I have been mocked! I have been accused -and in the pages of my own newspaper, too, my beloved Krepe de la Kape, for which I have toiled selflessly (except for a modest stipend) lo these many years -of using a pen name. A pen name! As if!! Can you actually imagine anyone, granted the right to choose his own last name, deciding that “Kelp” was absolutely the most colorful and romantic of all the various possibilities?
For the record, when I first came to this office some thirty-seven (is it really thirty-seven years? can that be possible? actually, no, now that I think of it), make that, nine years ago, I did in my naiveté ask if I could use a pseudonym; but my editor at the time deemed my choice, R. Nalton Thruppy, too “suggestive.” Since then, I’ve always been proud that I listened to that wise editor, for my work has brought me much honor in the years that intervened (and a modest stipend.)
This is most patently a filthy and scabrous lie, perpetrated by an evil, villainous cad, a so-called “musician”, despite the fact that his band of aging, oily, talentless, balding fatsos can only get a job in one bar in the world, having no doubt been fired already from most of the rest. Yet this stinking wad of malignant offal is given a forum right here in these pages, in my very sanctuary!
Oh, why was I not made of stone like thee? This is hard enough on the men-folk; Mrs. Kelp (who, even in mourning, is one hotsy-totsy cutie) hasn’t come out of her room in three days, so affected is she by the scandal.
As much as it saddens me to say this, under the present circumstances, I don’t see how I can possibly continue in the good humor for which I have long been noted, and thus I respectfully submit my resignation.
I will consider returning if (and only if) the perpetrator of this ugliness delivers a prompt and sincere apology and is shot out of a cannon into a big lake. (After all, to forgive is divine.)
I don’t mean to keep going on about it -and I promise to get off it in just a second -but the same “writer”, in his so-called “article” last week about the Wellfleet Beachcomber, seemed to select the most boring anecdotes possible, to the exclusion of the much spicier stories I might have provided, had I been consulted.
For instance, did you know that, at one point in the nineties, Beachcomber manager Danny Murray (with whom I am, even today, so intimate that I call him “Danny” instead of the more provincial, less playful “Dan”) brought in a band called the Clamdiggers (which was basically a different version of a venerated Boston band that at various points called itself the Titanics, the Satanics, and the Upper Crust), and that the Clamdiggers broke up when one of their members, Ted Widmer, was hired to be a speech writer for Bill Clinton?
Now, that’s an anecdote! Other writers’ anecdotes stink, while mine stay colorful and zesty!
Let’s not dwell. I had a pretty good run while it lasted -we had some good times together, didn’t we? Let’s not let this one aberration, this one ghastly, freakish accident, dis-color all our happy memories together. What the hell -these are probably the last few sentences I’ll ever write, now that I have been so thoroughly disgraced and betrayed. What the hell -let’s go out on a high-note, with more of the same hard-hitting, impartial, practically award-winning music journalism you’ve come to expect:
Babaloo is playing this Friday, June 1, at the Beachcomber. They are sometimes referred to as a punk-mambo band, but those are only two of the many world music elements they combine to such danceable effect. Go see them -they’re a real fun band.
Damn, now I’m really starting to mist up. This is really taking a lot out of me. After all this time, to have it all just end like this... it’s not fair, it’s just not fair. I guess now I know how Johnny Carson felt, or Seinfeld, or that other guy on TV who quit.
Still, I guess it’s time to just say goodbye, so... I love you all
-goodbye.
Friday, May 31, 2002
Friday, May 24, 2002
Chowder of the Gods
I come to you this week bitter, angry, and disappointed -pretty much like last week, except more angry and bitter, because elsewhere in this issue my so-called editor has seen fit to hand over a feature assignment -one that I might normally be expected to fulfill -to a “person” who is only slightly less qualified as a writer than he is as a musician -which is to say, not at all. This person is a rube, a jape, a Buick -the kind of person who has no respect for literary pseudonyms. A big stupid! And that’s all I’ll say about it, for now...
Except, damn, this really riles me! This moron couldn’t write his way out of a giant tin can with a big hole in it -he’s that untalented! I don’t even want to talk about it -that’s never been what this column’s all about.
I also have a Horrible True Confession to make, and I’m not looking forward to it.The truth is, last week, my brother-in-law and I decided to get a snack on the way home from bowling in Wellfleet. (Actually, there are no bowling alleys in Wellfleet so we just pretend bowl. We’ve been doing it for years; you don’t really have to keep score, or anything -it’s nice!) and I wanted chowder and he wanted beer so I got some chowder to go at P.J.’s and we went to the High Toss to get a couple of beers.
