I had really hoped that the Jameson would stack up. After all, it has made such a great appearance in many a Car Bomb. And I do love the Irish. However, the J just left me cold. It's an uninteresting Whiskey compared to the others. Sure, it had all the notes and flavors it's supposed to but they don't gel the way the Kentucky or Tennessee Whiskeys do. It's good to have around, especially if your listening to Flogging Molly and doing up some shots with Bailey's. That's about it, though. I wouldn't go out of my way to seek it out.
Well, now, that's the stuff. Jason at Bluegrass recommended this as well and when we went shopping at Ralphs I was surprised to see it on the shelf. I was going to grab a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label but as soon as I saw the WR I decided that was what was needed. After dinner, with Dora playing incessantly in the background, I poured myself 2 fingers of The Wood (as I call it) and relaxed into the mellow molasses notes. This was smoother than the Johnny Drum by far, but richer and much more satisfying. Light years ahead of the Jameson, this is the smell of sawdust and cowboys. After striking oil in the heart of the west, this would be how I'd unwind.
When it turned out that I was a Type 2 diabetic, diagnosed 4 days away from a certain coma, it took a while but a pall finally settled around me. Gone were just about every vice I had. I couldn't smoke, obviously. Cigars lead too easily back to cigarettes. I've never been one for drugs. Just being near people who are smoking pot can give me a contact high which results in 3 days of paranoia followed by a 2 day come down of anger. Coke is crazy bad on the arteries. Coffee is great, but not at 8 O'Clock at night. And the list goes on. Even my favorite tavern delicacy, Irish Car Bombs, are replete with carbohydrates between the Guinness and the Bailey's Irish Cream. The Diabetes took away that final, best vice: sugar. I love chocolate. I adore pie. I love to bake. And most of all, I love to eat. Sweets. Yummy, delicious sweets. So, with nothing left I decided, with my wife's full support, to take up drinking. There are no carbs in the hard liquors, vodka, gin and best of all, Whiskey. Vodka tastes like rubbing alcohol and Gin all tastes of tree sap. (and wine is boring, seriously) But there is an art to Whiskey. The blending, the aging, the tradition, the regions. So, what I will be doing here with this new column is reviewing every new Whiskey I toss down my gullet, to the best of my uneducated ability. Starting with last night. While waiting for our Indian food to be ready at Yeti Restaurant in Glen Ellen (Fantastic, by the way) I decided to hang out at the Bluegrass Bar in the same Jack London Shopping Square. As I sidled (a word I imagine I will be using a lot) up to the bar I asked Jason, the 20 something bartender if they had any Scotch. I've sort of become obsessed with Johnnie Walker ever since I saw "The Man Who Walked Around The World"
and was given a snort of Johnnie Walker Blue a few weeks back. "I've recently taken up drinking, as weird as that might sound." I said. "Not weird at all. But we don't really have much of a Scotch selection. However, our Bourbons are great." So, I asked him what he would recommend as he is a Bourbon drinker. A few seconds of prodding me about my palette's desires and we came up with a choice: Johnny Drum.
"It's about ten bucks a throw, though." He cautioned. But, if I'm going to start a new hobby, I certainly am not going to scrimp. This is going to be a fun adventure, I don't want to deprive myself, besides, I won't be doing this every day (I hope).
I chose "neat" because I feared that I might take too much time nursing the glass and the ice would melt and change the entire experience into a child's version of the beverage. I'm so glad I did. The first taste was familiar, but as the liquid danced on my tongue, the spices began their assault. Not too harsh, enough to know that they were there. For some reason on the next go I decided to swirl it around in my mouth keeping my lips together with a tight seal. This time, just the deep molasses flavor and the sweet textures made their presence known with barely a hint of the heat and spice. Jason told me this was normal and it only added to the enjoyment for me of this new hobby. I did, it turned out, take about 20 minutes to finish the drink. But not for reasons I used to drink so slowly. I wanted to savor this. It was well worth the time and every penny.
