smallmusic

APT PROGRESSION

smallmusic — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:47:46 +0000

Wire pursued the electronic suggestions of their name after releasing three of the finest albums the punk and post-punk periods could barely call their own. Coatings is a collection of the grown-up Wire period, tangled in snapping machine-based beats and stabbing keyboard noises, though the first few songs, culled from the 1987 pivot point The Ideal Copy, reprise a lot of the feeling the band showed on Chairs Missing (1978) and 154 (1979). The tracks move into the ’90s and date themselves technologically, but they all have something to show in the way of intelligence. That’s essentially what Wire has always been to those who’ve noticed: the separated, smarter group. And while I’ll always lean toward their first three albums, I love, love, love 1990′s “Who Has Nine?” sung by the darkly voiced Graham Lewis. It’s absolutely a technoidy night out all by oneself, but just as mysterious and stomach-y as “I Should Have Known Better,” the tone-setter for 154, released 11 years prior.

HURRICANE SEASON ENDS

smallmusic — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:02:55 +0000

The 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season, the light cough that it was, ended yesterday, so the Christmas elves can, at last, safely crawl from their candy cane pipes and–eh, intro kaput. But I did see streams of stock storm footage blowing through various news websites and pictured in my mind one of my favorite albums covers of all. But deeper than the skin of Clikatat Ikatowi’s 1998 farewell, River of Souls, is some of my favorite drumming also of ever. And boiling around the percussion Mario Rubalcaba throws about is some of my favorite landslide sounds of, again, ever. Somehow River of Souls is far from one of my favorite releases of any period, save for within the late 1990s, but its respective components go wild and truly suit the hurricane blast cover-photo. And I don’t know the story, but maybe that’s why Sweep the Leg Johnny, a year later, released the same darn thing.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

smallmusic — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:40:28 +0000

For all the attention Kurt Cobain must’ve regenerated for David Bowie when an unplugged Nirvana covered for a million viewers “The Man Who Sold the World,” Bowie ignored a golden rock’n'roll comeback shot in favor of eerie ambience and industrial lashes, and thank god. Can you imagine how corny and desperate a heavy rock cash-in album would seem in hindsight? And worse, if it failed? To me, 1995′s Outside, Bowie’s first album after Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged session (I had to consult the Internet for the fact-check), is one of his best moments (despite its commercial failure). Yes, the concept involved is strange and boy is the album long, but unlike so many aging rockers grappling for viability, Bowie feels completely believable in this moment. No ham to hear. It doesn’t hurt that Brian Eno is a collaborator, and the occasional Another Green World similarity is certainly welcome. But this is one of those rare explosions of self-indulgence that astounds, odd as it can be at times. If it weren’t for those odd, whispering moments, though, Outside wouldn’t be half as interesting.

BEST OF THE DECADE

smallmusic — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:56:36 +0000

The first decade of the century is nearly wrapped. Hadn’t you noticed? I almost didn’t. It took me seeing a ‘best albums of the decade’ list on another blog to pause and think–first about time, second about my choices. Seemed easy; got tough real quick. I’d think of a solid several albums I loved in the period, then I’d think of another band and, by association, a new avalanche of contenders would crash. But somewhere, among the multithousands of rock albums released in the past ten years, are the ten best. So, here’s my myopic and inconsequential attempt to name them (naturally the qualifying factor for inclusions is I have to have heard them). My methods? Not scientific in the least. Not sales-based; pop impact not considered. Let’s just say I invested a lot of thought before realizing I didn’t have to think that hard about it. There were ten albums I enjoyed immensely more than the rest.

10. Rocket From the Crypt Group Sounds (2001)
My favorite band of all time authored the decade’s tenth best, a collar-grabber to celebrate a 24-carat rebound. You see, their previous release, 1998′s RFTC, just didn’t have it. It sounded like an attempt to break through to a larger audience the band didn’t need, or a grand idea for a personality-retaining commercial swim that just kinda lacked. I dunno. Total speculation and not our topic. Group Sounds, the band’s first for the 21st century and first since RFTC‘s stumble, is a golden breakaway. They’re back with a well-funded indie label and lots of legroom for kicking around. Opener “Straight American Slave” broils the air, beginning with a perfect statement-of-intent riff and stomp, blaring though a sharp 11 songs before vaporizing us all with “Spitting,” one of their top moments, resigning to slow haunter “Ghost Shark.” A major refueling for the big sound of Rocket From the Crypt, the greatest band ever.