My brother-in-law -always a canny observer -cautioned me ahead of time that it might be a good idea to tell them I was friends with one of the employees, so they’d let me in with food from somewhere else. You see, I had been there the week before -it was one of seven places I went to in Wellfleet that were either closed or did not serve chowder when it was raining and cold and when I had to have chowder.
You know, a lot of people don’t realize this, but there is a time when a man needs chowder, when he’ll do almost anything to get chowder. Instinctively, I girded my loins -then, just as quickly, ungirded them. I couldn’t decide whether they should be girded or not.
Back to the more recent past: we have our beers, we see our friend Sam, who is only 56, but horribly arthritic to the point of being just barely able to work at all; he is friendly as always, and vouches for us, and I have my chowder, and the bartender is very nice, and we have another beer or two, and leave without a care.
Well, it seems word filtered back to Mrs. K (my sparkling, almost phosphorescent semi-diaphonous wife) that I had made a total idiot of myself at the restaurant, and that my faux pas was legend across the width and breadth of Wellfleet, myself a figure of ridicule. Sam had quit later that day out of sheer mortification, despite the likelihood that nowhere else would hire him because of his hump, and has disappeared and not been heard from since. Sam’s mother, Gwyneth LaPlante, a fit and trim 67 who still doesn’t look a day over, well, 67 or so, has apparently told Mrs. K that she thinks I am the devil.
So the whole thing has been pretty embarrassing, and i’m not really sure how I can make it right. I think I’m probably going to just try to stay out of those particular restaurants in Wellfleet that hate me for now, and generally eat somewhere else. I wondered at first if word had gotten back to P.J.’s, and whether they might also turn me away. In the end, I didn’t want to risk being humiliated, so I went somewhere new, despite the fact that P.J.’s chowder had always been by far my favorite on the cape.
If I could’ve found a place with people that didn’t speak English, I would have. Instead, I did the next best thing: I went to Galley Girls, our friend Jane Scherer’s new restaurant, sort of. I say, “sort of”, because during the morning it’s still called Uncle Frank’s, but during the afternoon it’s now called Galley Girls and run by Jane and our other good friend, Mary Liebau, who also runs a fly-by-night goose frightening service. Both Jane and Mary are frighteningly good conversationalists, and the space is delightful: it’s next to the Wellfleet Pier, in the same building that houses the WHAT (Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theater), and has a wonderful view, but it’s delightfully unkempt and miraculously and totally un-yuppified. It’s like this great, musty little rumpus room from the fifties.
And the chowder! Heaven! Rapture! THE CHOWDER IS SPECTACULAR!!! This is the only place on the lower cape I’ve found in all these years besides P.J.s that actually has the kind of chowder I adore, which is the brothy kind, not that heavy, creamy stuff they serve everywhere -that stuff is ok now and then, but the brothy thing is definitely where it’s at, and this stuff is a wonderful version -as good as, no, at least as good as P.J.’s. The rest of the food we had was great, too, but the chowder! Ooo la la! I just hope they never find out about my sordid past...
In other music news, Ramona Silver will have what I believe might be her Cape Cod debut at the Wellfleet Beachcomber tonight (Friday, May 24th.) In addition to being one of the nicest folks you’d ever want to meet, Ramona has had a long and illustrious career in the Boston alternative scene, even winning the WBCN Rumble some years back.
She and her band have recently released their third full length CD, “Death By Candy” (Fingerprint, www.ramonasilver.com), which features some purty nice pop kinda stuff, frequently with appealing harmonies -my pick hit is “Residue”, with “The Saint at 99” and “Halo” bubbling under. Her last album, “Ultrasound” (also on Fingerprint), is also well worth your consideration, and I hope you’ll all extend to her a fine welcome at da ‘Coma, which is outdoing itself with a whole pile of interesting opening weekend selections, especially Spookie Daly Pride and King Missile on Sunday afternoon and evening respectively.
Ciao! (der.)
Except, damn, this really riles me! This moron couldn’t write his way out of a giant tin can with a big hole in it -he’s that untalented! I don’t even want to talk about it -that’s never been what this column’s all about.
I also have a Horrible True Confession to make, and I’m not looking forward to it.The truth is, last week, my brother-in-law and I decided to get a snack on the way home from bowling in Wellfleet. (Actually, there are no bowling alleys in Wellfleet so we just pretend bowl. We’ve been doing it for years; you don’t really have to keep score, or anything -it’s nice!) and I wanted chowder and he wanted beer so I got some chowder to go at P.J.’s and we went to the High Toss to get a couple of beers.
My brother-in-law -always a canny observer -cautioned me ahead of time that it might be a good idea to tell them I was friends with one of the employees, so they’d let me in with food from somewhere else. You see, I had been there the week before -it was one of seven places I went to in Wellfleet that were either closed or did not serve chowder when it was raining and cold and when I had to have chowder.
