Sunday, November 21, 2010

Listening Post: Jukebox the Ghost - Everything Under the Sun



Jukebox the Ghost - Everything Under the Sun - 2010 (Buy it. I recommend the Vinyl with the digital download)

Originally published at PopDose Here

In the long history of rock music, there have always been two constants. One is a steady stream of pablum spoonfed by the industry conglomerates feeding their own beasts and satisfying stockholders, maintaining corporate expense accounts and living in largesse.

This panoply of easily forgotten music is supported, in no short amount, by the consumers who just HAVE to have that new Usher record. Or are suckered into the Beyonce remixes. Or queue up their digital download device to whatever tortured, guyliner wearing emo-punk of the moment. It is from this well that we drink up the latest Disney creation. The gamut runs from baseless, bald-faced commercialism to high-minded musical royalty.

The other constant is all the music that bubbles under the surface. The “Indie” band struggling to make it on their own with just a scrappy minor label who may or may not have a distribution deal with a major but is still doing things on “their terms” with integrity, fortitude and, if they’re really, really lucky, a spot in the early afternoon on one of Lollapalooza’s stages.

My Jukebox the Ghost LP came in the mail today.

Who? Jukebox the What?

The band’s name shouldn’t ring any bells for you. They get no airplay. They’re not sexy, have no singles and, except for one late summer, underwatched last-minute appearance on Letterman, are virtually unknown to all but those who traffic in the blogosphere (yes, I still call it the blogosphere. Deal with it. I sometimes use “hella” as well). They did get to play Lollapalooza this summer, though. So, their star is on the rise.

Jukebox the Ghost’s first album, Let Live and Let Ghost, was my favorite record of 2008. A compact set of intricate ditties at times relentlessly hooky and, at others, stupefyingly ambitious. The two sets of multi-song suites on that record belie the youthful naivete of the trio that formed out of George Washington University’s undergraduate program. In fact, it was probably just that naivete that allowed them the hubris necessary to pull that record off. Part Ben Folds, Part Queen, Part prog rock, part indie, part power pop, JtG made me so happy that year. And now they’ve returned with a new set of songs, a strong producer Peter Katis (Interpol, the National) and a hundred thousand miles of touring behind them.

And maybe that’s the problem.

The band sounds not quite weary, but not so cheeky as they have been. They’ve never shied away from tackling topics larger than just boy meets girl or boy pines for girl; their last album featured an epic meditation on a wrathful God’s smiting of an earth that disappointed him. And they try to hit those heights again. But they don’t really try that hard.

“Schizophrenia,” the most recent single from the record, follows the toothless but catchy “Empire.” Both are quirky and smart and have one more thing in common: They are each more promise than delivery. On their first album the boys had struck gold with a pair of singles that were priceless in their hummability. “Good Day” & “Hold It In” were spectacular introductory songs and the rest of that album blossomed into a surprising collection of self-assured epics. Everything Under the Sun tries so hard to be a sequel and it almost succeeds. The key being the word almost.

One after another, the guys dabble in that power poppy idiom and, on that first side/half they very nearly succeed. “Half Crazy” is speedy and easy to catch onto. The toy-casio keyboards evoke the early ’80s goofball stuff by the Rubinoos, and that’s super. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, though. And we don’t get back to it until well into the end of the record with “The Popular Thing,” a jangly, backbeat faux soul that calls to mind the Elvis Costello of Punch the Clock and the vocal gymnastics of Russell Mael of Sparks. It’s piffle, but it’s sublime piffle. It’s the kind of track you hear at the end of a Mean Girls/Easy A/Clueless movie. No doubt we will.

In between we are treated to the quite excellent “Empire,” a single which went nowhere and that’s sad, because it’s a little indie earworm — as is the lovely “Mistletoe.”

Jukebox the Ghost tries so hard to prove that they are able — able to play (they most certainly are) and able to write (the aforementioned melodies) — that they forget to have fun.

With 25 songs to choose from written over the past two years I have to wonder what they chose to forgo to include the dull and uninspired pair of “Let Us Create” and “Carrying.”

If you’ve been lucky enough to sit through “Where are All The Scientists Now” and “A Matter of Time” from the first album (please, I implore you to), then you’ve heard the new album’s track penultimate track, “Stars.” It’s no wonder, since they were both written by Thomas Siegal, the lead guitarist. Had “Stars” been included on that first record, no doubt I would be singing its praises. On that album, these epics came out of nowhere, this little trio of guitar, drum and keys and their enormous worldview. Universe-view, really. Those songs were surprises, to be sure.

On Everything Under the Sun, the surprise is over and I’m left cold. Thus, about half of this album I would categorize as redundant. The other half is fine, workman-like indie pop. Everything Under The Sun is, at best, a placeholder. Definitely not the calling card of their first record. Hopefully they’ll get another shot.

Grade: B-
ASide: Schizophrenia, Empire, Misteltoe
BlindSide: Half Crazy, The Popular Thing
DownSide: Carrying

3.5 Hours with The Hold Steady

Three and half hours with The Hold Steady

I've espoused my love for this band before. They put out a new album this year and I was so excited that I pre-ordered on iTunes. And then kicked myself because for just a couple bucks more I could have bought the LP and it CAME with a digital download. Alas, now would be a good time to go back and listen to the band's albums. First off, I love the opening three. And maybe I'll like the fourth more. And then there's the new one. Which I've given one listen to and I'm not really impressed. Okay. Now that we all know what I am going to do. I guess I should do it, yes?

0:00 – 43:00

Almost Killed Me – 2004



Sure, “Certain Songs” sounds like a band aping Springsteen. Even though they are song-checking Meat Loaf and Billy Joel. But that's not the whole story of The Hold Steady's debut. It opens with a shaggy guitar and a poetic screed that asks us at one point, that “the 80s, almost killed me, let's not recall them oh so fondly.”
The Hold Steady's first album has a lot of negative things to say about the go-go decade while Craig Finn spouts out about how elated he is to be in a band again.
It's hard to get used to his speak-singing, since he sounds like Jello Biafra fronting a 70s cover band. And yet he pulls off lyrics like, “I've been trying to get people to call me sunny d. i've got the good stuff kids go for. people keep calling me five alive. because the last guy didn't really die.”
I'm sure there are some beautiful melodies that could be written to Tad Kubler's music but that's not was The Hold Steady is all about. It's about a couple guys who are really too tall for the rock and roll ride deciding to do it anyway and along the way becoming the grand-daddies of the Indie Rock movement, and one of the best bar bands in the world. It's about a world of characters that we will return to, like Charlemagne. It's about the love of rock and roll and telling stories and chord changes and not being too precious and being “close enough for rock and roll”. And, dammit, a sax even shows up at one point.
The thing is, THS doesn't wanna be one of the Indie Kids. They wanna rock, dammit. They make fu of the trucker hat wearing club kids. They would probably have been more at home opening for Foreigner in 1982 than finding themselves lumped into conversations alongside The National. As Finn looks back at the “Killer Parties” which “Almost Killed Me”, I feel like I'm in good hands. Like this storyteller has a lot to say and, being that I'm too old for the ride myself, I'm sure I can relate.

I adore this record. It's awkward and difficult to listen to and confessional as hell but worth every second.

One of my favorite debut albums ever. Took me 6 years to get to it. But it was worth it.

Grade: A
A Side: A Positive Jam, The Swish,
BlindSide: Certain Songs, Barfruit Blues, Killer Parties
DownSide:

43:00 – 1:25:00

Separation Sunday – 2005



This was one of those albums that EVERYONE had on Soulseek. I tried to listen to a couple tracks but they didn't do anything for me. Then Mojo listed “Cattle and the Creeping Things” as one of the greatest punk songs of all time and it didn't do anything for me. Then Hurley said to the girl in the record store “The Hold Steady is playing tonight....” And, I figured, if Lost got it and Mojo and all the Indie kids on Soulseek and I didn't, what the fuck, right? So, I gave up.
And then I really listened.
And it's brilliant.
We're really following characters now. Craig, our leader. Charlemagne, the pimp, Holly also known as Halleluiah, who's a prostitute and a drug addict and Gideon.
What the fuck Mojo was getting at makes no sense as “Cattle” is a really great rock march, a stadium anthem with a groove that would make the greatest 70s classic rock bands lick their lips with envy.
“Your Little Hoodrat Friend” is the closest they've come to a song you can sing along to. Finn's weird-ass drunk poet warbling actually pulls off something amazing here: Spoken singing. It's almost a pop song.
And lemme tell ya, rock, in all it's great four chord glory is alive and air-guitar-licious on “Banging Camp”. And “Charlemagne in Sweatpants” is what you get when you're a bar band who stayed up all night listening to The Rolling Stones's Tattoo You.
Halleluiah's redemption by the end is almost heartbreaking. The hoodrat came home. And, I think she'll be okay.

