on.

Verdict: Sell.

The Chinkees

Some people look to Jesus or Buddha for inspiration. I look to Mike Park. Dude’s tongue-in-cheek ska band The Chinkees wrote socially/politically aware tunes that were very, very danceable. Some of them were just full band versions of Park’s solo stuff, but c’mon. I love the organ sound they got here. PICK. IT. UP.

Verdict: Keep.



Chisel

Hindsight is a weird thing. Chisel was a critically appreciated indie rock band in the ’90s, but when I listen to them, all I hear is a dry run for frontman Ted Leo’s run with The Pharmacists. The songs aren’t as big or as well-produced (In fact, some of Nothing New sounds like ass), but it’s still Leo.

Verdict: Keep.

The Church

As prolific as they are, I’ve only latched on to a handful of releases from the psychedelic alt-pop act The Church. My collection is mixed between vinyl and CD, and the only compact disc to stay in my collection is arguably their best work, Starfish. The one benefit of working inventory in the CD/DVD section of Barnes & Noble, back when they still had a listening section, was that I could check a variety of music easily. If an album cover caught me, I’d look into it. Starfish looks like a classic, with its faded black and white photos arranged in a square. The songs contained within confirmed my notion. The band’s biggest U.S. hit, “Under the Milky Way,” is here, as are shimmering shoulda-been hits like “Reptile” and “North, South, East, and West.” My favorite right now is the surprisingly rocking “Spark.”

Verdict: Keep.



NEXT TIME: C is for... comedians, corrosive punk bands, and core, hard-.

Versus: Bruce Springsteen March Madness Round 4

[Versus pits two of an artist’s classic albums against each other even if they’re stylistically different, because that “you can’t compare apples and oranges” bullshit is for people without balls, spines, or all those other things that separate us from the villainous jellyfish. This month, Versus is hosting a March Madness/Mortal Kombat tournament of Bruce Springsteen's 16 finest studio albums.]

Final Round: Nebraska v. The Rising

FIGHT!

At this point, the more obvious Springsteen favorites (Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born in the U.S.A.) have fallen by the wayside, leaving behind two albums that I think get overlooked in the Bruce canon. That doesn’t necessarily negate the point of Versus, which is the pursuit of rock ‘n’ roll truth or whatever, but I honestly didn’t think I would discuss any of Springsteen’s work post-1984 when I came up with this tournament.

I kind of always knew Nebraska would come up, though. It will probably never be as big as Born to Run, but its influence on indie music has been huge over the last 30 years. It began life as a demo collection of songs for the next E Street Band album. But practices yielded versions that lacked the demo’s haunting, sparse quality. Eventually, Bruce opted to just release the songs as they were, minus “Born in the U.S.A.” The resulting record took elements that had been present in Bruce’s work since at least Born to Run – the darker failings of America – and pushed them to the forefront.

The songs have various energies, but they’re all just different kinds of desperate. “Atlantic City” is the closest thing to a rocker, a strummed out ode to a failing romance. “Highway Patrolman,” “Johnny 99,” and “State Trooper” form a trilogy of bad dealings with the law. Familial strains come up as well, again on “Highway Patrolman,” as well as “Used Cars” and “My Father’s House.” The closest thing to uplift comes on the concluding track, “Reason to Believe.” Over a bluesy riff, Bruce is confronted with a litany of disturbing images and realizes that faith is meant to placate. It’s a stark conclusion to a stark record.

Nebraska gets by on minimalism and good lyrics. It also birthed a new genre, lo-fi. By utilizing lower fidelity, artists can create a haze for listeners to get lost in. Monster movies are more effective when the creature is hidden, a la Jaws or The Thing, and the same could be said of lo-fi. The tones implied are just as important as the ones heard. Springsteen has tried a few times to recreate Nebraska’s indie-folk, with mixed results, but it truly is a one-of-a-kind record in his discography.

The Rising is, in some ways, Nebraska’s opposite. It’s like 15 tracks’ worth of “Reason to Believe.” Released nine years ago (Holy shit) just after 9/11, the record is loaded with hope and rumination. While some of the songs date back to the late ’90s, The Rising took on an instant political context. Springsteen was one of America’s great rock heroes in the ’70s and ’80s, and here he was, back again to comfort us and prop the country back up.

Now that 9/11 is nearly a decade behind us (Holy shit 2x), I can listen to Rising without the political pull and just hear a solid collection of songs about getting better. Plenty of Bruce albums mix joy and desperation. Nebraska tipped towards the desperate; Rising is like the day after, the realization that the past is done and the future can still be glorious. It acknowledges hard times, but it’s still a midtempo party record, thanks to tunes like “Lonesome Day” and “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day.” Clarence “Big Man” Clemons provides fun sax solos while Bruce chimes in with goofy platitudes. One of the songs is straight up called “Let’s Be Friends.” This is a beers ‘n’ brats record.

The album deals with religious imagery at times, beautifully so on “Mary’s Place” and “My City of Ruins.” In fact, “Mary’s Place” might be one of the best Bruce songs of all time. I’d put it up against “Thunder Road” or “Rosalita” any day. That song just builds and builds to this epically huge chorus. It simmers on the bridge before exploding one final time. If you’ve seen it performed live, you know “Mary’s Place” drives the crowds crazy.

But what ultimately gives Nebraska the edge of Rising is consistency. Nebraska is fat-free. The Rising was Bruce’s comeback album, his first release of all new material since 1994’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, and while I can see the appeal in getting 72 minutes of new music, it just doesn’t need to be that long. Maybe if it had been trimmed to 10 tracks, like Nebraska, this would be a harder decision, but The Rising does not need to be 15 songs deep. No one needed the world music via Sting-ism of "Worlds Apart;" cutting that song along would save six minutes.

The clear winner in this round and this tournament is Nebraska, a subtle acoustic record that has lost none of its power. It’s the least representative of Bruce’s overall sound, but it’s the best.

[For Michael. I’m sorry Darkness got knocked out in the first round.]