NEW MUSIC: WILCO “I Might”
Jeff Tweedy's got a capo and he's not afraid to play in F-sharp!
Wilco have just put up a stream for the first single for their first post-Nonesuch album The Whole Love (out in September. You never know what Jeff Tweedy and his badn of merry men are going to pull off, and this time it appears that Jeff’s been spinning the Nuggets box set and the Pebbles CD series lately. I can dig it. Folks that attended the band’s second annual Solid Smoke festival last week already took home 7″ singles that had this song on the A-side and a cover of Nick Lowe’s “I Love My Label” on the B-Side (an appropriate choice given that the band is operating their own label now); the general public will be able to buy the entire single in a couple of weeks – July 19th to be exact. Definitely looking forward to this!
REVIEW: BORIS “Attention Please” and “Heavy Rocks (2011)”
Attention Please and Heavy Rocks (2011)
(Sargent House)
Available on CD, LP, iTunes, AmazonMP3 and eMusic
Rating:
With some bands, you know what to expect before you even bust the shrinkwrap on your newly purchased LP or CD or click that download link. Boris is not one of those bands. When it was announced earlier this year that the veteran Japanese experimental rock trio was dropping both a rock album and a pop album simultaneously, I’m sure a lot of eyebrows were going up. Since we’re dealing with Boris, however, these descriptions of their new material are vague at best. The music, however, isn’t.
Attention Please, the so-called “pop” album, actually sees the trio bringing their experimental tendencies into the pop-rock format with often surprising results. Lead guitarist Wata is the sole lead vocalist on the entire album; while she doesn’t possess the range of many of her more visible countrywomen like Kumi Koda and Morning Musume’s Reina Tanaka and Ai Takahashi, her whispery, almost fairy-like singing does carry its own distinctive recognizable signature. Terming the album as “pop”, however, doesn’t mean that the album is loaded with radio-friendly tracks like the first single “Hope”. “See You Next Week”, for example, marries an industrial found-sound loop to Wata’s reverberated vocals and slowly arpeggiated guitar figures. I’ve noted several times in the past that most Western J-pop fans are usually fans of alternative, punk, and indie music. Attention Please may very well be the album those fans reach for when they can’t decide between listening to Sonic Youth or Morning Musume.
Heavy Rocks – borrowing a name from another album of theirs from ten years ago, and thus a methodology not dissimilar to Weezer’s self-titled, differently colored trilogy of albums – actually seems like the more accessible of the two albums. Here, the band concentrates on various forms of guitar-based riff rock – Anthrax-like riffing on “Czechoslovakia”, raucous hardcore punk on “Galaxians”, first single “Riot Sugar” sounding so much like the Cult that they invite their pal Ian Astbury over to chip in a few trademark vocal interjections. They let their experimental side rest, save for the ambient cut “Key” and the Merzbow-like noise explosion that interrupts “Missing Pieces”. Most of the vocals are handled by Takeshi, but a guest vocalist, Yoshito Kawakita, takes the mic over to kick some Puffy AmiYumi-like “do-do-do”’s over the grunge-influenced barre chords of “Window Shopping”.
Also curiously, both albums contain a track called “Aileron”, but both songs, like the albums they are on, are rather different. The Attention Please “Aileron” is a William Ackerman-esque acoustic guitar instrumental, while the Heavy Rocks track takes one of the other version’s guitar figures, transfers it to an electric, slows it down, and makes it a lengthy full band piece with lead vocal.
They’re two separate albums, with their own packaging and musical concepts, but together they make one complete whole – and you can’t go wrong with that.
Four and a half stars for each one, or five stars for both.
ETA: When this was first written, the album was reviewed from legally downloaded editions of the albums that contained no credits. We thus originally identified Wata as the vocalist on “Window Shopping”. Having received physical copies of the albums from Sargent House today, we have since corrected that error and apologize for any confusion.