I could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is Separation Sunday is a masterpiece. An album so steeped in religion, beat poetry and classic rock that the only way to really appreciate it is to set aside about 45 minutes and get into it.

Grade: A+
A Side: Cattle and the Creeping Things, Your Little Hoodrat Friend, Chicago Seemed Tired last Night, How a Ressurection Really Feels
BlindSide: Hornets! Hornets!, Banging Camp, Charlemagne in Sweatpants, Stevie Nix, Multitude of Casualties

1:25:00 – 2:05:00




Boys And Girls in America - 2006

On Boys and Girls Keyboardist Franz Nicolai is given a helluva lot to do. He's playing Roy Bittan to Finn's Springsteen. And he brings melody to “Stuck Between Stations”. One of the best tracks in the band's career. A song you can sing along with. Actually, a lot of B&GiA is comprised of more songs than the spoken word set to rock of the earlier THS stuff. But the characters are back. Gideon, Charlemagne, Holly...well, she's in the hospital not far from the bar where we all met on that “First Night”.
“Chips Ahoy” 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.
This is the record where it all comes together. The soaring guitars, the poetry, the stadium rock posing as an Indie Band.
In the mood for some 70s inspired rock? "Hot Soft Light".
Need some edgy boogie rock? "Some Kooks".
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". Craig's story of two kids who get way too high on E (probably), find themselves in that Chillout Tent, make out and never see each other again, is a hopeless but too true commentary on the rave lifestyle. Neither seem too fazed by the experience. But the millenials are sort of inured to those kinds anyway.

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, First Night, Southtown Girls
BlindSide: Party Pit, Massive Nights, Citrus, Chillout Tent
DownSide: none.

2:05:00 – 2:49:00


Stay Positive - 2008




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? This time the story is matched by rhymes and choruses which, at first, seem out of place and I don't know why. And then I realize: that's not what The Hold Steady does. Songs? Rhymes schemes? Sing along choruses? Maybe on their covers and rarities. It's a step in the absolute right direction.
“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 weakened by the harpsichord (huh?) battling for space with a grand piano feels crazily out of place. I applaud the attempt to expand and give Nicolau free reign but it's very disconcerting.

And whatever instrumentation they are forcing upon us on "Navy Sheets" doesn't help this album make a good impression. New Wave synths have no place on a Hold Steady record. Kind of makes me wonder if Kubler and the guys are running out of ideas.
"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. It recalls some of the best meandering stadium ballads of the 70s with a soaringly eligiac solo at the 3:20 mark that will have you reaching for a lighter.
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.
The album gets itself back on track with the title track. A big “woah-oh-oh-oh” song that chunks and moves and explodes into an aural depiction of the previous album's cover art. Once they get their footing, they follow with "Magazine", "Joke about Jamaica" and the excellent epic, "Slapped Actress".
If Boys and Girls was The Hold Steady's nod to Springsteen and 70s arena rock, Stay Positive shows the band expanding it's musical palette and trying to avoid pigeonholing and redundancy.
But shooting for that moon they just miss and the resulting record is a hodgepodge.

Grade B- (This rating has changed a bit since the DoubleShot from last year. I think the record is slightly better than I originally thought. It could have just been expectations, since Boys and Girls was so wonderful they couldn't have done anything but come down from there)
A Side: Constructive Summer, Sequestered in Memphis, Stay Positive, Slapped Actress
BlindSide: Lord I'm Discouraged, Joke About Jamaica
DownSide: One for the Cutters, Navy Sheets, Both Crosses

2:49:00 – 3:30:00


Heaven is Whenever - 2010

1.The Sweet Part of the City – Why is Finn mixed so far back? It's interesting to listen to this right after hearing Sticky Fingers. If the earlier Hold Steady records were Springsteen and the later ones Zeppeling, this is starting off sounding like the Stones. It's a languid piece. Not how I would start off a record but I'm not in a band anymore. I'm going to infer from the last line “We were bored so we started a band. We'd like to play for you.” that this is a reminiscence of humble beginnings. Different than the band that wrote “A Positive Rage”.
2.Soft in the Center – A single! A pop song! It feels like the band has decided that poet-of-the-street is fine and all but wouldn't it be great to, I dunno, sell some records? The only problem is that the production really stinks.
3.The Weekenders – Wow. So, we're revisiting the duo from “Chips Ahoy”. Okay, Finn has done this a lot. He's got a notebook of characters. This story, however, doesn't really take us any further. I wonder if it's just easier to write great stories when you're holed up in a dank apartment in Brooklyn than to write on a tour bus.
4.The Smidge – More cowbell! And that other rattley percussion instrument. You know, the one with a stick that you run up and down grooves. I don't know what it is. But it's here.
5.Rock Problems – Is it The Ramones? Sure, they've ripped about everyone else off. Might as well put the basic melody of “Chips Ahoy” over a Ramones-y chukka-chukka bed. It's an hollow tune. Wow. When did I become a Hold Steady hater?
6.We Can Get Together – Finn has dropped Meat Loaf titles in songs before. Here he's name checking Husker Du and Utopia as well. But, I'm bored. I've been here before. These nameless “he's” and “She's” are tiring. I miss Charlemagne and Halleluiah and even Gideon. This is treacly and mawkish and I kind of hate it.
7. Hurricane J – Oh. Here's a character. Jessie. Let's see what this is about. It's really lackluster. I want so badly to give a shit about this character or this song but I don't.
8.Barely Breathing – Don't sing, Craig. Don't sing over some forbrush-y vaudeville guitar. Don't sing over a back beat swing. Ever. EVER!
9.Our Whole Lives – By now I feel like the band is just uninspired and are realizing that it's been 2 years since they released an album. Maybe I would like this if I had never heard the 1st three albums. But I did and they need to do better.
10.A Slight Discomfort – An awful, uninspired, aimless, directionless, useless piece of poorly recorded shit.

Wow. Is the gleam this far off the rose? Three amazing records, one mediocre and one disaster. In that order. It's going to be hard to recover from this. And I don't know if I will be there when they try.

Grade: D+
A Side: The Sweet Part of the City
BlindSide: Soft in the Center
DownSide: The Smidge, Heaven in Whenever

DoubleShot: Nightmare of You

The idea is to highlight an album that truly resonated with me. A personal classic. Or just a really great entry album. By that I mean, the record that brought me in to a band's fold. And, then, their follow up. The sophomore. Slump? Brilliance? We'll see.




Nightmare of You - Nightmare of You - 2005

A band I'm pretty sure you have never heard of. I was at the gym when a friend of mine stuck my earbuds into his iPod and made me listen. One song in and I was hooked. I picked up the eponymous debut album at Amoeba that day and, I gotta tell ya: this album is 5 years old and has never, ever left my iPod. In some playlist or other I have this record. Why is it so good?
First off, there are tremendous hooks. "The Days Go By So Slow", "Dear Scene, I Wish I Were Deaf", these are two epic, hook-laden, retro-80s, lush emo rock songs, deceptively steeped in 50s songcraft. The way singer Brandon Reilly wraps his throat around wordplay and rhyme schemes of, say, Thumbelina, only add to the catchiness of the songs.
The album is relentless in it's pop-hook assault. The electro-nightclubbing Simple Minds-esque "My Name is Trouble" and quasi-college Indie "Why Am I Always Right?', the brilliant "I Want to Be Buried in Your Backyard", paint vivid pictures of desperation, loss, death, love and all of them make you want to lower the top and sing along on a coast drive.
Does it stop?
Nope.
The skiffle pop of "Ode to Seratonin".
The faux-country of "Marry Me".
The urgent "In the Bathroom is Where I Want You".
The driving "The Studded Cinctures".
It's amazing that every single song on this album is great. It's like a best of record by a band you've never heard of but wish you did so you could collect all the rest of their colection. Except that this is the debut.
Closing on the french cabaret inspired, "Heaven Runs on Oil", well, if you can't tell, I think this album is an unknown classic.