At 4 in the morning I woke up with the distinct spinning of drunkenness. During the evening I also had a little australian rum, banged my head on the low ceiling and handily took on a 6 player team (against just me) in a TV Trivia showdown. But at the wee hours I started dreaming about the drink and what to call this blog entry. For a minute it was Whiskey Rebellion. But that didn't cut it. Whiskeytown is too alt-country and I really hate Wilco and their ilk-o. So, I went for a more rock and roll name. It didn't hurt that my band played there once in 2003.
So, here we go. Watch. I'll probably get cirrhosis.
I'm on a Springsteen jag, lately. (Hmm...seems like twice a year I go through this.) After hearing the full album concerts he and the band have been doing to end their concert series (www.ickmusic.com has a bunch of them) I decided I needed some energetic, live Bruce. This is a great live concert. One I truly enjoy. It's street poet Bruce. Before he became "voice of the working man" Bruce.
Raditude, perhaps one of the worst titled album, with the most obnoxious cover, I've ever seen, opens with perhaps the most exciting, lacerating and deliberately radio friendly song Cuomo and the boys have ever foisted onto its fans and non-fans alike. Co-written by power/pop genius producer Butch Walker, If You're Wondering if I Want You To (I want You To) could also be the saddest and, in a strange way, most honest Rivers has been in a while. It chronicles a relationship from the beginning to complacency. It's terrific and, through it, the album holds a LOT of promise. Taking a page from previous Listening Post stars Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, Weezer has turned to outside writers for the first time, the aforementioned Walker, Jermaine Dupri, Li'l Wayne and others. And, in Rolling Stone, Cuomo alleged that he enjoyed the collaborative process so much that he sought out the outsiders. I doubt that. I think the songs needed a bit of sprucing up because a cute video and a hootenanny tour couldn't elevate Red to even Make Believe sales. (Red was also a pretty crappy record). Whatever the reasons be they honest or duplicitous, creative or mercenary, a bit of energy has been injected into the Weezer repertoire for the first time in a while. “I'm Your Daddy”'s pop sheen and soaring chorus had my toe tapping all the way and the Gary Glitter-stadium ready beat of “The Girl Got Hot” elevates a song that was already pretty great to begin with. Who hasn't know a girl from high school who blossomed and, well “got hot”? The single, “Can't Stop Partying”, featuring Li'l Wayne, rounds out the 1-2-3-4 salvo of this album (named by Rainn Wilson...god, please someone stop Rainn Wilson from doing more than Twittering.) While it's easy to listen to, Cuomo has said that he couldn't relate to the track until he added some changes to more solemn minor chords to the musical bed, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a weak excuse for a single. I have to admit, the music does add an ominous overtone to the song and brings an ironic tone to the entire affair. Tracks like “Put me Back Together”, “Tripping Down the Freeway”, are no better or worse than some of the pop offerings from Green Album. They may not have the resonance of the lesser songs on Pinkerton or the highs of, say, “Perfect Situation” but they're light years better than the lowlights of Red or Maladroit. Lyrically, for the first time I feel like Rivers is embracing his place in life. He's pushing forty, he's still a geek, likes rap, Kiss, etc, but now he has a kid and a wife, a college degree and maybe life isn't so anxious. It's anxious, yes, just not as desperate. There's, criminey, happiness in his world. He's let others in a bit. He's a rock elder statesman. Trapped by his musical limitations he's no longer trying to be something he's not, as on Maladroit, or clumsily retrospective, as on The Red Album. He still tries to experiment a bit, there some East Indian music and singing on “Love is the Answer” but that's okay, since India is, if nothing else, the land of Kama Sutric Love. (And at least it's not a trainwreck like “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived”) The top-down convertible bombast of “Let It All Hang Out” was completely unexpected and takes that Weezer as 21st Century version of The Cars to the next level. “In the Mall”'s production and energy overcomes the weak songwriting. But just barely. The desperate and sad Beach Boys-ian “I Don't Want to Let You Go' is splendid.
I'm not sure where Weezer fits in the pantheon of rock history. They certainly aren't growing artistically, successfully stretching their wings like their 90s counterparts, Green Day. Their music is at best exhilarating power pop, at worst forgettable ephemera. But as long as they keep putting out records like Raditude they will have a fan in me.