You know, a lot of people don’t realize this, but there is a time when a man needs chowder, when he’ll do almost anything to get chowder. Instinctively, I girded my loins -then, just as quickly, ungirded them. I couldn’t decide whether they should be girded or not.
Back to the more recent past: we have our beers, we see our friend Sam, who is only 56, but horribly arthritic to the point of being just barely able to work at all; he is friendly as always, and vouches for us, and I have my chowder, and the bartender is very nice, and we have another beer or two, and leave without a care.
Well, it seems word filtered back to Mrs. K (my sparkling, almost phosphorescent semi-diaphonous wife) that I had made a total idiot of myself at the restaurant, and that my faux pas was legend across the width and breadth of Wellfleet, myself a figure of ridicule. Sam had quit later that day out of sheer mortification, despite the likelihood that nowhere else would hire him because of his hump, and has disappeared and not been heard from since. Sam’s mother, Gwyneth LaPlante, a fit and trim 67 who still doesn’t look a day over, well, 67 or so, has apparently told Mrs. K that she thinks I am the devil.
So the whole thing has been pretty embarrassing, and i’m not really sure how I can make it right. I think I’m probably going to just try to stay out of those particular restaurants in Wellfleet that hate me for now, and generally eat somewhere else. I wondered at first if word had gotten back to P.J.’s, and whether they might also turn me away. In the end, I didn’t want to risk being humiliated, so I went somewhere new, despite the fact that P.J.’s chowder had always been by far my favorite on the cape.
If I could’ve found a place with people that didn’t speak English, I would have. Instead, I did the next best thing: I went to Galley Girls, our friend Jane Scherer’s new restaurant, sort of. I say, “sort of”, because during the morning it’s still called Uncle Frank’s, but during the afternoon it’s now called Galley Girls and run by Jane and our other good friend, Mary Liebau, who also runs a fly-by-night goose frightening service. Both Jane and Mary are frighteningly good conversationalists, and the space is delightful: it’s next to the Wellfleet Pier, in the same building that houses the WHAT (Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theater), and has a wonderful view, but it’s delightfully unkempt and miraculously and totally un-yuppified. It’s like this great, musty little rumpus room from the fifties.
And the chowder! Heaven! Rapture! THE CHOWDER IS SPECTACULAR!!! This is the only place on the lower cape I’ve found in all these years besides P.J.s that actually has the kind of chowder I adore, which is the brothy kind, not that heavy, creamy stuff they serve everywhere -that stuff is ok now and then, but the brothy thing is definitely where it’s at, and this stuff is a wonderful version -as good as, no, at least as good as P.J.’s. The rest of the food we had was great, too, but the chowder! Ooo la la! I just hope they never find out about my sordid past...
In other music news, Ramona Silver will have what I believe might be her Cape Cod debut at the Wellfleet Beachcomber tonight (Friday, May 24th.) In addition to being one of the nicest folks you’d ever want to meet, Ramona has had a long and illustrious career in the Boston alternative scene, even winning the WBCN Rumble some years back.
She and her band have recently released their third full length CD, “Death By Candy” (Fingerprint, www.ramonasilver.com), which features some purty nice pop kinda stuff, frequently with appealing harmonies -my pick hit is “Residue”, with “The Saint at 99” and “Halo” bubbling under. Her last album, “Ultrasound” (also on Fingerprint), is also well worth your consideration, and I hope you’ll all extend to her a fine welcome at da ‘Coma, which is outdoing itself with a whole pile of interesting opening weekend selections, especially Spookie Daly Pride and King Missile on Sunday afternoon and evening respectively.
Ciao! (der.)
Friday, May 17, 2002
Liam's Big Adventure
Say you're working as a roadie for a well-known band of musical virtuosos and their drummer suddenly becomes unavailable and you get promoted to drummer twenty minutes before they play an outdoor show for 8000 people at the Kentucky Derby; would you be unfazed?
Brewster's Liam Hogg, who plays with the local trio, Earth Junior, wasn't -but he still managed a performance good enough to keep him on the NRBQ drum throne for the rest of the week. A few days later, Liam joked that the whole experience had been hard on his underwear: "I couldn't even look out into the crowd -it just freaked me out!"
The band had been out for a couple of weeks, starting on the west coast and then heading east for some midwest gigs, when disaster struck: drummer Tom Ardolino's wife had been admitted to a hospital for heart palpitations, and he needed to stay near, both to care for her and to look after the kids (fortunately, Mrs. Ardolino has since recovered.) This left the band with no drummer, only hours away from a big outdoor show as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival.
Late on the morning of the show, 'Q guitarist Johnny Spampinato put Liam on alert, saying that they weren't sure, but they might need him to take over for Tommy on drums that night. Immediately, Liam began cramming "Like for the hardest test in the world", listening to tapes and CDs, trying to predict which songs (the band has a legendarily large songlist) they might be playing that night.