Grade A+
A Side: The Days Go By So Slow, Dear Scene, I Wish I Were Deaf, I Want to Be Buried in Your Backyard
BlindSide: Everything Else.
Downside: Nothing.

Septenary


In between this album and this year there was a brief, forgettable ep called "Bang". I have it. I don't care for it.
But a few weeks ago I got a tweet from NoY that their new album was out. I downloaded it from iTunes immediately.

It's called...





Nightmare of You - Infomaniac - 2009

Starting off with "Good Morning, Waster" I think we're on an interesting ride but, I got the sense that something was wrong. Now, I often give a cursory listen to a second record and dismiss it as not as good as the first, because I'm an impatient a-hole and I want immediate gratification. But this song sounds like a leftover b-side from the first record. It feels like Reilly is trying to sell the tunes through vocal gymnastics, like they all know nothing is really as good as that first record. It's a mellow place to open things with and bleeds into the simplistic "Eustacia Vye" that feels like, gulp, a Panic at the Disco track. A little too Beatles-y for my taste.
The lazy-versed and catchy-chorused, "I think I'm Getting Older" smells of "first single" but it's really obnoxious. What I hate most is that I am singing along even though I know that this is not a great tune.
The first sign that the band hasn't lost all songwriting prowess comes on "Someday, but not Today", which steals heavily from mellow 70s AM radio top 40. It builds to a nice chorus that I can't help but sing along to. It pairs, weirdly, with the retro-70s stuff My Morning Jacket tried earlier this year.
The 50s songcrafting is back on "Hey, Sweetheart" and that's a welcome sign.
But the more troubling things come just after.
"Experimental Bed" should really read as "Experimental Bed of Music that we are not really up to."
"Amsterdam" is just bad but--
"Gavi". Gavi sucks. I assume they are writing from the perspective of a self-serving, indignant, unctuous swinger but the lyrics are so poor and forced that it's almost as embarrassing as its subject matter. In fact, it's really the worst thing this band has committed to...what do we call it now that vinyl is dead, anyway?
The album rights itself, slightly, with "Tell Me When its Over", a song that would fit well into their calssic, hooky, canon. And "Pair of Blue Eyes" and "Please Don't Answer me" are terrificly classic NoY. But they can't save the record.
The last track, "Goodnight, Devil" bookends the album. It wears its adoration of Pink Floyd's the Wall on its sleeve but, even so, that's light years better than most of this record.

Too bad. I was really hoping that this follow up would be as terrific as the first. It's not. It's not awful, but it falls many stories from the debut's heights.

Grade C-
A Side: Someday but Not Today, Tell Me When It's Over, Goodnight Devil
BlindSide: Eustacia Vye, Please Don't Answer Me, I think I'm getting Older
DownSide: Gavi, Experimental Bed

DoubleShot: The Fratellis

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....



The Fratellis - Costello Music - 2006

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....



The Fratellis - Here We Stand - 2008

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.


Grade B-
A Side: Mistress Mabel, Acid Jazz Singer, Lupe Brown
BlindSide: Baby Doll, Look Out Sunshine, Milk & Money
DownSide: Tell Me A Lie

Listening Post: XTC

It was a heady time. In fact, looking back, I realize that this was the last Listening Post before I burned out. What I did, in reality, was burn myself out. Genesis, XTC and Motley Crue, all listened to and reviewed in one 2 week period. It almost killed me. Genesis actually has some terrific moments and really enjoyable music. Crue can be just fun. XTC was a chore. I was surprised at that.


XTC – White Music – 1978

In 1980 my friend, John, got tickets to see The Cars at Madison Square Garden. Yes, the same John with the Genesis loving sister! I recall his dad thinking that the $18 or thereabouts was quite steep.
Anyhoo.
We stood outside the Garden, waiting to get in and I kept hearing people talking about the opening band, Ecstasy.
They were interesting. After the show we commiserated that they were most definitely better than the main attraction. The Cars were perhaps the most boring live band ever.
The next year I would get my first XTC record and start a flirtation with them much like my passing adoration of The Clash.
So, what is the debut XTC record like?
Man, I do love me some edgy, angular New Wave. White Music explodes with a sound that feels like The Jam was suddenly taken over by a band that was inspired by Devo. “Radios in Motion” is speedy, quirky and every other adjective that fits that synonym.
In the early 80s I had a compilation of Ohio new wave called Red Snerts. A bunch of musicians on the “gulcher” label. It's quite possible that most of them were inspired by “Cross Wires”, a residents song on cocaine.
“This is Pop” is very much the opposite. It's a screed or irony so venomous that you can see the microphone dripping from the spittle Andy Partridge is spewing.
The songs are breakneck and schizophrenic and it isn't until the first side is just about over that we get to hear what this band really is. On “Statue of Liberty” it's obvious that these guys are cut from the same songsmith cloth that made Elvis Costello. They can do any style because their record collection is vast an all encompassing. They love music. They are crazy about pop. And they're a bit off. Case in point: The harmonica driven semi funk diversion cover of “All Along The Watchtower”. It's bizarre and it does just what punk was supposed to do in the mid-70s; it turns the pomp on it's head and raises a mirror to grandiloquence all the while shouting, “fake!” But you can't do that unless you adore the original and I am quite sure Partridge and Moulding do. Very much. It's because they love it that they are able to fully rape the song the way they do.
Side two rights the mistake of that cover with the pop/punk ditty “Atomic Age” and “I'm Setting Myself on Fire” a song I am pretty sure Adam Ant must have heard prior to recording “Dirk Wears White Sox”. It's JUST as annoying as half of that record! In fact, a lot of White Music sounds like it was recorded next to Dirk.

I read a lot of reviews that rate this album in relation to the later work by the band. I don't think that's fair. This is what they sounded like at the time. It's what got them signed, got them paid and laid the foundation for their future, however that might sound.
White Music has all the marks of a band aping the hot sounds of the day in an attempt to make something of themselves. Fortunately, I know that they will figure it all out. On this record they're just trying too hard.

Grade: C+
A Side: This is Pop
BlindSide: Radios in Motion, Statue of Liberty
DownSide: All Along the Watchtower, I'm Bugged



XTC – Go 2 – 1978

From all I've heard, I imagine I could get away with just writing, “the best thing about this album is the cover” and I would be right.
But, I gotta give it a listen anway.
While “Meccanik Dancing” carries that angular stench from the previous record there are actually glimmers of the traditional Partridgian melody in the choruses a hint of “Supergirl”. It's a harbinger of what's to come...I hope.
Which is “Battery Brides”, a sort of ode to Brian Eno. I don't care for the warm jets and I really hate this. A monotonous “melody” interspersed with other notes to break up the monotony. I can't even begin to describe “BuzzCity Talking” except to say that, if I wanted to get out of a record deal, I would put this song on my album.
At least “Crowded Room” & “Red” sound like someone gave a shit and tried to write, I dunno, a Madness song. Soon to be exiting keyboardist Barry Andrews is the only one who scores a somewhat enjoyable track with “My Weapon”.
In the end, Go 2 is less of an album than a collection of unstructured ideas laid down by musicians who know how to pull them off if not give them any life. I don't imagine the label, the musicians, or the fans ever listen to this record and think, “huh...what an underrated album”.
In the 21st Century this was the kind of release that gets you released from your contract.
Others were doing angsty, angular new wave at the same time (Squeeze's U.K. Squeeze among many others come to mind) and they were doing it better.

