Alrighty, I'm going to try to make this pretty damn snappy, because I've got things to do, so pay attention. I have some shopping I've got to get to.
Well, not shopping, exactly. Because of course I'm making my presents again this year, but even more so, because of The Economy. We're all going down the tubes, sayonara, the jog is up, it's curtains, yes, I'm talking to you, the economical Climate is a not so good. So I'm making my presents this year, because nothing says “cheap” like some awful thing I've made on my own in my room. This year it's pottery, making pottery, most terrible and heinous things that no one could ever want.
Last year I made a big point of getting everyone sweaters, which they hated, totally, invariably despised, so, somehow, I've got to top that. I'm very excited. It's going to be an excruciating, urn-filled holiday season for my friends and loved ones; even casual acquaintances will be made more uncomfortable by the hopeless despair that only pottery can offer.
Which means I've decided to combine my annual godforsaken Christmas Shopping Tips column with my dreaded Year-End Wrap-up column, just in the hope that we can get them both over with faster and I can get back to my kiln.
Movies – nope. Lame year. Sorry -unfortunately, no good movies were released this year. Certainly not ten of them. I could shoot for three, or four, maybe. You can probably blame it on The Economy.
I liked “In Bruges” and “Sweetland”. And we both loved “Wristcutters” and “Vicky Christina Barcelona” (the latter is particularly good if you like gorgeous women.)
Oh, wait, I think I thought of some more: “Daywatch”, the Russian sequel to “Nightwatch” (and not quite as great, but they're both fun); loved “Superbad”, and “Lust Caution” (talk about two movies that are almost identical!); and “Goya's Ghosts” (as fevered, wondrous and ridiculous as another old favorite, Coppola's “Bram Stoker's Dracula”), “This Is England” (which is probably from '07), “Before the Devil Knows You're Dead”, “Snow Angels”, and especially “The Fall” (which is a bit like a darker, more morbid “Time Bandits” in the way it confounds expectations.) OK, I guess I did like some movies.
Does that mean I liked some new music, too? I doubt it. I hate music.
Wait, though, there were some great songs and ok albums. Old pros Randy Newman (with his new “Harps and Angels”), Al Green (“Lay It Down”), David Byrne and Brian Eno (“Everything That Happens Will Happen Today”), and Bob Dylan (with his new outtakes and rarities collection from the last decade or so, “The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs ”) continued to dazzle, as did intriguing new pros Deerhoof (“Offend Maggie”), the Ruby Suns (“Sea Lion”; their earlier album is swell, too, especially if you love later period Beach Boys), and even Nada Surf (“The Weight Is a Gift”.) I also finally, belatedly got going on Elliott Smith (in particular, an album called “New Moon”), and kinda dug the Dodos and the Teeth; and right now I'm listening to an extremely striking new album called “Mythomania” by a group I've never heard of called Cryptacize. So, yeah, again, still some good music. Eleven, again. Wow -creepy.
Oh, man, here we go again -I'm out of room, and I'm half way through. OK, never mind; go buy some of these records for people for Christmas, or download 'em or whatever you kids are doing nowadays. Or rent the videos.
Or just relax! Make some pottery. Scare people.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
THURSTON KELP, POLITICAL ACTIVIST
I made a political phone call. I did. Me. To someone else. When I was awake and everything.
You who know me understand that this action flies in the face of everything I have always stood for. In fact, it has always been my ambition never to pay any attention to politics under any circumstances, never, no matter what. For instance, I don't believe I have ever mentioned a politician by name in these pages, for one very simple reason: mostly, I don't know their names.
In years past, sometimes, I have voted, sometimes not; when I have voted, it has been because my wife -my bride, my sexual love partner, the original, one and only Mrs. Kelp (for whom I harbor unnatural affections) -asked me to, and specified my ideas on the subject, not overburdening me with motivation, but in most cases merely proferring a short written list. I take her suggestions invariably, for She is Wise, not to mention my sexual love partner; plus that means I don't have to listen to any of the actual bozos themselves, which has worked out so well for me over the years, I can't tell you.
Perhaps you may wonder what would cause me to suspend such a practical policy. Let's see, how do I say this tactfully? It was fear that one of the candidates- I won't say which one, in order not to outrage anyone- seemed uniquely unqualified (best not to mention which one she was exactly) -might have a chance of serving. I was apprehensive, concerned, queasy, all at the same time. Kinda jumpy.