In the afternoon, Liam heard that the band had managed to track down a guy who had played drums with them decades ago, and knew some of the songs, so it sounded like he would probably do it; but Liam didn't really know if he was off the hook or not. As showtime approached, the weather was complicating matters too, with heavy rain and tornado warnings that eventually forced the first couple of acts to cancel. Maybe between the bad weather and the other drummer ...he kept studying the tapes, just in case.
Then, the sky started to clear, and when the rest of the band finally showed up, twenty minutes before showtime, keyboardist Terry Adams told Liam he'd be the guy for the first part, and then they'd have the other drummer for a few of the older songs. He ended up playing for the first hour -and then coming back for the encore, obviously having passed this trial by fire -and then playing the next three nights. For Liam, it was the thrill of a lifetime.
The first night, he said, "I was rushing all the songs, and Terry was throwing some curve balls, calling songs I'd only heard once or twice. At one point, he called 'North of Alaska', and when I told him I'd never heard it, he just said 'play a march.' Johnny was my lifeline, trying to give me cues and hints on the spot about the songs I was unsure of."
He wasn't really sure how he had done until after the show, when bassist Joey Spampinato (Johnny's brother) took him aside and said, "Just so you know, I was very worried about this weekend, and now I'm not worried anymore." Liam figured he'd passed the audition, the next morning he called his Earth Junior colleague Colin Stevenson, who asked him not to play too good (not relishing a talent search himself.)
The rest of the week was played in smaller clubs, provoking a bit less anxiety (though Liam said the most nerve-wracking part was eventually - on the third night! -finally having a real rehearsal.) In Chicago, he was signing autographs; in Lafayette, Indiana, Terry joked that the band was paying Liam 25 cents per song, whereupon someone in the audience started taking up a collection for him, eventually presenting him with a large cup full of quarters; when he told Terry about it, Terry said "yeah, they're all over the stage, too!" Ah, success!
In other news, closer to home: remember that Scotty Moore/Lee Rocker show at Christine's I told you all that you absolutely had to go to last weekend? Well, I forgot to go to it. And I was psyched about that show, too! I mean, Elvis's actual guitar player! -how major is that?!?
I can't believe I forgot about it! I'll bet it was amazing! I've got to find out... I'll ask my editor, I'll bet he went. Actually, seeing as I forgot to go, I kind of hope it stank, and then I could eventually get credit for having the foresight to avoid a stinky situation. That would be good. I'll try to find out. If I find out something good, I'll tell you guys, so if you don't hear anything in the next couple weeks, you'll know it wasn't that big of a deal after all.
Man, I'm slipping, big time... there goes the Pulitzer again (eighth year in a row I haven't won the stupid thing -phooey!)
Brewster's Liam Hogg, who plays with the local trio, Earth Junior, wasn't -but he still managed a performance good enough to keep him on the NRBQ drum throne for the rest of the week. A few days later, Liam joked that the whole experience had been hard on his underwear: "I couldn't even look out into the crowd -it just freaked me out!"
The band had been out for a couple of weeks, starting on the west coast and then heading east for some midwest gigs, when disaster struck: drummer Tom Ardolino's wife had been admitted to a hospital for heart palpitations, and he needed to stay near, both to care for her and to look after the kids (fortunately, Mrs. Ardolino has since recovered.) This left the band with no drummer, only hours away from a big outdoor show as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival.
Late on the morning of the show, 'Q guitarist Johnny Spampinato put Liam on alert, saying that they weren't sure, but they might need him to take over for Tommy on drums that night. Immediately, Liam began cramming "Like for the hardest test in the world", listening to tapes and CDs, trying to predict which songs (the band has a legendarily large songlist) they might be playing that night.
In the afternoon, Liam heard that the band had managed to track down a guy who had played drums with them decades ago, and knew some of the songs, so it sounded like he would probably do it; but Liam didn't really know if he was off the hook or not. As showtime approached, the weather was complicating matters too, with heavy rain and tornado warnings that eventually forced the first couple of acts to cancel. Maybe between the bad weather and the other drummer ...he kept studying the tapes, just in case.
Then, the sky started to clear, and when the rest of the band finally showed up, twenty minutes before showtime, keyboardist Terry Adams told Liam he'd be the guy for the first part, and then they'd have the other drummer for a few of the older songs. He ended up playing for the first hour -and then coming back for the encore, obviously having passed this trial by fire -and then playing the next three nights. For Liam, it was the thrill of a lifetime.