Grade: D
A Side: My Weapon
BlindSide: Crowded Room,
DownSide: Battery Brides, BuzzCity Talking, Life is Good in the Greenhouse



XTC – Drums & Wires – 1979

Drums & Wires opens with such promise....

“Making Plans for Nigel” is hands down better than anything on the previous two records combined. Andy Partridge gets so much notoriety for XTC. Being the force behind grounding the band from all love shows might have had something to do with it, I guess. But, I keep going back to Colin Moulding as a primary force for this group. And an unsung one, at that.
There is a cohesiveness in the production of this record that at once calls to mind The Police is one of the many things that separates it from those previous two.
“Helicopter” is another disaffected offering from Partridge (who is beginning to sound like an Asperger's sufferer more than a songwriter). It calls to mind all that messy herky jerk but with Steve Lillywhite at the helm it stays afloat.
XTC doesn't make it easy on the listener. There seems to be a discordant guitar forcing it's way into the proceedings at every turn. Or a mind-numbingly annoying riff that never seems to want to end. And just when I find myself hating everything about them, they left turn into some blissfully elastic power pop track like “When You're Near I Have Difficulty”, angsty relationship goo all over this one.
I still find XTC as impenetrable as ever. I had hoped Drums & Wires would allay that somewhat, instead what it does hammer home is the idea that Moulding & Partridge, while talented, are not the geniuses I've always read about. Not yet. Songs on D&W drone on and on long after their welcome was worn. Is it filler or something else, something less professional?
There are tracks that I actively despise, “Roads Girdle the Globe”, a song whose employ of “world rhythms & chants” (quotes mine) are so callous and calculated that I find myself pulling further and further away from the album instead of being drawn in. I feel like Partridge is writing songs that are this difficult and annoying specifically to say, “Anyone can write a song people like, I like to write songs that challenge the listener. And by “challenge” I mean “irritiate”.
Side Two opens with the near-ska “Reel by Reel”, the first XTC track with any discernible guitar solo (Welcome to the party, Dave Gregory!) which, perhaps because it is relegated to the second side, is less self-conscious and more accessible. And “Scissor Man” is pretty great. So is the bloodletting of “Complicated Game”.
But that's not enough to save this record.

Drums & Wires is the third miss in a row for a band that has been so heralded that it warranted a Listening Post. If I wasn't already so familiar with English Settlement and Skylarking I would have dropped this band by now.

Grade C-
A Side: Making Plans for Nigel
BlindSide: When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty, Scissor Man, Complicated Game
Downside: Day In Day Out, Roads Girdle the Globe.



XTC – Black Sea – 1980

If you were to make a mix tape in 1980 of the best, catchiest XTC songs in an effort to convince someone of how great they were, here's what you would do:
You would make a tape made up mostly of Colin Moulding songs and your friend would be hooked. Where we all got off calling Andy Partridge the genius behind XTC I don't know. Because Black Sea is ANOTHER example of Andy's experimental annoyance and Moulding's singular ability to write a catchy hook.
The guy who was responsible for “Making Plans for Nigel” this time brings us the other great pop new wave song from the band: “Generals & Majors”. It's brilliant and on par with, or better than, the interim single, “Life Begins at the Hop”, also by Moulding.
Not to say Partridge doesn't avail himself a bit. “Respectable Street” is a dynamite opener about sex-education or sex-miseducation.
Partridge takes over for much of this record and you either love his overtly quirky sensibilities or you don't. He gives me a headache about 60% of the time, with is over singing and kitchen sink production.
“Towers of London” and “Paper & Iron” are great constructions. I would prefer them to be instrumentals. Partridge's self-conscious lyrics and shoehorned melodies don't do it for me.
I will admit that, until the breakdown, I really like “Burning with Optimism's Flame”. I think I would like it a lot more if Moulding was able to get his hands on it. And rewrite it. Cause Andy Partridge is kind of an asshole. I don't know him. I'm just guessing. I bet I'm right. “Sgt. Rock's Going to Help Me” is a cute ditty but it can't rescue the rest of the album for me. (I do love the closer, “Travels in Nihilon”, though but I think that has more to do with production than with writing)

I guess what I'm learning is that XTC is one of the bands responsible for the sound of the 80s that I did not like. The one that gave us Tears for Fears and the likes of Big Country.

Grade: C
A Side: Generals and Majors
BlindSide: Respectable Street, Travels in Nihilon
DownSide: Living Through Another Cuba



XTC – English Settlement – 1982


(Disclaimer: This review is of the US release. The English version and subsequent releases are much much longer)

As a teenager I always felt like an outsider. I know, crazy, right? I mean, who else could possibly feel that way? I embraced my underground individualism and, though I was ensconced in suburban New Jersey where the nearest counter-culture was miles away at the local college radio station, I managed to find solace and quench my thirst to belong by reading magazines like “Trouser Press”. That was a long way to go to say that, without TP I certainly doubt I would have heard of any music outside the big FM stations and WNBC's top 40.
In the pages of TP I would read about X, Throbbing Gristle, U2, Duran Duran, Martin Briley and Adam Ant side by side with discographies of The Who and Genesis.
And, somewhere in those pages I kept seeing the name, XTC. Just look at those letters. Cool, huh? AND AND!!! I had seen them in concert! Even though I had absolutely no memory of the show I remembered that they were better than the headliners, The Cars.
When English Settlement was released I was deep in my throes of Trouser Press reading (I was a subscriber so I could get the flexi-disc) and I had completely eschewed WHDA, “The Parkway to Rock!” and was consumed by college radio. I even got to hang out with “The Kid”, a dj who let me spin a couple records.
I bought the new XTC as soon as I could.
Listening to it now I am struck by the fact that, despite how great it is, I never went back into the band's catalog nor did I seek out any follow-ups. That's not like me, really. I'm sort of a completist.
Ah, well. I haven't listened to English Settlement in almost 24 years.
The most striking change from the previous four records is how the angular, herky guitars are gone, replaced by big, acoustic 12 string guitars which, when placed side by side with Terry Chambers solid and rousing drumming set the record apart from, well, anything else I had heard at that point.
The album starts off with two Colin Moulding tracks, “Runaways” and “Ball and Chain” and they're great.
What follows is what I would never have expected. Andy Partridge avails himself of all that experimental ballyhoo that he was previously responsible for by writing the magnificent “Senses Working Overtime.”
No song, to me, better represents the era.
Followed quickly on the heels by “Jason and the Argonauts”, where Chambers seems to be driving the band with his fervent drumming.
On any of the previous albums a droning experiment like “Snowman” would have left me cold. Here, I am drawn in and find myself feeling sympathy for the narrator and his predicament. Although I imagine it's all of his own doing.

Side two sees the return of some electric guitars just enough to remind us why the first incarnation of Adam and the Ants didn't really work. (I am really beginning to see why They Might Be Giants wrote that song, these two groups have a lot of intersections)
I don't mind the caterwauling on “Melt the Guns” as the rest of the album has earned it. Plus it's a pretty cool song whose politics I completely agree with. And it leads us into the second hit by Partridge, “No Thugs in Our House”, taking the opposite road from Moulding's “Making Plans for Nigel”, Andy's family is pretty fucked up and Graham is a dick.
The African rhythm of (MORE intersections!) “It's Nearly Africa” is leaps beyond the musical roundelay of “Cuba”

On their fifth album XTC completely redeems themselves. It's a masterwork.

Grade: A+
A Side: Runaways, Ball and Chain, Senses Working Overtime, Jason and the Argonauts, No Thugs in Our House
BlindSide: Snowman, Melt the Guns
Downside: ------



XTC – Mummer – 1983

I have been warned.

The leader of XTC, Andy Partridge, suffered a mental breakdown while touring for English Settlement. XTC would never perform live again. This would cause the departure of the drummer, as touring is a great source of income for bandmates who don't write the music. The inability to perform live means no revenue from t-shirts or concerts.

So, the only source of revenue would be from sales of records. What does a record by a musician with mental illness, a Pop Rock musician nonetheless, sound like?

It's oddly serene. Pastoral. Gentle. With horrifically awful electronic drums. Hello, 80s!