I told my darling wife I was thinking of pitching in and making some phone calls for the opposite party (again, probably best not to identify the candidate precisely, lest I be knifed, shot or burned; for the sake of discretion we'll just call him, “That One”), and what did she think of that idea. She commented that perhaps I had lost some of my crayons, and wondered how I, a person with no knowledge whatsoever of politics and current events, planned to answer spontaneous questions on those subjects intelligently. To my credit, I saw where she was coming from, and went back under the couch.
Much to my surprise, the nagging feeling that I should be pitching in somehow would not go away, and a few weeks later, at the urging of the 400th email from MoveOn, I actually made some calls. The first guy who answered was very nice, but I kept giggling, and had to excuse myself. Then, just to keep the laughs coming, I called my aged but still intermittently zesty parents, thinking they'd at least get a hoot out of it, but I only got about two sentences into my pre-written spiel before my mom, not recognizing my voice -and why would she, with those sentences! -said, “Oh, thank you, but we've already voted. Goodbye!” and hung up on me. Only my second political call, and already my own ma had declared me a total stranger!
I didn't really make that many calls, probably just about twenty, and half of those to answering machines (the tip sheet specified not leaving messages, but I ended up leaving a couple, figuring you can't ignore the answering machine vote), but they were all over, Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Montana, Ohio -they'd give you the numbers and a little script if you wanted, which got tossed pretty quickly. “Hi, this is Thurston from Massachusetts, quite possibly the least politically informed person in the entire commonwealth, saying, vote for That One! I endorse him! Do what I say!” -this was just one of my angles.
I had some nice conversations. Actually, my mission was to get other supporters of That One who lived in swing states (swing states! -what a concept!) to actually drive somewhere to spend a few hours making phone calls to other voters in their regions. So the object of my phone call was to talk people into making more phone calls. Definitely talked to some nice folk, preaching to the choir, but jesus! -I was voluntarily making unsolicited political phone calls! What had become of me?
Luckily, after about twenty calls, I finally found the nicest guy in Florida who seemed to have been considering the idea anyway, and he said sure, he'd do it, and I was done. I had actually made a recruitment! At which point I gave up completely, probably never to return to activism. And even though my guy said in his acceptance speech that there was much hard work ahead, and that we'd all have to work together, I had already determined that it was unlikely I'd be all over that one, so anxious was I to return to my privileged life of social indolence and decay.
But hey, it sure was fun when he won, huh? Man, I'm telling you, that was a night.
You who know me understand that this action flies in the face of everything I have always stood for. In fact, it has always been my ambition never to pay any attention to politics under any circumstances, never, no matter what. For instance, I don't believe I have ever mentioned a politician by name in these pages, for one very simple reason: mostly, I don't know their names.
In years past, sometimes, I have voted, sometimes not; when I have voted, it has been because my wife -my bride, my sexual love partner, the original, one and only Mrs. Kelp (for whom I harbor unnatural affections) -asked me to, and specified my ideas on the subject, not overburdening me with motivation, but in most cases merely proferring a short written list. I take her suggestions invariably, for She is Wise, not to mention my sexual love partner; plus that means I don't have to listen to any of the actual bozos themselves, which has worked out so well for me over the years, I can't tell you.
Perhaps you may wonder what would cause me to suspend such a practical policy. Let's see, how do I say this tactfully? It was fear that one of the candidates- I won't say which one, in order not to outrage anyone- seemed uniquely unqualified (best not to mention which one she was exactly) -might have a chance of serving. I was apprehensive, concerned, queasy, all at the same time. Kinda jumpy.
I told my darling wife I was thinking of pitching in and making some phone calls for the opposite party (again, probably best not to identify the candidate precisely, lest I be knifed, shot or burned; for the sake of discretion we'll just call him, “That One”), and what did she think of that idea. She commented that perhaps I had lost some of my crayons, and wondered how I, a person with no knowledge whatsoever of politics and current events, planned to answer spontaneous questions on those subjects intelligently. To my credit, I saw where she was coming from, and went back under the couch.
Much to my surprise, the nagging feeling that I should be pitching in somehow would not go away, and a few weeks later, at the urging of the 400th email from MoveOn, I actually made some calls. The first guy who answered was very nice, but I kept giggling, and had to excuse myself. Then, just to keep the laughs coming, I called my aged but still intermittently zesty parents, thinking they'd at least get a hoot out of it, but I only got about two sentences into my pre-written spiel before my mom, not recognizing my voice -and why would she, with those sentences! -said, “Oh, thank you, but we've already voted. Goodbye!” and hung up on me. Only my second political call, and already my own ma had declared me a total stranger!