The first night, he said, "I was rushing all the songs, and Terry was throwing some curve balls, calling songs I'd only heard once or twice. At one point, he called 'North of Alaska', and when I told him I'd never heard it, he just said 'play a march.' Johnny was my lifeline, trying to give me cues and hints on the spot about the songs I was unsure of."
He wasn't really sure how he had done until after the show, when bassist Joey Spampinato (Johnny's brother) took him aside and said, "Just so you know, I was very worried about this weekend, and now I'm not worried anymore." Liam figured he'd passed the audition, the next morning he called his Earth Junior colleague Colin Stevenson, who asked him not to play too good (not relishing a talent search himself.)
The rest of the week was played in smaller clubs, provoking a bit less anxiety (though Liam said the most nerve-wracking part was eventually - on the third night! -finally having a real rehearsal.) In Chicago, he was signing autographs; in Lafayette, Indiana, Terry joked that the band was paying Liam 25 cents per song, whereupon someone in the audience started taking up a collection for him, eventually presenting him with a large cup full of quarters; when he told Terry about it, Terry said "yeah, they're all over the stage, too!" Ah, success!
In other news, closer to home: remember that Scotty Moore/Lee Rocker show at Christine's I told you all that you absolutely had to go to last weekend? Well, I forgot to go to it. And I was psyched about that show, too! I mean, Elvis's actual guitar player! -how major is that?!?
I can't believe I forgot about it! I'll bet it was amazing! I've got to find out... I'll ask my editor, I'll bet he went. Actually, seeing as I forgot to go, I kind of hope it stank, and then I could eventually get credit for having the foresight to avoid a stinky situation. That would be good. I'll try to find out. If I find out something good, I'll tell you guys, so if you don't hear anything in the next couple weeks, you'll know it wasn't that big of a deal after all.
Man, I'm slipping, big time... there goes the Pulitzer again (eighth year in a row I haven't won the stupid thing -phooey!)
Friday, May 10, 2002
I Love Tractors
Strange week; strange weather still. We really didn’t have that usual part of winter where it’s too cold to live and you want to kill everyone at all this year, and it has sort of thrown off my annual schedule of complaints and harassments; I know I meant to dislike something this week, but I can’t remember what.
Or, more to the point, I know what I meant to dislike, but then I liked it by accident. Which is no good, for a critic. I’m expected -and depended on -to hate a certain number of things per year, and strangely enough, this year so far I’m way under quota.
I did hate quite a number of things last week, so I am starting to catch up; but I still really need to find a whole bunch of other things I don’t like at all, quick. And when I’m looking for things I’d really not like to be involved with (and I don’t have the energy for rap and heavy metal), I’ve found I can usually count on modern country music to bore me witless.
Thus it is with great confusion and disappointment that I must report to you that this week I actually quite liked an album by the Flatlanders, a trio comprised of the veteran Texan singer/songwriters Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Actually, the album isn’t modern country at all (I lied); it’s more Texas trad, and I’ve never been a big Texas singer-songwriter guy, either. I’ve heard all these guys before a bit, and liked ‘em OK, but not enough to bother with, and never really heard what all the critics were yappin’ about. I like Bob Wills and Doug Sahm, maybe a little Willie Nelson, but I don’t like cowboy hats and I don’t like songs about tractors.
And this damn Flatlanders album -which, by the way, is called “Now Again” (New West) -actually features a picture of a tractor (or possibly a part of a tractor, or something that goes with a tractor) right on the front cover. However, the weather in the photo is so interesting (featuring, as luck apparently had it, simultaneously a rainbow and a flash of lightning) that it made the tractor almost interesting itself. By golly, I might be able to get a nice, fat metaphor out of this! Let’s see...
Sometimes these old tractors use their lyrics as a sort of lightning that illuminates the human condition (represented in the picture by the hay which the tractor/songwriter is bailing) by the sensitivity of its rainbow-like, uh, thing; or something. Phew!
Bailing aside, what I’m trying to say is, some of these songs have wonderful lyrics. There’s a particularly strong stretch in the middle that includes this from “I Thought the Wreck was Over”: “They’ll tell you to expect the unexpected / But nobody ever tells you where it’s hid”; and this, from “Yesterday Was Judgement Day”: “Yesterday was judgment day -how’d you do? / Did you lay down in heaven? Did you wake up in hell? / I’ll bet you never guessed that it would be so hard to tell”; and who could not love a song called “My Wildest Dreams Get Wilder Every Day”?
The performances are relaxed, varied (each vocalist has his distinctive sound), and charming. It’s a little like the last Dylan album, in that there’s no new ingredients at all, but the result somehow ends up being quite remarkable. There seems to be a certain magic afoot: there’s only one other Flatlanders album, and that was released thirty years ago on eight track tape format only (!!) (though Rounder has since re-issued it.) These guys were young then, and lived together and played together and eventually all went off on their own; but you get the feeling they’re truly glad to see each other again (for one thing, all but two of the songs are credited to all three of them, so it must’ve been a cheerful collaboration.)