I still don't know what it means that the single that made the most impact was written by Colin Moulding. Was he trapped by Andy Partridge? Why doesn't he get more credit?

If the first few XTC records were examples of the edginess and quirk of New Wave, the first half of Mummer is a far left turn from that. Building on the acoustic themes of Settlement, Mummer is brighter, more accessible, dare I say it, pretty? The songs are more assured than on the first two and the writers have more to say. There's real fear, of lost wages, or inability to provide, and the songs, replete with those great 12 strings play in hopeful contrast to the dire circumstances presented by Partridge and Moulding.
Moulding's “Deliver Us From The Elements” is more concerned with mood than anything else. It's studio craft designed to convey the awesome power of nature. As a song it's useless. As a concept it's interesting.
Side two opens with “Human Alchemy” and we're back to experimentation, the kind of stuff that made their first two records such successes. (Note: Irony intended) It's not just awful but it dispels any and all good will accumulated on the first side. And it's downhill from there. “Ladybird”, “In Loving Memory of a Name”, “Me and the Wind” are all the worst kind of filler. The sounds a songwriters who have lost not the ability to write, but will to live. There are no teeth. It's pop music as inertia.
There's a neat attempt at jangle pop at the very end with “Funk Pop and Roll”. It's harmless and too little too late.

Grade: C-
A Side: Wonderland, Great Fire
BlindSide: Love on a Farm Boy's Wages
DownSide: Human Alchemy




XTC – The Big Express – 1984

When is someone going to realize that the reason you put a Colin Moulding song up top is because he writes stuff that don't make people want to poke their eyes out?
Sigh.

I never heard of this album prior to this Listening Post series. Lemme see what this is all about.

Wow. This sounds a LOT like “No Thugs”. But not enough to be classified as plagiarism. In point of fact, it's actually an improvement. Then we're back to some Partridge craziness. In the case of “All You Pretty Girls” he's channeling Danny Elfman. It's a percussive trifle and not a great one, at that. But, that's okay. Because “Shake You Donkey Up” kind of explains what this album is all about.
The Big Express is the first album that brings together the song structures of Settlement, the herky jerk of the first record and the expansive sound of Mummer into a cohesive whole.
It doesn't always work. But even some of the failures are interesting. The dancing skeleton music of “Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her” is better than the melody or lyrics. But it isn't hatefully experimental as I've felt so much of Partridge's music can be, you know? He's always been oppressively impenetrable and he is here, as well. But the production overwhelms his worst intentions.
While not horrible by any means, The Big Express is also not that interesting. And it feels inordinately long. Without anything to grab on to, without any real hooks the whole album just leaves me wanting. So, even a song like, “I Bought Myself a Liarbird” which is under 3 minutes, feels like it's five because it’s boring and uneventful.
I kinda wish Andy Partridge would just shut up and let the band play his music. Hand lyric writing over to Colin Moulding.

Grade C-
A Side: Wake Up
BlindSide: Shake You Donkey Up, This World Over
DownSide: Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, Train Running Low On Soul Coal.



XTC – Skylarking – 1986

Andy Partridge notoriously fought with producer Todd Rundgren during the making of this record. Eventually admitting that Rundgren is quite a talented arranger and had great ideas.
Really.
Partridge arguing with somebody. And that person's contribution works to create the most accessible and artistically satisfying of XTC's career.
Sorry, John, I still want to punch Partridge in the face.
It's impossible to talk about Skylarking without getting to “Dear God” so let's dispense with that right away. It wasn't on the album at first. It became a huge stand alone hit and was included on subsequent pressings. It's one of the 100 best songs in the rock pantheon. I tip my hat to Partridge for having written it.
Ok. Let's get back to the record.
Is it a concept album? Sort of.
Is it beautiful? No question.
Partridge is focused and painting sublime images. “Share a joke, the laughs on me, when I get you on your own, we'll see...” It's a lovely refrain in a lovely love song that has me rooting for the suitor and his love. Oh, wait. That's a Moulding song. And so was “Grass”. Two of the prettiest songs on the record. As is “Big Day” and “Summer's Cauldron”
Hm.
Partridge is back with his snark on tracks like “That's Really Super, SuperGirl”. I do enjoy the fact that Partridge seems to adore comic books. That might be some of the appeal of this band to some. But it's clear that, save a few songs, Moulding is the real talent in this band. What I mean by that is that he can cut to the emotional quick. His musings are spot on and mostly devoid of self-righteousness.
That's what I think the problem is with Partridge for me. He's overt in how much smarter he is than you. God I really don't like this guy. I wonder why....
I think it's because for years I'd heard the name Andy Partridge spoken in unison with XTC. As if the band was his and the players were just Andy Summers to his Sting. But this couldn't be further from the truth. In point of fact, Moulding is every bit his equal as a songwriter.
But, what about Skylarking?
It's magic.
The songs are great, yes, but the production is sublime. The arrangements, the instrumentation are lush, pastoral, delicate but bountiful. “Ballet for a Rainy Day” is a perfect example of this. XTC had never sounded like this and this is a good place for them. It's the best of latter day Beatles, a magical mystery XTC. And it flows into “1000 Umbrellas” like they were written as a suite. An “Eleanor Rigby” for the 80s.
Besides Rundgren's contribution kudos have to be given to one of the greatest drummers ever to emerge from the 70s glam, Ex-Tubes drummer Prairie Prince handles the sticks on this and he, well, Prince can do anything, really.
“Earn Enough for Us” shows us a Partridge that was previously impenetrable though all that experimentation. Instead, I feel empathy for this working class slob who just wants to make enough money to keep his wife and family provided for.
The album wears it's Beatles-ism a little bit on it's sleeve on “Big Day” but that's easily forgiven as homage. And then that's followed by the creepy rejection of “Another Satellite”. And the beat poetry of “The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul”, a song that instantly wipes away all that White Music/Go 2 crap away in a little moody piano, syncopation and Henry Mancini drama.
Now. Back to “Dear God”. Featuring Partridge's son on the first verse, this is the most vituperative rejection of mankind's inhumanity to man under the guise of blaming a “God” that I'm not sure Partridge believes in in the first place. But it's really his disapprobation of what we have done to each other toward the end of the song that cuts so deep.

I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no
Devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always
Letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you
Drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the
Whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,
And if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon
My sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in

It's you....

Well, Mr. Partridge. That song, in and of itself, is enough to redeem you in my eyes. How you did it, I don't know. It's worth having put up with your previous crap to get here.

XTC's Skylarking is a remarkable achievement especially considering just how much I have been let down by this group so far. If you don't have this album you need it in your collection.
Now.

A Side: Dear God
BlindSide: The Meeting Place, Ballet for a Rainy Day, 1000 Umbrellas, Season Cycle, Earn Enough for Us....fuck it. The whole thing is great.



XTC – Oranges and Lemons – 1989

By now it's pretty clear that I am not the biggest XTC fan. With the exception of Skylarking and English Settlement I'm not too sure why anyone would list them as one of the most important band of the new wave or any era. Certainly not power-poppers.
So, it's no surprise that it took me over a month to get back to reviewing their catalog. Cause I really want it to just be over.
As someone who has never been in arduous love with The Beatles (note the Rolling Stones LPs) it's safe to say that the Peter Max inspired artwork on the cover of this record would be the first “turn back” sign I would encounter. I remember seeing it in the bin at Tower and tossing it back in, uninterested.
Then Oranges and Lemons opens with “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and it's pretty obvious that the band has learned something from working with Todd Rundgren. The upbeat yet snarky “Mayor of Simpleton” is one of the catchiest ditties ever to come out of this band, followed by the Moulding song, “King for a Day”, not a bad song, but one that sounds more like it's influenced by the faux-soul of the day. It's as if Moulding was trying to write a song for Crowded House.
Things turn decidedly more political on “Here Comes President Kill Again”. If Partridge had been so blatantly biased in the past he was hiding behind elliptical lyrics and experimentation. Not here. He's not happy. But, by the end of the 80s I don't think anyone was too happy with American Presidents. Unless they were on paper.
While the album isn't as thematic as its predecessor, the collection of songs are decidedly not haphazard. Nor is the production. Lemons is a lovely record. Crafted with care. Case in point “One of the Millions”, a track that has everything I loathe about XTC: annoying vocals, distracting rhythms, poor rhymes and yet I love it, because it ISN'T stripped bare. The layer upon layers keep the entire proceedings moving like a gondola ride down a river made of slippery molasses. I have no idea what that means, either.
“Merely a Man” is the last track on the album brimming with any vitality and/or resonance. After that it's a melange of I don't care.
Chop 20 minutes off this thing and it's a near classic.