Grade B+ A Side: The Girl Got Hot, If You're Wondering...., BlindSide: I'm Your Daddy, Let It All Hang Out, I Don't Want to Let You Go DownSide: Nothing really bogs this record down.
What? What is the Purple album? It's just a collection of B-Sides. I'm not even gonna wax on about it. Suffice to say songs like, "Velouria", "Mykel & Carli", "Jamie" & "I just Threw Out the Love of my Dreams" can be found on it. Take the songs you like. Get them all and read all about them on The Good, The Bad and the Unknown.
Red was my line in the sand with Weezer. Taking 3 years off from Make Believe, this is the one that made me almost write the band off. The guys from Sound Opinions LOVED this record. And I have no idea what they were thinking. At first it's deceptive. “Troublemaker” sounds like the Weezer I've come to love. The great hooks, the terrificly explosive choruses. It's good. But it's hard for me to concentrate on the song because I can't get past this horrible cover. Look at that poorly photoshopped crap. Why is Rivers dressed like a refugee from Village People? What is this? I might be the only person that hates hates hates, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Theme) but I think it's just about as bad as anything I've ever heard committed to....okay, recorded. Green Day can do the epic suites. My Chemical Romance figured it out, too. But, Weezer! You are not up to this task. Shoving ten styles into one song is not songwriting. It's almost as though they listened to the second side of Abbey Road and decided to do the same thing but all within 6 minutes. Using a Shaker melody as a template. It's awful. The fact that Rivers calls this the greatest Weezer song ever shows just why this band has never really grown and should just sit nicely in the pantheon of really good power pop groups. The hit single, "Pork & Beans" is catchy enough. (I can't help but think the original lyric was "eat my candy with a fork and.....something" but they just decided they needed a rhyme for "Scene" and "Spoon" didn't work. Nothing, however, prepared for the horror show that is Heart Songs. After hearing some of the reviews of this song I figured it had to be one of the greatest songs ever. Rivers name checks all the songs that have special meaning to him. And the moment that he heard Nirvana for the first time propelled him to play his own songs. It's a nice enough trip down memory lane but it's so sugary and sweet that it hurts. And, to add insult to bad songsmithing, there's almost no melody. I could take this song if there was something to hold on to. But there isn't. It's as amateur as the local crap I once heard on Red Snerts "The Story of Gulcher Records." It's terrible. And should never be played again. This is also the album that sees Cuomo giving berth to songs by the other members of the band for the first time ever. Once we get through "Dreamin'", a predictable if not serviceable Cuomo tune, it's time for the rest of the guys to shine.
"Thought I Knew" by Brian Bell is piss poor sing-songy piece of forgettableness. "Cold Dark World" is written by Scott Shriner with an assist from Rivers. And, it's about as good a track as one could expect from the bass player. Wait, that's not fair to John Deacon. It's boring, awful and pedestrian. "Automatic" is from Patrick Wilson, the drummer. It's bad. We get one more for the road on Red, if you've made it past the horror show that was those three songs, the coda to the record is "The Angel and the One". Its a song as tired as it seems these guys are of making music. Unfathomingly, Red Album has gotten some pretty terrific reviews. I have to wonder what album those guys were listening to. Because this is one of the least likable albums I've ever heard.
Grade D A Side: Troublemaker, (I kind of like Everybody Get Dangerous) BlindSide: DownSide: Heart Songs, The Greatest Man That Ever Lived, The three songs by the other guys.
I don't know why the fans bristle so much about this record. Maybe they were hoping that the band would continue the cycle and label this with a rainbow color. What about “Red”? (Yes. What about “Red”???) When I first heard Make Believe I liked it. A lot. Let's liveblog it, yes?