I didn't really make that many calls, probably just about twenty, and half of those to answering machines (the tip sheet specified not leaving messages, but I ended up leaving a couple, figuring you can't ignore the answering machine vote), but they were all over, Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Montana, Ohio -they'd give you the numbers and a little script if you wanted, which got tossed pretty quickly. “Hi, this is Thurston from Massachusetts, quite possibly the least politically informed person in the entire commonwealth, saying, vote for That One! I endorse him! Do what I say!” -this was just one of my angles.
I had some nice conversations. Actually, my mission was to get other supporters of That One who lived in swing states (swing states! -what a concept!) to actually drive somewhere to spend a few hours making phone calls to other voters in their regions. So the object of my phone call was to talk people into making more phone calls. Definitely talked to some nice folk, preaching to the choir, but jesus! -I was voluntarily making unsolicited political phone calls! What had become of me?
Luckily, after about twenty calls, I finally found the nicest guy in Florida who seemed to have been considering the idea anyway, and he said sure, he'd do it, and I was done. I had actually made a recruitment! At which point I gave up completely, probably never to return to activism. And even though my guy said in his acceptance speech that there was much hard work ahead, and that we'd all have to work together, I had already determined that it was unlikely I'd be all over that one, so anxious was I to return to my privileged life of social indolence and decay.
But hey, it sure was fun when he won, huh? Man, I'm telling you, that was a night.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Kelp on the latest Dylan "boot"
If there's one lesson music collectors have been relentlessly taught in the last couple of decades of having record companies sell us re-packaged material over and over in slightly expanded editions, it's that there's a reason most outtakes were outtakes. I've always wanted to believe otherwise, partly because some of the artists represented are no longer still at it, but even more because I just don't want to believe that major corporations are right about anything; but it's the same thing as deleted scenes from favorite movies -even when they're deleted from really good movies, too often the viewer ends up agreeing for one reason or another with the original decision.
In pop music, even the greats didn't leave behind nearly as much as you'd wish they had. The Beatles and the Stones, for instance, had their catalogs exploited so completely when all that stuff was new that there just wasn't much left over, to the extent that nowadays people end up listening to alternate mixes with the most minor changes imaginable. Turns out we didn't really need vaults for most of this stuff after all!
As in most other regards, however, Bob Dylan is a major exception to this depressing rule -not really that surprising when you consider how favorably some of his recent albums (“Love and Theft” and “Time Out Of Mind” both come to mind) compare to his heyday. He should be completely irrelevant by now, but instead, the latest volume of his cast-offs, “Tell Tale Signs, Rare and Unreleased 1989 – 2006”, which is also volume 8 (!!!) of his bootleg series, is amazingly powerful and in fact is in many ways preferable to his last CD of original material, 2006's “Modern Times”, which wasn't half bad itself.
I really can't tell you what I like so damn much about Bob. After all, he's an incredibly mannered singer, frequently pretentious as all get out, a noted poseur, rootsy to the point sometimes of not seeming to care all that much about melodies at all, and he has always seemed to have a flagrant disregard for the process of making records, using very little of all the studio chicanery available to him and usually seeming pretty happy to get in and out as fast as possible.
Of course, when everybody else was getting real slick there in the eighties and nineties, his steadfast first take approach grew to have a certain charm, just as Neil Young's did when he and Bob seemed to be the last guys on earth who refused to buy guitar tuners. But I've never been a big guy for combing through lyrics that sound like literature, plus Bob's basically still kind of a folkie who frequently writes songs that are way longer than my attention span. What the hell -why would I care about this?
Well, just because Bob is still one righteous stud, is all I can figure.
First, let's be practical: there's some math involved here: the “normal” version of “Tell Tale Signs”, has two CDs and a fucking booklet, all for only $15.99 at Amazon, and the booklet has what they call your extensive (and actually exceptionally good) liner notes by Larry “Ratso” Sloman. Hell, it's a pretty good deal for 27 mostly high quality Bob tunes and a fucking booklet so lovely yet so chunky that it could fairly be called, a “book.”
So far so good, but check this out: there's another, different version for rich people! It looks pretty similar, but it has all the same stuff plus another (as usual) exceptional CD (twelve tracks and easily as good as either of the others), plus a vinyl single (two largely redundant selections), plus an additional book(let) or book or whatever, now don't get me going on that again, OK, but I'd pretty much say “book”, that has a large selection of his single sleeve cover art over the years -no doubt something you don't need that badly, unless you're an un-repentant geek or hopelessly wealthy, in which case, line up, Rodney, that'll be $115.99. Does that seem crazy to anyone else? Like, possibly a hundred dollars is a lot to pay for a CD, a single, and a book(let) or even a fucking book. So I don't know what the hell you wanna do about that, hey don't shoot the messenger, I'm just trying to help. His batting average doesn't change much over the course of the three CDs -christ, he's old as a hill but still batting about .600 and hitting one out of the park every 3 or 4 at-bats, a great power hitter and definitely still hitting to all fields -an amazing value in any league.