Grade: C+
A Side: The Mayor of Simpleton
BlindSide: The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Loving, One of the Millions, Merely a Man
DownSide: Miniature Sun



XTC – Nonsuch – 1992

For all my apathy toward this band they have displayed moments of brilliance, obviously, and, on occasion I do find myself listing a song or two of theirs as one of my favorites. “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” is one of those. As political allegory it's spot on. As pop, it's confection. I've never heard Nonsuch however. Just that one song.
Five songs in and I have to say, this is one of the most pleasing listening experiences I've encountered from this band. Lush, layered, gentle but not wimpy. It's a great soundtrack to a Sunday afternoon. What I notice (and this is echoed in reviews I've read subsequently) is that, instead of paying homage to The Beatles, XTC seems to be drawing from the Beach Boys palette. This is mostly due to the background harmonies, which, to be honest, crib from the Wilson motif. So, somewhere between Pet Sounds and Super Furry Animals/Animal Collective is this album, the connector, if you will.
Where the lack of cohesion bothered me on Oranges and Lemons, I really don't mind it here. This is a protracted and more mature English Settlement. And a much easier listen, as well. Makes sense. Partridge is 10 years older. He's almost 40. He's no longer bogged down by stage fright. Well, he is, but he's dealt with it by not performing live anymore. I think if this record had been made 5 years before it would sound a lot like Tears for Fears. We're lucky that didn't happen.
Around the middle of the record XTC is up to their old awkward habits. “Crocodile” is annoyingly angular and “Rook” is bad Broadway ala Chess. Yet, while “Omnibus” revels in it's weirdness, it's actually engaging and harkens back to the Drums and Wires era. In a good way. So, the first third is pop, the second third, culminating with “That Wave” is the more experimental middle.
What's the last act of Nonsuch?
“Then She Appeared” with it's backwards masking and arpeggiated guitars is hypnotic and delicate. Almost suggesting the, well, the closing act of a three part piece. “Books Are Burning”, the least XTC (it almost sounds like Queen, if you ask me) song of all I've heard closes out this set, the latter third playing out like an extended coda.
All in all, Nonsuch is a great little record. Sure it's about 35 minutes too long, but it never overstays its welcome. I would say it's among the band's better works.

Grade: B
A Side: The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead
BlindSide: Dear Madam Barnum, The Disappointed, Then She Appeared, Books Are Burning
DownSide: Rook



XTC – Apple Venus Pt 1 – 1999

Apple Venus starts off with a delicately orchestrated piece “River of Orchids”, which sounds more like the opening of a Sondheim musical circa Sunday in the Park with George. It's unlike anything I would have expected and yet, exactly what I expected. Then it moves into the accessible acoustic beauty, “I'd Like That”. A return to Skylarking form, I'd say.
From there it's one lovely song after another. A culmination of everything they've learned from those three best records (Settlement, Skylarking and Nonsuch). A panopoly, if you will. Not a hodgepodge at all. Sadly, the song I like the least on the first half of the record is Moulding's “Frivolous Tonight”. Considering how he's never let me down before this is a tragedy. He almost redeems himself with the french inspired “Fruit Nuit”. Almost.
“You're Dictionary” is a lacerating screed that brings to mind the most vicious Paul Weller moments.
“I Can't Hold Her” is the most humane ballad Partrige has given us, showing humanity in not just his words but in the music as well.
The album loses it's way amidst its own preciousness at the end with “Harvest Festival” and “The Last Balloon” but all in all, it's a pretty solid outing.

Grade: B+
A Side: River of Orchids, I'd Like That
BlindSide: Knights in Shining Karma, Your Dictionary, I Can't Hold Her
DownSide: Frivolous Tonight



XTC – Wasp Star (Apple Venus Pt. 2) – 2000

The thing about the Listening Posts is that they are supposed to be a review of bands whose catalog I am peripherally aware AND they are still releasing music today, making them somewhat relevant. Believe it or not, all of the bands I have covered so far fit that criteria except two that were part of this series. Genesis was finally, mercifully, put out of operation.
XTC has, somehow or someway, gone into that gentle good night. They did it with a 1-2 punch of the Apple Venus records.
The first one was great. This one is more like the band looked around the leftovers and realized they had enough to fill up a record. It's not cohesive. Passingly interesting. Never groundbreaking.
If you like the latter day XTC, you will have no issue with Wasp Star. It actually plays more like a Power Pop record than almost any of their others.
Even Colin Moulding redeems himself with “Standing in for Joe”. It's piffle, yes. But delightful piffle.
Wasp Star is nice. It's edgy when it wants to be. It's quirky. How could it not be? It's XTC. I'll never go back into most of these records again. I'm fine with English Settlement and Skylarking. But, then again, I don't know if anyone else can write, “You and the Clouds will Still be Beautiful”. A song that I could listen to for three times as long as it goes on.
I might pull out Nonsuch or Apple Venus, but I doubt it. There's too much good stuff out there.
Bye bye, XTC. It was a long journey.

Grade: B+
A Side: Playground, You and the Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful
BlindSide: I'm the Man Who Murdered Love, Standing in for Joe
DownSide: Wounded Horse

Listening Post: Motley Crue

At the same time as the great Genesis + discography I pored through the complete catalog of XTC and, to save my mental health, Motley Crue.



Motley Crue – Too Fast For Love – 1981

What do you get if you take The Ramones, ram them hard into Van Halen, strip them to their base eros core, dress them up like New York Dolls dip them in The Sweet and tell them “it's okay. The 70s are over. It's a new day. Go. Have fun.”
You get Motley Crue.
We've all read The Dirt, right? I don't need to rehash that, do I? It's one of the best rock biographies ever. Go read it. I'll wait.

Psst. We're not waiting. Fuck that noise. It's time to bring the glam. And the riffs are pouring out on the debut album.

Vince Neil is only slightly more masculine than Cherrie Currie. In fact, she could have fronted this band except that Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee would have probably impregnated her before they could tour.

That's what Too Fast to Love is about. Energy. Tons of bands (Ratt, LA Guns, Poison and 100s of others) would take up the make-up, spray can metal mantle but Crue was one of the first and they prove why they would last on this record.
It's interesting to note that the sound of metal that I would come to know and hate throughout the 80s, the faux stadium drums, the deep anthem reverb, is nowhere to be found here. This is as raw a record as any other of its ilk of the style.
Pop metal is a lot different than the other metal that was brewing at the time. With Metallica and Pantera and Dokken taking up the pure metal mantle I actually prefer the party all the time glam of Crue. They aren't making bold statements, just having a blast. With killer solos, ala Mick Mars. I mean, could “Public Enemy Number One” sound any more like Sweet? Except that Chinn and Chapman never had a lead guitarist to write for like this.
In fact, on empty calorie songs like “Take Me to the Top”, were it not for Mars solo it would be a waste of 3 mins. (I know, I know. Stop it.) And for every one of those there's a “Too Fast For Love”, which could have just as easily been preformed by The Runaways but the testosterone treatment here is just as good.

A few of the songs overstay their welcome, to be sure, but I won't nitpick this release. This was written, performed, produced and released by a group of young rock star wannbes, making it one of the best calling cards I've ever heard.