NEW MUSIC: MARSHALL CRENSHAW “Maryanne (Live at First Avenue, 1987)”
Veteran singer/songwriter Marshall Crenshaw (best known for his hit “Someday Someway” and his portrayal of Buddy Holly in the Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba) is commemorating his 30th year in the music business (his first single “Something’s Gonna Happen” [live performance from a very recent NYC show with his current band here] was released by the venerable Bomp! label back in 1981) with a 30th anniversary tour (where he’ll be playing both classic cuts as well as songs from his current album Jaggedland) – and a free download of a newly discovered live recording of another classic M.C. tune, done at the landmark First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis in 1987. Marshall isn’t identifying exactly when this track was recorded or who comprised his backing band, but he’s offering a bonus download of another unreleased recording to the first ten fans who can answer both questions! (Details at his website.)
Happy Birthday To The True King and Heavyweight Champion of Rock and Roll!
James Newell Osterberg, Jr. – better known to all and sundry as Iggy Pop, the true king and heavyweight champion of rock and roll – celebrates his 64th trip around the sun today. I hope he lives another 64 years, and then 100 more years after that.
If you don’t know who Iggy is after his surprise American Idol appearance two weeks ago, well, downloading the A Million In Prizes compilation from iTunes or AmazonMP3 should help you on your way to discovering and appreciating this man’s wide body of work with the Stooges and as a solo artist.
REVIEW: MEAT PUPPETS “Lollipop”
MEAT PUPPETS
Lollipop
(Megaforce/Red Ink)
Available on CD, LP, iTunes and AmazonMP3
Rating: 
I welcomed the return of the Meat Puppets ever since Curt Kirkwood polled fans as to whether they wanted to see a reunion of the original lineup through his MySpace page. The first result of that question’s aftermath, 2007’s Rise To Your Knees, was the indie-rock equivalent of Star Trek: The Motion Picture: It was great to see/hear from some old friends again, even if the end results didn’t fully live up to the anticipation built up from years worth of passing time even before a return to action became reality.
With that seemingly odd comparison having been made, it’s not a stretch to suggest that the follow-up, 2009’s Sewn Together (which made TGML’s Top 10 Album list that year) is the Meat Puppets’s Wrath of Khan. Fully recharged after the test run that was Rise To Your Knees, Curt and Cris Kirkwood and then-drummer Ted Marcus had delivered in Sewn Together a long-playing effort that was (and is) fully worthy of standing up with the best albums (II, Up On The Sun, Mirage, Huevos, Too High To Die) of their classic back catalog.
Now, two years later, comes Lollipop; While they’ve had a major personnel change – Shandom Sahm, son of the late Sir Douglas Quintet/Texas Tornados leader Doug Sahm and also a former Meat Puppet back in the short-lived Golden Lies period, replaces Marcus behind the trap set – they not only haven’t lost a step, they’ve progressed nicely without losing an ounce of what makes the Meat Puppets who they quintessentially are, be it Curt Kirkwood’s lead lines or his and Cris’s brotherly harmonies. Much of the material could have fit nicely on Up On The Sun or Mirage, but there are also a few welcome twists and turns, like the reggae/ska rhythms that propel the verses “Shave It”, or the almost Coldplay-esque piano chords that open “Orange” only to get near-obliterated by “My Sharona” drums and some nasty fuzz bass from Cris Kirkwood. All of it works.
So, if we’re going to fool around with Meat Puppets/Star Trek comparisons, does that make Lollipop their Search for Spock? Well, put it this way: Search was a must-see flick back in the day. Lollipop is a must-hear album. Enough said.
(Hot tip: Advance order customers who ordered Lollipop from the band’s website – your humble reviewer included – initially received a high-quality digital download of the album with the songs in their original, pre-manufacture sequence [but accidentally labeled with the final sequence’s song titles] – an error long since corrected and rectified by the band’s management. To emulate the original sequence, program your CD player or iPod playlist in the following order: 2, 3, 11, 10, 9, 5, 6, 7, 8, 4, 1, 12.)