1. Beverly Hills. Sludge pop. Catchy, sure. More importantly, Rivers has really caught the lazy, entitled usurpation of quality by the shallow with this hit. 2. Perfect Situation. Perhaps my favorite Weezer song of all time. “There's the pitch, slow and straight, all I have to do is swing and I'm a hero. But I'm a zero.” Lyrically, this is the most honest and forthright since Pinkerton. 3. This is Such a Pity. Taking a major cue from the 80s this song could fall flat. Except that, lyrically, it's dynamite. It's The Cars circa Heartbeat City run through the angst machine of Rivers Cuomo. 4. Hold Me. What is this?? It sounds like, dare I say it, something that belongs on the Blue Album. Yes, it's that old Weezer sound. 5. Peace. Where Weezer and latter day Green Day converge. Not great, but no where near as bad as one might have been led to believe. 6. We Are All On Drugs. Terrific songcrafting. Just a fine bit a pop rock. 7. The Damage in Your Heart. Middling album filler. But, with a massive chorus that RC can write in his sleep. 8.Pardon Me. Harmless. Useless. Forgettable. But harmless. 9. My Best Friend. I love this song. I don't know why. It's cloying and obnoxious and...happy. Too happy for Weezer. But, it's great. 10. The Other Way. See “Pardon Me”. 11. Freak Me Out. I don't know what to make of this song. It doesn't suck and I find my toe tapping, but it's kind of horrible and then I hate myself for singing along and then I like it again. Weezer as Sine Wave. 12. Haunt You Every Day. Piano. Huh? Other than that curious bit of instrumentation this song is Weezer-by-Numbers. You don't need to hear it. You won't be worse off if you do. But, there's no need.
Weezer – Maladroit – 2002 (iTunes – Amazon)
In 2002 the internet was all abuzz with word that a new album by Weezer was coming and it was coming fast on the heels of Green. In keeping with (what was now perceived to be a tradition), the album would have a name rather an eponymous colored record.
“If you hate this, I can't blame you. Cuz I'm hurting, so I'll flame you.”, Cuomo blasts on “American Gigolo”, the opening track of Maladroit. Good thing it's such a great song, cuz he was really opening himself up to attack here. From his fans. Who he seems to hate, yes?
Following it with the Arena sized, near souther rock, “Dope Nose” is a smart move. It's a gas. And it contains probably the best lead guitar solo Brian Bell has ever recorded. It's the most memorable. Has he ever been allowed to lay waste like this before? I can't recall. I don't think so. He has the chops. He should have been cut loose much much much earlier than this.
That big rock sound keeps pounding along on tracks like “Keep Fishin'” and “Take Control” (which reminds me of how much I love Raging Slab) where Bell's solo feels like it fell off the 70s classic rock truck.
It would be easy to see why Gen Xers who fell in love with Weezer might take slight umbrage to this record. After all there is some really difficult music and songs that are not fun (“Death and Destruction”) and some are just bad (“Slob”) and others are just...weird (“Burndt Jam” which is SO steeped in 70s nostalgia that it is almost good and “Space Rock” which...I have no words for.)
“Slave”, “Fall Together”, “Possibilities” come across more as unfulfilled song ideas than anything you would put on a playlist or mix tape. Mix Tape is much more apropos in this case. Maladroit is Weezer's attempt at a stylized retro thing. It doesn't work and it's easy to hate them for it. But fans would wait til the next album to really get angry.
The album abandons these barely-demos towards the end with “Love Explosion”, but I imagine that I like this song more for how honestly it wears it's glam/southern/classic rock on it's sleeve. It's the band's triumph. In spite of Rivers.
In 2001, without warning, all of a sudden, Weezer was back. Five years after Pinkerton. Rolling Stone said it was the first 5 star album of the new decade, the new century. At 29 minutes it's the shortest they had ever put out. And Pinkerton was 33 minutes. The thing about short albums (and those of you who read Septenary regularly know that if an album is more than 40 minutes, my feeling is, it better be worth it. More often than not, it's crammed with filler and would easily be a stronger record with 1/3 cut out), is that they better really bring it. If you're only gonna give us 30 minutes, every song needs to be strong, right? Green is a very different animal than Blue or Pinkerton. I don't think Blue was supposed to be called “Blue”. I think it was called “Weezer”. But with the need to reinvent himself, Cuomo, in a sense, was trying to wipe away the previous incarnation of his band and starting anew. Trouble with ignoring your past is that your fans have to do the same thing or else, well, you're spitting in the wind. And the fans loved Pinkerton. And they ADORED the debut. What would they make of Green? “Hash Pipe” is the first real sense that Rivers and the gang are more interested in hooks than substance. “I can't help my boogies, they get out of control, I know that you don't care but I want you to know.” is laid against a musical bedrock that calls to mind the theme to The Munsters. But it works. It works hard to work but it does the job. And, dammit, if you can't shake the song out of your head. It's like ear candy. You want to hear it again because it's at once familiar, aggressive, fun and snarky. “Island in the Sun” could be Weezer's “Kokomo”. Except that, unlike that song, you don't want to go back and burn all your Beach Boys records in contempt. That doesn't mean that “Island” couldn't also double as the music for a “Sandals Resorts” commercial. Which also doesn't mean it's bad. “Crab”, “Knock-Down, Drag Out”, “Smile” &”Simple Pages” could all easily have been crafted in the “Rivers Cuomo Song & Taffy Factory”, on some assembly line, but they're good. And they don't stick around long enough to crumble under the weight of their own disposability. At this point in time, groups like Bowling For Soup were doing this kind of stuff, and doing it better (see “Girls All The Bad Guys Want” & “Emily”) and having more fun. But Weezer's re-entry is by no means a failure. It's not one of the greatest albums of the decade, but, it'll do.