Grade: A
A Side: Live Wire, Too Fast For Love
BlindSide: Come on and Dance, Public Enemy Number 1, On With The Show
DownSide:



Motley Crue – Shout at the Devil – 1983

Ah, the early 80s, when just about every metal group opened one of their records with ominous mantras, orations or declarations. Remember Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast?
Those were the days.
And so opens Shout at the Devil. What are they decreeing? I have no idea. All I know is that leads into the sludgy-wannametal title track. When I name checked the band and the song in “Another Hoop”, I really didn't know what I was talking about. Think Bret Michaels meets Kiss with jackboots. I don't know why that came to mind. The song is a bit lock-step, dontcha think?
Fortunately we get back to riff-tastic metal-gum immediately after with top down sunset strip sleaze machine of “Looks that Kill”. If by now you are looking for any meaning beyond, “darrr, she's hot”, you're in the wrong place, bub.
While much of the album is generi-metal, there is also room for Spinal Tappish “brilliance” like the quasi- classical “God Bless the Children of the Beast”. I shit you not. And this record came out AFTER the movie. Classic!
And that's followed by one of the ugliest covers in HISTORY! The band with no cred and limited musical ability gives us their take on The Beatles' “Helter Skelter” and, even though its uneven and desperate, I kind of appreciate just how earnestly the band wears their “influences” on their sleeve. Hell, if Gene Simmons can lay claim to Lennon/McCartney as muses, I'll take Mars, Sixx & Neil as well. (Tommy's an idiot. A monkey with a giant cock and a vague sense of rhythm with the ability to hit really really hard as he proves on the next track, “Red Hot”)
The beauty of Motley is that they are taking very seriously the fact that they don't take themselves seriously, while taking themselves seriously and putting on makeup. If you are looking for, I dunno, songs that last the test of time, you're in the wrong place. You gotta laugh at Motley while they are taking your money and fucking your girlfriend.
Cuz that's exactly what they are doing.

Grade B+
A Side: Shout at the Devil, Too Young to Fall in Love
BlindSide: Red Hot
DownSide: Awww, come on.



Motley Crue – Theatre of Pain – 1985

Don't let the title fool you, take a look at the cover art. This is more glamour than metal. Go where the money is, right?
Opening with the riff-tastic “City Boy Blues” this is the sound of a band finding the sweet spot. They've been on tour for a while and are ready to flex their muscles. Surveyed their surroundings and realized that MTV is of two minds, poncy hairdressers with keyboards and Michael Jackson. Crue brought the T & A.

In retrospect, “Smokin' in the Boys' Room” makes perfect sense as a cover. When it came out I thought it was weirdly incongruous. Until I realized that Mars & Sixx are so fixated on early 70s glam rock/pop. This fit perfectly. I totally dig Vince Neil's passable harmonica as well. The boys are going for rock cred here.
We don't really get a solid Mars lead lick until the 3rd track, “Louder than Hell”. It's kept to a minimum but it's tasty.
“Keep Your Eye on the Money” is basically an AC/DC song that goes on about a minute too long. But at a time when AC/DC wasn't doing anything worthwhile somebody had to pick up the grail.
If you think that Nikki Sixx didn't in some way have his finger on the pulse of how to write a hit, check out “Home Sweet Home” and then listen to Carrie Underwood's 2009 cover, which served as the sayonara song for American Idol that year. And a big hit on the country charts.
Yes. Crue. On Idol. Crue. On the country charts. Bret Michaels must have cried when that happened.
And, seriously, go Mick Mars!
Speaking of Mick Mars... “Use It or Lose It” is really just an excuse to let him go crazy. Here's a guy who just really wanted to be in a rock band, grew up in the 70s, was coming to the end of his chances and hit the motherlode.
After the stadium ready “Save our Souls”, the band busts out the acoustic guitars, pair them with the crunch and give us another Anthem, “Raise Your Hands to Rock”.
I kind of wish the record didn't end on such a uninteresting pander to fist pumping but, what can you do?
This is 80s metal/glam. I dig it.

Grade: A-
A Side: Smokin' in the Boys Room, Home Sweet Home
BlindSide: City Boy Blues, Keep Your Eye on the Money, Use it or Lose It, Raise Your Hands to Rock
DownSide: Tonight (We Need A Lover)



Motley Crue – Dr. Feelgood – 1989

Ripping a page from Kiss's Destroyer, Crue's monster hit opens with the sounds of, I assume, someone in an ambulance arriving at a hospital. Makes sense. Nikki Sixx nearly died of heroin overdose. Vince Neil's car accident took the life of Hanoi Rocks' lead singer. Slamming into the stadium ready single, “Dr. Feelgood”, a catchy pop metal beast if I've ever heard one, the album is a culmination of everything these guys had been working toward for the past decade. “Slice of Your Pie” is a mutant hybrid of Poison and Guns n' Roses, as is much of the record.
“Rattlesnake Shake” could be any other Crue song but that's fine with me because it sounds more vital due to that strong production and, anyway, I'm just not tired of the act yet. And then there's that Sweet meets cocaine, “Kickstart My Heart”. For all Buckcherry lays claim to being the heir apparent to GnR, it's obvious they were slaves to the Crue. “Kickstart” may be about Sixx's brush with death but, if it is, it's the most energetic one I've ever heard. “Without You” is the requisite ballad. Interchangeable with every Cinderella, Ratt, Poison, etc, hair metal balladry, sure. But, once you're caught up in the record (and those minor chords help) you don't mind. It's only gonna be a couple minutes anyway. One minute their extolling the specific talents they love in a woman (“She Goes Down”) and the very next tossing her to the curb (“Don't Go Away Mad, Just Go Away”). I even dig that last track, “Time for Change”. It's not as aggro as the rest of the record, but it's a perfect theme song to a prom in 1989.

Dr. Feelgood puts on airs of being “serious rock” but it's just glam-pop gussied up in deeper kick drums and bigger bass lines.

Grade: A
A Side: Dr. Feelgood, Kickstart My Heart, Same Ol' Situation, Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)
BlindSide: Slice of Your Pie, She Goes Down
DownSide:



Motley Crue – Motley Crue – 1994

Waitaminnit! Kiss did this, didn't they?!? Lemme see...no, no! Crue was there first! They were first to abandon their glam rock sound, the one that sold them millions of records and afforded them all the cars, homes and girls, to ditch that in favor of the emerging trend of grunge! What a bunch of maroons.
Vince Neil, jettisoned by the band (or leaving on his accord, depending on the story) leaves quite a vacuum in a rock band. You can replace the bassist. The drummer. Mayyyybe the lead guitarist. You might hire people to write new songs (hello, Aerosmith). But when you replace the voice of the band. What people sing along to. The human image of the band. You better be damn sure you got the right guy.
Crue did.
For what they were trying to achieve.
It's obvious from the first song, “Power to the Music”, that Nikki Sixx has decided that the band needed to move on from the hair metal days. The writing was on the wall. And I think that's smart. But, for a writer who's steeped in 70s glam, ala The Sweet, I'm not sure if Sixx has what it takes to make that transition. Before I listen to the whole thing my first guess would be that it's going to be most difficult on Mick Mars. Mars's entire oeuvre is blues guitar. All his riffs come out of the Ace Frehley handbook. What's he gonna do with an idiom that is all minor power chords and sustain?
I like that first track, by the way.
By the time we get to “Hooligan's Holiday”, the 3rd track, it's obvious we're not here for a good time. This isn't pussy, jack and coke. It's...something else. “Misunderstood” sounds like an interpretation of a Mother Love Bone song for the first 3 minutes and then when it kicks into high gear, essentially becoming another song entirely, like 3rd rate Buckcherry. Maybe none of this is fair. After all, this is NOT Motley Crue. It's another band. Corabi didn't just come in and lay down vocals. He's brought songs with him. Songs that are not Crue songs as we know them. But they're songs.
“Poison Apples” comes closest to harkening back to the Crue of yore. It's energetic and designed to be a crowd pleaser. The riff heavy “Hammered” is a Corabi piece that gives a pretty good indication of what kind of band Crue might have been had he been with them from the start. They wouldn't have been as successful but they might have been taken more seriously by rock purists.
Taken as not a Crue album, Motley Crue is fine for what it is. There are moments that I actually enjoy. The headbanging of “Welcome to the Numb”, for instance. I can get into that kind of generic grunge metal. The same goes for “Smoke the Sky” a metal-fest that owes more to Metallica than 70s glam. I don't mind this record. I even like the closing power ballad.
To rate it in comparison to the predecessors would be stupid. It would get an F. But, as a stand alone of it's kind, it's no worse than many that came out at the time and its certainly better than Kiss's Carnival of Souls.