9. Dan Sartain Vs. the Serpientes (2003)
I first heard Dan Sartain on a Swami Records Sales Conference compilation, the man singing in lunatic style about his spring break trip to Panama City Beach, where the sting of a jellyfish threatened to ruin his fun. Strange. But oh did the song rock. So catchy; replayed it a hundred times as the hook in my mouth guided me to the nearest credible record store for more. Young man Sartain had patched together one of the most sinister and fun stories on heartache and paranoia I’d heard in I dunno how long. Scorpions, venemous snakes, icy women–and jellyfish–gang up in back alley ’50s rock songs so creatively sharpened with punk mentality. Stuff is good.

8. Robert Pollard Normal Happiness (2006)
When Guided By Voices folded, nucleus Robert Pollard went on a sprint. Guy released a yard’s worth of material under various names and memberships. But of all, Normal Happiness, put out under the name his momma gave him, was the best. Certainly better than the great From a Compound Eye, it’s also wide-open accessible, at least to pop rock fans. The album is a set of two- or three-minute sweets, top among them “Boxing About,” which I’ll place in his top five best songs of all list (re-read that sentence after thinking of the thousands of songs Pollard’s written). I usually tell people fake-annoyed by the rate of Pollard’s output that he’s on his game completely, and if they enjoy GBV’s treasures, they shouldn’t drift by without this one.

7. Challenger Give People What They Want in Lethal Doses (2004)
After challenging the conventions of punk rock and blah-di-blah in Milemarker (that’s not a knock), Dave Laney and Al Burian got back to those basics with the youthy Challenger and a full-length record of which I’ll never tire. Seriously, it’s just a good bunch of songs. Built on catchy chords and vocals slinging hither and thither from the core members, Challenger wrote to the point without any noodling or flowy artforms that sometimes weigh a little too much. Analyze it however you want–a challenge to the ‘thinkers’ who overindulge in superfluous songwriting by stripping down to straight on poppy punk rock, etc–this album just sounds like a few guys having fun playing the kind of music they want to play.

6. Sultans Shipwrecked (2004)
Whenever John Reis (Rocket From the Crypt) says he’s doing a “side project,” you can bet it’s going to, for part of its life, become a full, true band disgracing the attempts of most others trying their hands at whatever style that “side project” may be (another one of his “side projects” comes to mind–more on that later). With Sultans, Reis allowed his plain ol’ punk rock aspirations to roam, but they hit territory I can’t easily compare to anyone else in the genre. The band’s debut, Ghost Ship, was, sure, just a fun load of stuff separated from the masses by great lyrics. Shipwrecked we won’t call a ‘concept’ album, but it is a chronology of heartache and psychosis fresh from a bad breakup. Some of the best lyrics I’ve ever heard on the subject (“I changed everything you didn’t like about me / Bent over backwards just to make you happy / You criticized me and you opted to tease / But now I know that you’ll never be pleased / But I don’t care anymore what she thinks of me”–a coming-to-grips line for sure, but lyrics elsewhere in the album lead the listener to think that contentment will collapse to terrible emotions again and again and again). Shipwrecked overall is less gritty punk and more Paul Collins-esque powerpop with larger testes. For that sound, nothing better happened these ten years.

5. Bandway Night Rock (2002)
A two-man band so conscious of their material it’s just ridiculous. Comedy, yes it is–BUT WAIT: It’s not the trendy, limited, regurgitated garbage with which most funnyman songwriters fail. No, this is fine stuff, perfectly executed, robustly played and wholly original. Never have I ever read lyrics like these (“Well Bo plays guitar and sometimes sings along / While Brooks plays drums on tape and there he is on stage doin’ a dance and singin’ a song”–or–”Come on everybody, quit dicking around, we gotta nail it down hard to the floor / We got our dicks in our hands, we got a night rocking band / And tonight Big Daddy is working the door.”) There’s not a song to skip, each heavy with treasure. Night Rock is car mechanic, baccy-chewing sludge to inspire optimistic fist-pumping laughter of status legendary between my friends and I.