At first Pinkerton was so massively maligned by the press and fans that it took me almost 10 years to pick it up. When I did I realized that all the pundits who, in retrospect, put the album at the top of their “albums of the decade” lists were absolutely right. I can't address, truly, why Pinkerton was such a perceived failure. I can only suggest that, maybe, just maybe, it's because the album took the angst and desperation of Blue and wrapped it in even less accessible pop angles and breaks. It's no secret that, after this album, Matt Sharp, the original bassist, left the group (and many say he was as important to the songwriting as Rivers), there was great acrimony, Cuomo retreated to his hole (and back to college) and, as far as fans were concerned, Weezer was over. They had their day in the sun and they would be, like Nirvana, over too early, though this time not by suicide. In both cases, though, it was due to the mercurial nature of the front man who wore his pain in his songs and on the stage. Pinkerton, it's been said, is based, in part on Madame Bovary. I don't know if that's true. I'm sure it's not totally apocryphal, it's just that I haven't read Madame Bovary. What it is, though, is one of the most aggressive and powerful power/pop/rock albums of all time. “Tired of Sex”, “Getchoo”, “No Other One”, “Why Bother”, the songs titles sum up the songs, just remember that they are all about girls, sex, distance (both literal and figuratively) and they are each as blood-letting as the last. (Why bother? It's gonna hurt me. It's gonna kill when you desert me?”) The melancholic longing in “Across the Sea” is as intimate as Cuomo has ever gotten. “The Good Life” is, perhaps, the catchiest tune of the decade. (Yes, it's better than “Buddy Holly”. It's not cute or clever, but it's honest and smart.) And the mini-breakdown after the (brilliant) chorus at 1:32 tells the entire story of why this album was a flop. Who comes up with that? On a pop album? Clearly the boys are trying something new. Different. (My money is on Sharp who, with The Rentals, proved that he was more interested in experimentation than popularity and, given what Cuomo's later offerings sound like, I think I'm right) Cuomo has all but abandoned this record. It's barely acknowledged. I think some of the songs make it into setlists, but what's a real shame is that is has been relegated to almost a footnote in the pantheon of rock albums. It shouldn't be. It's brilliant.
With Green Day, Weezer are truly the granddads of modern emo. So, like I did with those Berkeley punkers, let's take a look at the progenitors of geek rock.