Grade: C
A Side: Power to the Music, Driftaway
BlindSide: Poison Apples, Hammered
DownSide: Hooligan's Holiday


Motley Crue – Generation Swine – 1997

I really don't know what the fuck this is. Yeah, yeah, I get it. The Corabi led band was a disaster. Metal was pushed off the airwaves by grunge. Get Neil back to lead on vox and put the whole shebang out as a reunion of sorts.
Trouble is, right from the start, with “Find Myself”, I'm not totally convinced that they could have put any singer on the tracks. It's the first time we've heard Nikki Sixx sing any part as a lead vocalist (he shares the song with Neil) but that's no help. The songs are awful. There's nothing to hold onto. It's as uninspired as I've ever heard. Case in point the turgid “Afraid” some weird ass hybrid of metal and Sonic Youth droning where they ask “are you afraid of change?”. It's not change we are afraid of, guys. It's crap. And this is crap. John Corabi sued the band, claiming that he had a hand in co-writing most of the record. Dude, after listening to “Flush”, you want the credit for this? Take it.
The title track tries to infuse some energy and emergency into the proceedings but it fails as it flails around in 20 different directions. It's just a sad record.
There isn't much to enjoy here. I'm not sure if I dig “Is Anybody Out There?” because it kicks like old school Crue in overdrive or cuz it clocks in at under 2 minutes or that it sounds like it could have been on the soundtrack to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, you haven't heard anything if you haven't been privvy to the psychedelia-infused, acousti-balladeering of “Rocketship”. It's Love & Rockets sans talent and skill.
Why they felt the need to redo Shout at the Devil at all, let alone to give it the Nine Inch Nails industrial feel, is way beyond me. It sounds terrible.
I've heard the album closer, “Brandon”, the song Tommy Lee wrote and sings for his son, described as “mawkish”. Yep. That's about right. It's sick-makingly bad. You have no idea how bad this song is. It's horrible.
Like this whole record.

Grade: F
A Side: Nothing.
BlindSide: Is Anybody Out There?
DownSide: Afraid, Flush, Rocketship, Brandon



Motley Crue – New Tattoo – 2000

If it ain't broke and you broke it go back and fix it. In the case of Crue we need to forget that eponymous record with John Corabi. The next one, Generation Swine, as well inasmuch as the boys were still in some edgy, dark place and just having Vince sing over songs they had originally intended for and co-wrote with Corabi.
New Tattoo is supposed to be a return to form. Hair Metal is dead. The party's over. By the time this came out Alternative had been replaced by bubblegum, teen-pop and boy bands. Tommy Lee was gone by this point, too. But, does that really matter? As I've said before, not nearly as much as the lead singer. It's not like Tommy was John Bonham. He hit hard and kept a beat. Replacing him with Ozzy Osbourne's drummer, the late Randy Castillo, made no difference at all.
On the first track, “Hell on High Heels” is exactly the right call. Mars's solo is explosive. I didn't realize how much I missed it. He's pretty explosive on “Punched in the Teeth by Love”, too.
The title track, which is actually a ballad, sounds like it would have been right at home on Dr. Feelgood. In fact, this album plays like the sequel to that album that never was.
I'm pretty sure that, even if they put this out in 1991 instead of almost a decade later, it would have been a smash. If they waited til 1994 like that Corabi led album, it would have tanked. The times had changed.
There's a lot of second rate junk on this record, but complaining about that is not to really understand Crue at all. It's ALL second rate junk. If you get past importance in rock you get it.
Crue, when they get it, the get it. Take “Porno Star” for example. Is it a great song? No. Can you complain about the content? Sure. But, then you'd have to complain about most of Crue's early work. It's stupid to do that because the songs are stoopid to begin with. And they get a chunk of points for covering The Tubes' “White Punks on Dope” and not fucking it up.

If you love old school Crue, like Girls, Girls, Girls or Dr. Feelgood, this record will fit right in.

Grade B
A Side: Hell on High Heels, Porno Star
BlindSide: Treat Me Like The Dog I Am, White Punks on Dope
DownSide: She Needs Rock and Roll



Motley Crue – Saints of Los Angeles – 2008

I haven't liveblogged an album in a while. Let's remedy that with the last Crue disc.
Following on the heels of his soundtrack to auto-biography, Sixx employs Sixx:A.M. Vocalist James Michael as producer and they write (with others) the soundtrack to the book, “The Dirt”.

1.L.A.M.F. - a spoken word welcome to the cess pool of sleaze, Los Angeles, set to an ominous soundtrack of almost industrial noise bleeds into
2.Face Down in the Dirt – I've read “The Dirt”. I have it in hard back. It's one of the greatest rock band books ever written. This is the soundtrack. From the lyrics this is about the early days. When Sixx met Mars. It kicks ass a bit, I must say. Reminds me of “Life is Beautiful” in it's outsized glory.
3.What's it Gonna Take? - Okay. So the boys are down on their luck and they aren't sure they've got what it takes. Or at least that's what they're told. Radio Stations turn them away. So they “take it to the street”. Mediocre song. Mind melting guitar work.
4.Down at the Whisky – An ode to the good old days playing at the venerable club on the Sunset Strip. It's a big tune. As big as the rep of those days. Catchy, too.
5.Saints of Los Angeles – So, then they signed a contract with Elektra. And became the Saints of Los Angeles. I'll say this for this record. It's the best sounding Crue record in, like, ever. Play it loud. I dig it. (Josh Todd, among others, on backing vox!)
6.Motherfucker of the Year – I'm guessing that, at this point in the story, they are sowing their oats. This is only a Motley Crue record in that the four guys played on it. It's really a Sixx:A.M. Album. With Martin Frederickson to co-write the tracks and make them even more radio friendly. That's a good thing, by the way. The Heroin Diaries is a slamming record.
7.The Animal in Me – Sex. Sex. And more sex. Lord knows they got a LOT of it. Read the book.
8.Welcome to the Machine – Sixx is pretty clear in The Dirt that the record industry is a machine. A series of gears. Each one requiring that you jump to the next or be ground up and destroyed. For an industry that gave these guys the mansions, the cars, the girls, they really hate it and are intent on biting the hand that fed them. This is a standard issue middle album cut. Not bad. Not good.
9.Just Another Psycho – Finally Mick Mars gets to really cut loose. Lord only knows who the song is about. It could be any of them. The insanity that Kiss laid claim to is a kiddie show compared to the circus of Crue.
10.Chicks = Trouble – You'd think with this title it would be a crapfest. It's a screed against all the women that took the guys for money and other stuff. Sixx's Brandi. Mars's Emi. Tommy's Pam. Vince's Sharisa. It's pretty on the nose. But the music hits as hard as the anger. And one thing about the guys, they always blame themselves. They like pussy. They are little boys. They want love. They have money. They like pretty things. They deserve what they get. And they know it. I appreciate that.
11.This Ain't a Love Song – Pretty much the same theme as the previous. Only it's more callous. “This ain't a love song, this is a fuck song.” man, talk about bitter. (Also the only track with co-writing credit to Tommy (The dumbest man in the world) Lee.
12.White Trash Circus – A swinging metal anthem reminiscent of Marilyn Manson's “The Beautiful People”. It's also about the time that they started to really hate each other.
13.Goin' Out Swinging – It plays like an “us against the world” song, but we all know better. There's much more to the story. Oh, yeah. This is almost speed metal meets Metalli-glam.

This is the record I've been hoping that Crue would have recorded. Understanding that they are a brand, not a band. A concept more than a conceit. I only wish that it was, get this, longer. I want to hear the soundtrack to the bad times, the Corabi days. The days of divorce and jail and death. I want more, guys. Give me the sequel!
You're not gonna believe it but.....

Grade: A-
A Side: Face Down in the Dirt, Saints of Los Angeles
BlindSide: Down at the Whisky, Chicks = Trouble, Going Out Swinging.
DownSide: The Animal in Me