4. The Mitchells Slow Gears (2007)
There’s no doubt about what band had the pop intelligence enough to write simple songs that manage to sound light-years better than every other band trying. Nope, no doubt. It were The Mitchells, a band that technically has been around since the early 1990s and, the whole way, contently under the radar. I’d never heard of ‘em until maybe three years ago when good friend Gordon Anderson of the band Dr. Powerful (Google them on your iPhone) told me they shared a member with New Radiant Storm King, a band I’ve long loved. Caleb Wetmore is the member in question, a tall gentleman with a gentle-deep voice that manages uniquely the straight-ahead indie pop songs. And yeah, straight ahead, but it’s the way the band dresses each melody that adds the shine. “Modern Travel,” song two on Slow Gears, has pretty much topped my fave-recent-songs list for a while now. Overall: clean sheen; no dirty guitar sounds; adult-like atmosphere; smarts enough to be way more than just interesting. Super album.

3. Aina Bipartite (2001)
I sort of ‘happened’ upon Barcelona’s Aina at a show my old band played in my former boss’s home. First impression: a fine re-rendering of Jawbox’s sound. But–well, I wasn’t sure. How did they also sound like AC/DC? I mean, they didn’t at all, but–well, yes they did. Deep in the grass was that pulsing guitar stomp that just happened to fit the mid ’90s D.C. indie/post-hardcore sound. And yeah, I know the description thus far might provoke a cringe or two, and maybe I’m only writing to the folks who’ve heard their second album, Bipartite (engineered by Jawbox’s J. Robbins, I’ll note). Those folks know this album doesn’t stop growing. New treats and warm returns with every listen. Some of the finest metabolism-kicking melodies and dynamics of the decade. They built their songs from all the right sources, and you know they meant what they offered. It taps you right in the stomach.

2. The Satelliters Hashish (2004)
Generally, The Satelliters do good whatever it be. Their early days crackled with troglodyte production that best suited their young-Kinks- and Gonn-influenced garage rock. Shining up their sound over the years, they in 2004 released Hashish, an award-deserver bellowing out the finest ’60s-spirited rock outside Billy Childish. Still gets my nerves to jiggle every time, the album sweetened by cover songs like We the People’s “You Burn Me Up and Down.” Not just one of my faves of the decade, but of all time.

1. Hot Snakes Suicide Invoice (2002)
Yes way! Several of my friends consider this the least of Hot Snakes’ albums. I don’t get that at all. Yes, all three of their studio full-lengths are phenomenal towers, making them “the band of the decade” as my pal Gordie put it. Gordie’s also one of the only people I know who agrees Suicide Invoice is the band’s greatest. And that’s not just because it’s their most challenging, though it is. Deceptively challenging, actually. On first listen, it doesn’t sound like much to crack. You hear it, you like it or you’ll pass, it seemed. But every listen on my end, even to this day, gives. There’s always something new on the surface. Sometimes it’s production, other times the strange lyrics. The waxy guitar sound has its turns, too. It’s a grower I haven’t completely made sense of yet. So it’s got a damn good life ahead of it. Not bad for a band John Reis threw together as a “side project.”

And the honorable mentions: Faraquet The View From This Tower (which really should’ve been in the top ten), Jason Loewenstein At Sixes and Sevens; The Nein Wrath of Circuits, 90 Day Men (It (Is) It) Critical Band; Ikara Colt Chat and Business; Cinemechanica The Martial Arts; The Knockout Pills 1+1=Ate; everything else Hot Snakes did.

MYSTERY BEAT

smallmusic — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:05:03 +0000

The Mystery Meat’s 1968 Profiles LP is unremarkable by first impression, but the album via production is as breathy and eerie as Korla Pandit’s eyes. Korla might’ve teamed well with this Illinois group possessed with levitating streams of organ and savage drums thumping from the back of the room. It’s garage and maybe psych, but primitive and devoid of fuzz save for the rattles of production. It was recorded in the basement of Blackburn College with rented equipment and limited knowhow, which in many cases works like a charm. Sure did here, notably on the heavy, hit-able “Rung by Rung,” the clever-chorded “Here Comes the Night” and the whumpy title track, heavy on the spirit but calmed by vocals that sound like they’re creeping in from the 1930s. As ordinary as this album seems at first, it comes together unlike any I’ve ever heard.

TWO OF TWO

smallmusic — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:51:23 +0000

Given all the primo qualities between Aina’s two proper albums, I can’t choose a favorite. I might have one for the moment, but the concrete never dries. Each album is packed with enough excellency to give the listener (or me) the drive to revisit them recurrently without exhaustion. Aina was touring for 2001′s Bipartite when they first ran me down, and if you’ll scroll down one post to read my first impressions, you could guess, and guess correctly, that I bought the album straight off the merch table and subsequently went Indiana Jonesing for their debut (not sure how you’d guess all that, nevermind). For the search, Bipartite gave me a new favorite song: the album’s title track, a totally ardent Jawbox-influenced (with J. Robbins producing) (but so much better than Jawbox) number that thunders through its big finale. Yep, a new favorite song, something that doesn’t come often. It just stuck to me. Stuck. Until I finally got a copy of their debut album. From it, I earned a newer, better favorite. “Elastic Skin,” a song I’ve played to the moon and back and have yet to tire of, even by the tiniest measure. Few bands are two-for-two. Aina barely had to try.