The trio format really works here, too, because on their solo albums, these guys really only have a couple of tricks each, which get old after twelve songs; but for four songs each, it’s fine! You really only need about a half a trick per song, tops, technically. Six tricks is actually a lot for one album -you probably wouldn’t even want more than that. Nowadays, you’re lucky if you get more than three or four tricks per record -six is huge!!
Like I say, liking this album so much worried me -I thought maybe I was losing it -so I did further testing, and happily managed to hate a couple of other new country albums, including Porter Hall Tennessee’s “Welcome to Porter Hall, Tennessee” (Slewfoot), which did have one great cut (“Middle Tennessee”) and some good singing (by Molly Conley), but ten other bad ones and much wretched singing (by Gary Roardarmel); and Remy Shand’s “The Way I Feel” (Motown), which, again, isn’t a country album at all (I am truly the soul of deceit!), but which once again teaches us the valuable lesson, “Beware white people on Motown!” (No matter what his promo says, this is not the boy version of India.Arie.) So I am glad to report that my bastard-like qualities have not completely deserted me, and that I will be savaging more unsuspecting up-and-comers next week. Ta!
Or, more to the point, I know what I meant to dislike, but then I liked it by accident. Which is no good, for a critic. I’m expected -and depended on -to hate a certain number of things per year, and strangely enough, this year so far I’m way under quota.
I did hate quite a number of things last week, so I am starting to catch up; but I still really need to find a whole bunch of other things I don’t like at all, quick. And when I’m looking for things I’d really not like to be involved with (and I don’t have the energy for rap and heavy metal), I’ve found I can usually count on modern country music to bore me witless.
Thus it is with great confusion and disappointment that I must report to you that this week I actually quite liked an album by the Flatlanders, a trio comprised of the veteran Texan singer/songwriters Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Actually, the album isn’t modern country at all (I lied); it’s more Texas trad, and I’ve never been a big Texas singer-songwriter guy, either. I’ve heard all these guys before a bit, and liked ‘em OK, but not enough to bother with, and never really heard what all the critics were yappin’ about. I like Bob Wills and Doug Sahm, maybe a little Willie Nelson, but I don’t like cowboy hats and I don’t like songs about tractors.
And this damn Flatlanders album -which, by the way, is called “Now Again” (New West) -actually features a picture of a tractor (or possibly a part of a tractor, or something that goes with a tractor) right on the front cover. However, the weather in the photo is so interesting (featuring, as luck apparently had it, simultaneously a rainbow and a flash of lightning) that it made the tractor almost interesting itself. By golly, I might be able to get a nice, fat metaphor out of this! Let’s see...
Sometimes these old tractors use their lyrics as a sort of lightning that illuminates the human condition (represented in the picture by the hay which the tractor/songwriter is bailing) by the sensitivity of its rainbow-like, uh, thing; or something. Phew!
Bailing aside, what I’m trying to say is, some of these songs have wonderful lyrics. There’s a particularly strong stretch in the middle that includes this from “I Thought the Wreck was Over”: “They’ll tell you to expect the unexpected / But nobody ever tells you where it’s hid”; and this, from “Yesterday Was Judgement Day”: “Yesterday was judgment day -how’d you do? / Did you lay down in heaven? Did you wake up in hell? / I’ll bet you never guessed that it would be so hard to tell”; and who could not love a song called “My Wildest Dreams Get Wilder Every Day”?
The performances are relaxed, varied (each vocalist has his distinctive sound), and charming. It’s a little like the last Dylan album, in that there’s no new ingredients at all, but the result somehow ends up being quite remarkable. There seems to be a certain magic afoot: there’s only one other Flatlanders album, and that was released thirty years ago on eight track tape format only (!!) (though Rounder has since re-issued it.) These guys were young then, and lived together and played together and eventually all went off on their own; but you get the feeling they’re truly glad to see each other again (for one thing, all but two of the songs are credited to all three of them, so it must’ve been a cheerful collaboration.)
The trio format really works here, too, because on their solo albums, these guys really only have a couple of tricks each, which get old after twelve songs; but for four songs each, it’s fine! You really only need about a half a trick per song, tops, technically. Six tricks is actually a lot for one album -you probably wouldn’t even want more than that. Nowadays, you’re lucky if you get more than three or four tricks per record -six is huge!!