I'm not sure I will ever get used to the feeling I get when I fire up Blue Album by Weezer. The opening track, a ¾ time epic about turn of the century union workers called “My Name is Jonas” is an modern alternative classic. But it's really more than that. It's a salvo. For a band that named itself after an asthmatic Little Rascal (I'm not sure they did it on purpose but, hell, it's true), one would expect exactly what they present on the cover: Nerd Rock. But these nerds are different than all the offspring they spawned like Bowling for Soup and Nerf Herder. Rivers Cuomo wants to be cool. It isn't just with irony that he laces his songs with the occasional hip hop reference. One gets the sense that he loves that stuff. So, it's earnest. As is his longing. And what is the best rock, really, but desperate and longing? He isn't shy about his desire to be obsessed. He wants a girlfriend that is just as desperate for him. And it's sort of creepy (No One Else) but it's so honest that you can't help but get caught up in his need. The songs are also so damned poppy that how could they not be a hit? Would they have been so without the videos crafted by Spike Jonze? Yeah, I think so. Because Cuomo and Weezer are the other side of the Nirvana coin. They touched an important nerve and in doing so, almost single handedly created the entire sub-genre of Emo. I've been asked so many times what “Emo” is. I get asked the same question about “Power Pop”. Strangely enough, Weezer is the epitome of both. Emo, as I take it, is emotional music. Dudes who wear their hearts on their sleeves and their needs as close to stalker as you can get without a warrant. But the music has tremendous melody and the teeth are in the content not in the sound. Although, it almost goes without saying that Rivers wants to have those teeth. He wishes he was in Van Halen, because the sound embraces the stadium anthem rock made great by those cock-of-the-walk rockers of yore. But, his references, “I'm Buddy Holly and ooh-ooh, you're Mary Tyler Moore”? Gen X all the way. Dungeon Master's Guide, 12 sided die, Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler from X-Men. Ace Frehley and Peter Criss and posters of Kiss. (Which I think is telling inasmuch as Cuomo doesn't name check Paul Stanley or Gene Simmons. Why should he? He doesn't relate to those guys. Simmons could never write “Beth” and Stanley is nowhere near the guitarist Frehley ever was). This is the quintessential slacker album wrapped in the energy of forward motion. It's positively brilliant.
Grade A A Side: Buddy Holly, In The Garage, My Name is Jonas, BlindSide: No One Else, Undone (The Sweater Song), Say it Ain't So DownSide: Only in Dreams
In the fall of 2006 I needed some happy. It was a pretty dark time in our lives. But it was also a great time for music. Especially Scottish Rock. Just when I needed it most, I found the debut import by The Fratellis, a glam/cabaret/britpop trio that were none of them brothers but had adopted the drummer's previously unknown last name as their individual and band moniker. I don't usually spent upwards of $25 for one cd. But, after hearing some of the tracks through someone on Soulseek, I ran out and got the album asap. That album was....
With it's backbeat Oompa horns and it's dirty glam pop sound, "Henrietta", the first track off Costello Music, explodes with such a pied piper fury that I can't help but think be reminded of the Violent Femmes debut. No, it doesn't sound ANYTHING like that record but the busker aesthetic is there on both records. Like these songs were hewn on the corners of Scotland and recreated in the studio with wild and excited abandon. You know the second track, "Flathead" because it was the iPod commercial song for a while. And it popped up in weird commercials like Safeway out here in LA. But that doesn't diminish it's hummability. You WANT to follow the top hat waring, vagrant foppishness of Jon Fratelli with a chorus of "ba da bop bop badadadada"s as we shuffle and skip our way through the streets and into the pubs. "Cuntry Boys & Girls" could have fallen off a Libertines record if it wasn't so...happy. "Whistle for the Choir" proves that Jon Lawler (Jon Fratelli) has a way with melody as well as a turn of phrase. The album's biggest hit doesn't come until almost halfway through the CD and it's the big, driving glam beat alley rocker "Chelsea Dagger". It's a worthy hit song. It's got everything: Random shouts. Tricky rhymes. Nonsense (do-do-do-dododo-do-do-doo-doo....) that would make The Beatles proud. It's easily one of my favorite tracks of the decade. "For the Girl" changes the nonsense to "La la"s and is still a hoot. In fact, it helps cement the fact that Costello Music is a great party album. The first half, up to this point could rev up a rave and keep everyone dancing. The second half of the album takes a slightly different turn starting with "Doginabag" which is a little darker, less fun for the sake of fun. It's not a failure by any stretch and it comes at the perfect time. An entire album of this might wear patience. But after 20 minutes of La Las and Doo-doos, it's a welcome change. "Creeping up the Backstairs" owes its chord progression to (of all things) Dead Kennedys' Moral Majority but, don't worry, you're safe. The boys keep that sing-a-long ditty aesthetic alive and well. The rest of the album is just as good. In fact, it never lets up in it's craft and the stories eaved and characters described. After 20 or so listens you may think you never want to hear Costello Music again, but that's fine. I can't think of many albums I want to listen to a second time.