Stream: Meat Puppets “Damn Thing”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This Week’s Sign That The Political Landscape Is Starting To Resemble Berlin, 1930…
Pitchfork is reporting that the members of punk supergroup OFF!, led by Black Flag/Circle Jerks vocal legend Keith Morris, are facing theft charges in Arizona for allegedly stealing used vegetable oil.
That is not a made-up story, sadly enough.
Details are a bit scarce, but the band had a good reason for having the oil in the first place: Their tour van runs on biodiesel fuel. It makes me wonder if Willie Nelson and Neil Young, both of whom have used biodiesel tour buses for years, are liable to face similar charges if they ever need to refuel in Arizona – Wonderful, tolerant Arizona, where they love anti-immigrant rhetoric and gun-toting-Democrat-shooting lunatics… A couple of redneck cops there probably saw the band getting the oil from the restaurant (who was probably very anxious to get rid of it), added the looks of the band members (including the dreadlocked, 55-year-old Morris) and figured they had a bust on their hands.
The band is set for a hearing on April 6th, in the middle of their current US tour. Here’s hoping the case gets thrown out of court.
ALBUM REVIEW: NEW YORK DOLLS “Dancing Backwards In High Heels”
NEW YORK DOLLS
Dancing Backwards in High Heels
(429/Savoy Label Group)
Available on CD, iTunes, and AmazonMP3
Rating: 
After listening to the advance single from this album, “Fool For Your Baby”, I had a severe amount of trepidation as the release date for the New York Dolls’ third studio album approached. “Fool For You Baby” and its Phil Spector-gone-lo-fi production really underwhelmed me, and in my track review I openly stated that I hoped that this song was the exception rather than the rule as far as the full album was concerned.
Two of the major tenants of the Dolls’ operating manual – the strong songwriting and the mining of 50’s and 60’s rock and pop influences – are still abound on Dancing Backwards in High Heels. That’s the good news. David Johansen is in the best voice he’s ever been in his entire career. That’s more good news. For the first time on a studio album since Too Much Too Soon the group throws in a Dollsified cover of an oldie, this time taking on “I Sold My Heart to the Junk Man” (an early Patti LaBelle hit), while DavidJo and Syl Sylvain reclaim “Funky But Chic” from David’s first solo album and insert it into the Dolls canon that it belonged into in the first place.
Knocking down the star rating on this album is the production. The electric guitars on the album take a pretty much permanent back seat to the rest of the instruments, including the same cheesy organ sound that dominates “Fool For Your Baby”, and the drum sound is quite wimpy, almost cardboard-box like. These are two developments that simply run counter to the usual Dolls esthetic. Blame for this should be placed squarely on new producer and bassist Jason Hill, rather on the absence of Steve Conte and Sami Yaffa who had been filling the voids left behind by Johnny Thunders and Arthur Killer Kane quite nicely.
While Dancing Backwards is a decent effort from the band, it’s not definitive Dolls and is basically a fans-only album, if that. It definitely wouldn’t be the album I would recommend to be a first New York Dolls purchase. Unfortunately, this album is what David, Syl, and company will be touring behind this summer when they open (what?) for Motley Crue and Poison (what the fuck?), which means this well-intentioned misstep will probably be the first – and last – purchase for Dolls newcomers unless someone in their immediate vicinity steers them to their earlier albums first.
NEW MUSIC: MEAT PUPPETS “Damn Thing”
If this advance single is any indication, the Meat Puppets’ third post-reunion album Lollipop (out April 12th – the day after my fifth blogging anniversary) is going to be a good one. The Kirkwood Brothers and returning drummer Shandon Sahm (who played on Golden Lies, the only MP studio album without bass brother Cris) still sound like the years between their initial split and their reunion never happened. Stream the tune below, then snag it from the app (courtesy of Rolling Stone) above!