ONE OF TWO

smallmusic — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:20:08 +0000

Over the life of my old band, Fire Parade, and out of every band with which we ever “shared the stage,” there were two–only two–that utterly vamped me. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy tens of others, because I certainly did. Heck, we played a good show with The Insomniacs, one of my favorite bands all. But they ain’t one of the two. For the big reveal, one was Cinemechania out of Athens, Ga., who became great friends and whose drummer was the Second Coming. The other: Aina, from Barcelona, Spain. At the start, I didn’t think of Aina as much different than an enjoyable translation of Jawbox, a notion dispeled after one song. As similar as they might sound to–whoever–I really couldn’t think of much to match them. Each song had its surprise, they rocked hard, eloquently, and squeezed each song through their fists. Somehow not surprisingly, their collective favorite band was AC/DC, which makes perfect sense if you know it, but doesn’t make a bit of difference if you don’t. Pay attention and you’ll hear some Phil Rudd stomping and Angus mud ruffling, but Aina essentially was, gosh, an anomaly. I think it’s because of their consistency, sweeping every song on their debut full-length, recorded in 1998 and released in America in 2001 on the Ann Arbor-based The First Time Records. The melodies are teeming and so is the instruments’ interplay. Based on conversations I’ve had with others who saw them play before breaking up, they really were the kind of bright, brief flash that seldom ever happens.

WILL RETURN SOON

smallmusic — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:53:14 +0000

Will return soon, but in the meantime, get distracted by Allmusic’s writeup of the new Emitt Rhodes collection.

And read my dumb hot sauce reviews.

CLEAN HANDS

smallmusic — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:12:03 +0000

And when they hit their most commercial-able notes, nothing happened. That’s a tough break, because had a band like Jimmy Eat World released this record, the putzy gloss critics would’ve romanced it up as some kind of landmark. But, as stated in the last post, the lack of such attention was probably for the better–from a fan’s standpoint, anyway. However, I’ll admit that while I couldn’t deny my admiration for the songs on Tuboat Annie’s The Space Around You, released in 2000, I was uneasy during my first listen. These are straight on pop rock songs their earlier fans would accept, but each riff’s radio compatability came pretty darn close to glamour, and as I listened that first time, I feared that, at some point in the program, the worst would happen. I don’t know what I mean by that. Maybe I was afraid of a cringe-worthy breakdown or a chorus of full frontal and undeniably bad radio rock lyricism. But neither came to pass. Tugboat Annie remained in control. Their song structures kept to the smart and responsible side of candy and the words atop them did right through the last repeating chorus at the album’s dizzy finale. Like their phenomenal, phenomenal 1997 album (scroll down one), it doesn’t have the great cheap-studio punch of their early material (scroll down two), but it’s good–very good–easily sweeping out the once-underground bands that made it to life-ruining radio. So it all worked out.

AN OPERATIVE TITLE

smallmusic — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:31:15 +0000

1997′s Wake Up and Disappear is the proof that Tugboat Annie had the absolute worst case of overlook, worse than any other heart-thirsty rock band of the period’s underground. Of course you have to hear it in today’s context for that to make any sense, but for fans of straightforward, poppy indie riffs with a little thought attached, hearing it is urged. The listener believes the first song will be the best of the album, a theory squershed like a tomato from track two, and on and on. I gotta say, though, it’s tough to stand taller than track four, “King of the Stax,” which was one hell of a spike in the single time I saw them live. If you’ll scroll down one review, I’ve written that their debut, Superfriends, is the album I always return to despite any of the band’s great doings in the years that followed, but we’re already high in space when talking about that album. If on the same notch or even one down, Wake Up and Disappear is–here it comes–criminally overlooked, punishable by a moosh to each and all to’ve had some share in the promotion of music between 1994-1999, enough of a span to have nudged this band upward. But of course, the sweet ending is that golden little secret all underground music fans love having through a few overlooked but highest-caliber bands. (Editor’s note: Tugboat Annie’s appearance on HBO’s Reverb did give them something, I will admit. But still…)