Grade A A Side: Chelsea Dagger, Henrietta, Flathead BlindSide: Cuntry Boys & Girls, For the Girl, Whistle for the Choir Downside: None, really. It's all fun.
So, you can imagine just how excited I was to buy the follow up album. I didn't waste any time. I knew it was coming out that morning and I fired up the iPod Touch, turned on the Wi-Fi and bought it immediately....
Just about every bit of fun in the foggy streets the band laid out on the previous album was tossed out in favor of trying to emulate, well, Arctic Monkeys. That shouldn't be bad, right? I mean, on the first album they were apeing The Libertines, right? But on that first album Lawler and crew was taking their cue from those turn of the century britpoppers and making it their own. The opening track, "My Friend John" could be mistaken for the Monkeys. And not "Whatever People Say i Am..." Arctic Monkeys. "Favourite Worst Nightmare" Arctic Monkeys. There seems to be, especially on "A Heady Tale" a concentrated effort to create a bigger sound. A stadium sound. But, it doesn't sound like The Fratellis anymore. It's anonymous. And when they do try to get back to their sound on "Shameless", it sounds tired. There are good songs on this record, but it doesn't have the explosive fire of the first. It's a sophomore album slumping along. The hits just sound too much like other bands. Look Out Sunshine is really steeped in The Beatles more than ever before and Mistress Mabel....what can be said? It's catchy and fun and toe-tappy but it also calls to mind George Michaels' "Faith" as written by Green Day's side project, Foxboro Hot Tubs. Who, themselves, were ripping on a particular late 60s swinging mod rock sound. To sound like a second rate version of a made up band paying homage to a style...this is not the Fratellis I fell in love with on the first album. The entire record can be summed up for me by the track, 'Tell me a Lie", which is so distracted by being a mini-britpop rock opera that it never realizes that these guys aren't up to the task. Trying to cram these different styles and tempos into a 3.5 pop song written by street buskers (who seem to also be trying to hard to sound like the White Stripes) the boys only come up short. And unfocused. Which is the sum total of the whole record. The album really rights it's listing self with the double shots of "Acid Jazz Singer" & "Lupe Brown" which are close as we're gonna get to the Fratellis we fell in love with. Toward the end of Here We Stand we get possibly the only track that really succeeds in trying to take Lawler's songs to a new place. "Milk & Money" which opens with a melancholy piano which takes it's lead from Kander & Ebb, picks itself up and really rocks out a second half of frenetic instrumentation. Here We Stand is not a total failure. It's confused. It doesn't reach out and grab the listener the way Costello Music did, but is it worthy attempt at a second record? Sure. Why not. I don't hate it. But I will only cherry pick the songs I like and dump the rest.
My history with The Hold Steady is sporadic and frustrating. Mojo magazine ranked "Your Hoodrat Friend" from Separation Sunday as one of the best punk songs of all time. I heard it. I didn't get it. Back in the Soulseek days EVERYBODY had that album and was talking about how great THS was. I got the entire SS album. I still didn't get it. In a Lost flashback Hurley was trying to ask out a girl in a convenience store on a date. He mentioned that The Hold Steady was playing. What was I missing? I loved the name. The band was supposed to be a tossback to Springsteen and the E streeters. It should have been right up my alley.
Then the hype for their next album, Boys and Girls in America, started in earnest. This was 2006. A great year for music. And, I decided to give it a spin.
I am so glad I did.
"There are time when I think that Sal Paradise was right; Boys and girls in America...they have such a sad time together."