Like I say, liking this album so much worried me -I thought maybe I was losing it -so I did further testing, and happily managed to hate a couple of other new country albums, including Porter Hall Tennessee’s “Welcome to Porter Hall, Tennessee” (Slewfoot), which did have one great cut (“Middle Tennessee”) and some good singing (by Molly Conley), but ten other bad ones and much wretched singing (by Gary Roardarmel); and Remy Shand’s “The Way I Feel” (Motown), which, again, isn’t a country album at all (I am truly the soul of deceit!), but which once again teaches us the valuable lesson, “Beware white people on Motown!” (No matter what his promo says, this is not the boy version of India.Arie.) So I am glad to report that my bastard-like qualities have not completely deserted me, and that I will be savaging more unsuspecting up-and-comers next week. Ta!
Friday, May 3, 2002
Everything Stinks
Everything this week stinks. New Albert Brooks movie, “My First Mister”: stinks. New Steve Martin movie, “Novocaine”: really stinks. New Wilco album, great band, Rolling Stone says it’s the first great album this year: stinks. New group from Sweden or someplace called the Hives, great look, ton of energy, punky, loud, short songs, Boston papers foaming at the mouth, sounds like just what we need: stinks. All is stinky.
The most depressing one of these is the Wilco album, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (Nonesuch), and not because it’s a bad album either -in fact, it’s a pretty good album. What happened with it is that when they turned it in to their record company -which at the the time was Reprise -they (Reprise) declined to release it, so the band bought the album back and started putting it out on the internet, where they achieved enough notoriety/word-of-mouse that Nonesuch (ironically owned by Time/Warner, which also owns Reprise) eventually came through with a reasonable offer.
Now it’s finally out and getting lots of great reviews, thus setting the stage for a nice little David and Goliath-type success story, with Wilco coming through with their integrity and music intact after essentially getting the bullies at Time/Warner to pay for the same album twice. It’s a darn fine record, too -not just more of the same, but an arguably bold step in a more subdued and arty direction that finds the band branching out in terms of more varied instrumentation and even a bit of dissonance.
The problem is that the songs are a little lackluster. Not terrible by any means -leader/singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy’s gift for compelling lyrics is still much in evidence, and the tunes are never less than OK, but there’s a certain sort of resigned deja-vu to the songs he’s come up with here. Lyrically, too many of them have a couple great lines but can’t decide whether to be direct or surreal, and melodically there just isn’t much meat. Past Wilco albums have always featured a rocker or two that could knock your socks off, a shot of joy to counteract the despair prevalent in so much of the material; this one kind of leaves you hanging, with no particular tune in your head.
Not that there’s any reason they should be held responsible for delivering something uplifting as well as depressing all the time, but it was a combination that worked. Reprise must’ve been singing the age-old record company favorite, “Where’s the single?” Commendable as it is that Wilco went out on a limb and altered their proven formula, the result is a little monotonous -fascinating, yet ultimately unsatisfying. The damn record company was right, and the artist (and don’t get me wrong, this is one of my favorite artists, and this will still be, as stupid Rolling Stone said, one of the best albums of the year) -was wrong, which is very depressing.
I hate when the record company is right -that should never happen! -yet ever since the CD era ushered in the Golden Age of Outtakes, in which we’ve all been buying not only our old record collections over again but the stuff that wasn’t even good enough to be in our record collections as well, I’ve had to admit that at least nine times out of ten, when a song was left off a record, it was for a good reason. This has been a very hard thing to admit.
Twenty years ago it would’ve been impossible to imagine that there were songs by the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Band, Hendrix, Otis Redding, you name it, that I didn’t need to hear; but now, the evidence is in, and the conclusion is inescapable: everybody sucks occasionally. The record companies were right. There’s exceptions, of course, as there are to every rule -but not anywhere near as many as I hoped there’d be. Progress has left my heroes tarnished, and given me added sympathy for their employers -apparently, nothing stays true. I may as well slash my wrists right now. I’m old, I’m tired...
Maybe I’m just in a bad mood this week. Albert Brooks is great in “My First Mister”, and the movie has some nice moments and a good premise in the unlikely friendship between a teenage goth misfit and an anal, middle-aged men’s clothing store manager, but the result is a little too much like an afterschool special. And The Hives debut CD, “Veni Vidi Vicious” (Sire) is somewhat refreshing, energy and attitude-wise, and while most of this is severely recycled New York punk, there’s a few cuts - “Main Offender”, “The Hives - Declare Guerre Nucleaire”, and “The Hives - Introduce the Metric System in Time” that work just fine (hell, it’s worth it just for those titles alone, and the look, and the promo -whaddaya want, Beethoven?)
So maybe I’m being too hard on some of these guys. The Steve Martin movie “Novocaine”, though, much as I love him, really does stink, through and through.