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
REVIEW: MIKE WATT “hyphenated-man”
MIKE WATT
“hyphenated-man”
(Clenchedwrench)
Available on CD, LP with download code, iTunes, and AmazonMP3.com
Rating:
From his second solo album Contemplating the Engine Room onward, Watt’s solo album output to date has been centered around concept albums that he affectionately calls “punk operas”. …Engine Room’s 1997 release saw Watt mix parallel storylines about the Minutemen, his father (a career Navy man), and the novel/movie The Sand Pebbles with musical influences as varied as Creedence and Coltrane. The long-in-the-planning followup, 2004’s The Secondmen’s Middle Stand, had Watt going in a different direction musically without straying from his punk roots, performing in an aggressive organ trio to deliver a story that combined the chronology of a near-fatal illness with that of Dante’s Divine Comedy. It took me a little while to get fully into Engine Room upon its release, admittedly, but with Middle Stand this listener was able to plunge in from day one.
Hyphenated-man – which has already been out in Japan since October of last year – is also a concept album/”punk opera”, only without a fixed storyline. Instead, the album is a suite of thirty short songs, each inspired by a character in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. None of the songs are longer than two minutes – most average a minute and a half, actually – and the lyrics are somewhat abstract, slipping in bits of Japanese language here and there. What may be surprising to some listeners is that the whole thing comes off rather accessible. The idea of short songs harks back to the Minutemen, of course – Watt’s self-re-immersion into his first major band’s back catalog was spurred by his participation in the documentary We Jam Econo – but, even though Watt composed all thirty songs on one of his late Minutemen bandmate and best friend D. Boon’s Fender Telecasters, none of the songs are retro recreations of almost thirty years ago. This particular effort was helped during the basic track recording of the album by Watt not recording his vocals and bass parts until much later on – guitarist Tom Watson and drummer Raul Morales recorded their parts, mostly in tandem with few guitar overdubs, without knowing what Watt’s parts even sounded like, by design. (Coincidentally, a few of the guitar parts on the songs – “Belly-Stabbed-Man” is one example in particular – actually come off in the same style as those on the first two fIREHOSE albums.)
One of the most pleasant surprises on Hyphenated-man is Watt’s vocal work, which seems to be at its most comfortable and is definitely at its most varied here: singing sweetly on some tracks, hollering like someone less than half his age on others, reciting in a whisper here, doing multi-tracked harmonies there – whatever each song and each lyric calls for. As it should be.
Is Hyphenated-man the best thing Watt has done in his solo career yet? That’s hard to say, but only because Watt has not really done the same thing twice in the past decade and a half since fIREHOSE split, and he’s not about to start repeating himself, ever. And now that he’s got his own label deal going down, the wait between Watt projects will not be as ridiculous as it was since 1997. Hyphenated-man, is, however, a highly-recommended listen – and the tip of the iceberg as far as Watt’s future musical output is concerned.
Preview: “Hollowed-Out Man”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Goodnight, Meg. Goodnight, Jack.
One of the great American bands has called it a collective career. In an out-of-the-blue announcement on their website (and mirrored on Third Man Records’ site), Jack and Meg White announced the official end of the White Stripes as a recording and performing unit.
In the statement attributed to the former bandmates/spouses, they state:
“The reason is not due to artistic differences or lack of wanting to continue, nor any health issues as both Meg and Jack are feeling fine and in good health.
It is for a myriad of reasons, but mostly to preserve What is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.”
Thankfully, there is still a whole slew of unreleased live and studio recordings from the White Stripes in the vaults, and the band has promised to release them though Third Man Records’ Vault Subscription series – not to mention the fact that Jack White still has plenty to keep him busy with Third Man, The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, and whatever else is on his considerable, always filling plate.
[Not that no one who loved this band wouldn't turn down a reunion, though... ;)]