The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls in America - 2006 (iTunes - Amazon)
B&GiA opens with cavernous guitars. Harmonic pianos that almost seem to be doing their own thing join them. The whole band comes in. And the epic, stadium Anthem that is "Stuck Between Stations" kicks this fucker off. Craig Finn is one terrific lyricist. He is in the running for new Rock Poet Laureate. But his voice...it's an acquired taste, to be sure. Talk singing with a nasal quality that made me wonder at first if Jello Biafra was moonlighting as an Indie Rocker. But, it doesn't matter, because it works. And it's odd. The Boardwalk rock continues on "Chips Ahoy" which, unlike anything The Boss ever wrote, is about a guy whose girlfriend is psychic and she doesn't have to work because she always knows which horse is going to win at the racetrack. But, it could be about Saturday night at the roller rink for all we care. It's just grand. In the mood for some 70s inspired rock? "Hot Soft Light". Need some edgy boogie rock? "Some Kooks". How about a reminiscent ballad about the first time you met that girl...."First Night". One of my personal favorites (heck, they're all terrific) is Party Pit. If you've ever been to a bonfire with beer buckets and stoners in the woods, you know this place. "Just gonna walk around and drink some more." is the perfect sentiment to those aimless late nights. This is not just an album about partying. It's about being at the party. And it's not an Andrew W.K. kind of PARTY!!!. It's a chaperoned, glee-filled, spiked punch party. "Citrus" calls to mind the acoustic balladeering of Zeppelin. Though, I'm not sure they were singing an ode to alcohol. But with such pinpoint accuracy and deft wordplay...Example: hey citrus hey liquor I love it when when you touch each other hey whiskey hey ginger I come to you with rigid fingers. i see judas in the hard eyes of the boys working the corners. i feel jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers. After you've gotten a little too high you might need some time in the "Chillout Tent". Not exactly Boss lyrics, but, as edgy as Bruce was "Pouring salt upon you tongue and hung just out of reach", so, too are the truths in Finn's poetry. The album closes with the ready-made classic "Southtown Girls". With it's lazy, faux country sensibilities, it's the perfect coda to a grand 40 minutes. I can't recommend this record higher.
Grade A+ A Side: Stuck Between Stations, Chips Ahoy, Southtown Girls BlindSide: Party Pit, Massive Nights, Citrus, Chillout Tent DownSide: none.
So, two years later.....
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive - 2008 (iTunes - Amazon)
When the band backs up Finn, yelling out, "This Summer!" on the opening track, "Constructive Summer", I can hear Black Flag's "TV Party" and, it makes me happy. They haven't really forgotten their punk roots, The Hold Stead. Name checking Joe Strummer isn't a bad idea, either. "Constructive Summer" is actually the right progression for the band. It's a bold melding of the Separation Sunday THS and the Boy and Girls one. In no time they are reminding us of why we loved that last album with the first single, "Sequestered in Memphis". That organ, though. They are bringing out the kitchen sink and feeling their E-streetiness. Saxophones? Okay.....but this time, the lyrics seem a little too precious. "Subpoenaed in Texas, sequestered in Memphis." I can't relate and I feel like Finn the Rhymer is replacing Finn the Poet. One for the Cutters continues the "local townies" aesthetic that helped rise the previous record to new heights (this time calling to mind the 70s film, Breaking Away), but it's weak and the harpsichord (huh?) battling for space with a grand piano feels crazily out of place. And whatever instrumentation they are forcing upon us on "Navy Sheets" doesn't help this album make a good impression. "Lord, I'm Discouraged" feels like the sort of sleepy, anthem ballad that the guys can write in their sleep. It works. It's not surprising, it doesn't jolt you, but it works. And the dustbowl, almost Jovi-esque, "Both Crosses" can't quite the mustard. This time, it's because heavy echo won't mask the fact that Craig Finn isn't a singer. And yet, he's trying something more than spoken word. He's trying to wrap his larynx around this idiom. He fails and it's not spectacular. If the album has any redeeming quality, and anything to offer those of us who came in with B&G, it's the title track. I wish it had opened the record and they had spent more time working on songs like these. If they had, no doubt The Hold Steady would have burst big time in 08. And, once they get their footing, they follow with "Magazine", "Joke about Jamaica" and the excellent epic, "Slapped Actress", which would have made this a great EP. If Boys and Girls was The Hold Steady's nod to Springsteen and 70s arena rock, Stay Positive harkens back further to Zeppelin, name checkling Zep songs all the way. But shooting for that moon and missing has just left me cold.
Grade C A Side: Constructive Summer, Stay Positive, Slapped Actress BlindSide: Lord I'm Discouraged, Joke About Jamaica DownSide: One for the Cutters, Navy Sheets