One bright spot for the future: Christine’s in Dennis has booked a show with Lee Rocker (ex-Stray Cats) on Saturday, May 11th, and he’ll be appearing with Scotty Moore, of all people -y’ know, Scotty Moore, Elvis’s original guitar player? The guy who played that total maniac, hilarious solo on “Too Much”, not to mention the rest of the early Elvis hits? So, assuming this is all on the level -and feel free to double-check to make sure that Scotty is indeed in the building, because this is an extremely rare and unusual occurrence - that makes it a pretty much compulsory event, assuming you have the $800 or whatever exorbitant fee Christine’s has decided to charge. (I’m going to get one of those little notebooks and pretend I’m a reporter.)
The most depressing one of these is the Wilco album, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (Nonesuch), and not because it’s a bad album either -in fact, it’s a pretty good album. What happened with it is that when they turned it in to their record company -which at the the time was Reprise -they (Reprise) declined to release it, so the band bought the album back and started putting it out on the internet, where they achieved enough notoriety/word-of-mouse that Nonesuch (ironically owned by Time/Warner, which also owns Reprise) eventually came through with a reasonable offer.
Now it’s finally out and getting lots of great reviews, thus setting the stage for a nice little David and Goliath-type success story, with Wilco coming through with their integrity and music intact after essentially getting the bullies at Time/Warner to pay for the same album twice. It’s a darn fine record, too -not just more of the same, but an arguably bold step in a more subdued and arty direction that finds the band branching out in terms of more varied instrumentation and even a bit of dissonance.
The problem is that the songs are a little lackluster. Not terrible by any means -leader/singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy’s gift for compelling lyrics is still much in evidence, and the tunes are never less than OK, but there’s a certain sort of resigned deja-vu to the songs he’s come up with here. Lyrically, too many of them have a couple great lines but can’t decide whether to be direct or surreal, and melodically there just isn’t much meat. Past Wilco albums have always featured a rocker or two that could knock your socks off, a shot of joy to counteract the despair prevalent in so much of the material; this one kind of leaves you hanging, with no particular tune in your head.
Not that there’s any reason they should be held responsible for delivering something uplifting as well as depressing all the time, but it was a combination that worked. Reprise must’ve been singing the age-old record company favorite, “Where’s the single?” Commendable as it is that Wilco went out on a limb and altered their proven formula, the result is a little monotonous -fascinating, yet ultimately unsatisfying. The damn record company was right, and the artist (and don’t get me wrong, this is one of my favorite artists, and this will still be, as stupid Rolling Stone said, one of the best albums of the year) -was wrong, which is very depressing.
I hate when the record company is right -that should never happen! -yet ever since the CD era ushered in the Golden Age of Outtakes, in which we’ve all been buying not only our old record collections over again but the stuff that wasn’t even good enough to be in our record collections as well, I’ve had to admit that at least nine times out of ten, when a song was left off a record, it was for a good reason. This has been a very hard thing to admit.
Twenty years ago it would’ve been impossible to imagine that there were songs by the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Band, Hendrix, Otis Redding, you name it, that I didn’t need to hear; but now, the evidence is in, and the conclusion is inescapable: everybody sucks occasionally. The record companies were right. There’s exceptions, of course, as there are to every rule -but not anywhere near as many as I hoped there’d be. Progress has left my heroes tarnished, and given me added sympathy for their employers -apparently, nothing stays true. I may as well slash my wrists right now. I’m old, I’m tired...
Maybe I’m just in a bad mood this week. Albert Brooks is great in “My First Mister”, and the movie has some nice moments and a good premise in the unlikely friendship between a teenage goth misfit and an anal, middle-aged men’s clothing store manager, but the result is a little too much like an afterschool special. And The Hives debut CD, “Veni Vidi Vicious” (Sire) is somewhat refreshing, energy and attitude-wise, and while most of this is severely recycled New York punk, there’s a few cuts - “Main Offender”, “The Hives - Declare Guerre Nucleaire”, and “The Hives - Introduce the Metric System in Time” that work just fine (hell, it’s worth it just for those titles alone, and the look, and the promo -whaddaya want, Beethoven?)
So maybe I’m being too hard on some of these guys. The Steve Martin movie “Novocaine”, though, much as I love him, really does stink, through and through.
One bright spot for the future: Christine’s in Dennis has booked a show with Lee Rocker (ex-Stray Cats) on Saturday, May 11th, and he’ll be appearing with Scotty Moore, of all people -y’ know, Scotty Moore, Elvis’s original guitar player? The guy who played that total maniac, hilarious solo on “Too Much”, not to mention the rest of the early Elvis hits? So, assuming this is all on the level -and feel free to double-check to make sure that Scotty is indeed in the building, because this is an extremely rare and unusual occurrence - that makes it a pretty much compulsory event, assuming you have the $800 or whatever exorbitant fee Christine’s has decided to charge. (I’m going to get one of those little notebooks and pretend I’m a reporter.)
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