The two CDs a normal person would buy contain: a great, loping “All Shook Up” Elvis version of “Dignity”, which is a song I could swear I'd heard from him elsewhere, but couldn't find during my extensive research; an incredibly mangy, rabid vocal on a live take of a song from “Love and Theft” (one of my real favorites) called “Lonesome Day Blues” that is basically a seminar in “bad” singing (only in the sense that it always sounds nowadays like Bob is on the verge of losing whatever meager pipes he had, though of course they're wonderful pipes to me; but still, when he covered “Froggy Went A'Courtin'” or whatever the hell that was, back when he did those one-man trad/folk albums in the nineties, jesus, that was rough, but Bob has always demanded a long rope, and who better to endow with one? I only meant to say omigod what an amazing singer, how can he do all that, all those different voices over the years, what is he a fucking ventriloquist or what?
How does he make himself so compelling? What makes this magic work? Twenty thousand Dylan imitators down the road I should know that I'll never figure that out, and neither will you. It's like, agnosticism, or something.
Where was I? Oh yeah: a less-revolutionary-than-usual version of “Everything Is Broken” (from “Oh, Mercy”, which I don't remember paying much attention to), but this is a nice little rocker; a spooky little acoustic bass and organ number called “Dreamin' Of You” (as is frequently the case, I don't really know what he's singing about here -just haven't gotten around to it yet -but he sure sounds good doing it)...
The tragic third big money CD that no one could possibly afford contains a ridiculously groovy thing called “Marchin' To the City” (most of this stuff is from “Oh Mercy” and “Time out Of Mind”, both beautifully produced by Damiel Lanois -I knew the latter was great, and I'm figuring I better check out “Oh Mercy” again, too); the better of the two versions in the collection of a tune called “Born In Time” that's just a nice pop tune with some slightly Chinese melody lines... and generally lots more whole new songs he's never released before; but try to forget about that one, you really probably shouldn't be spending that much money on pop music at your age.
The regular, poor people's version also has a long, stately, gorgeous tune called “Cross the Green Mountain”, apparently from the sountrack to “Gods and Generals” (there's a few songs from soundtracks here, but this one is particularly stunning); the better of the two nice mariachi versions of the leisurely, traditional “Red River Shore”; and each CD has one of three -count 'em, 3 – wonderful versions of a “Love and Theft” tune called “Mississippi” that are 180 degrees away from the relatively modern-sounding version they released originally (which still worked -it's just a great song – but I like all the alternates better); as Ratso says in the notes, “I could listen to a whole album of various takes of it.” Usually, that's pretty boring in practice, but, like I said, there's exceptions to rules...
It's not like this is all great, just most of it. There's some solo-ish, folky thing I don't care for much - the live take of “The Girl On the Greenbriar Shore” is pretty bad, as are both takes of one called “Ring Them Bells”; other than that, though, it's really all at least pretty listenable -which is a little strange, too. You can put on whole sides of Bob's last few records as background music nowadays, which I never would've figured would ever be the case; but somehow, Bob's kooky-froggy singing is, yes, almost re-assuring at this point, despite how often he's warning us of the apocalypse. It really has been fun having a little Bob party lately...
See, now in just thinking about these songs I remembered that I hadn't paid enough attention to the song he sings with Ralph Stanley, “The Lonesome River”, which I loved, a true battle of car-horn singers; and then remembered liking the one before it, a little ballad called “Miss the Mississippi” that features a great, silly/pretty little harmonica interlude where he bulldozes along through these changes that his harp doesn't really have enough notes for, (or does it?) -jesus I'm really strarting to like this one, too. Looks like I got kind of a Bob fad going here, which is pretty damn fun, for a change.
Bob Dylan, “Tell Tale Signs, Rare and Unreleased 1989 – 2006” - ***and ½ – crazy ol' Bob, in his latest, most comfy incarnation a la “Love and Theft”, “Time Out Of Mind” and “Oh Mercy”, still provides more high quality music than normal people should expect or afford.
In pop music, even the greats didn't leave behind nearly as much as you'd wish they had. The Beatles and the Stones, for instance, had their catalogs exploited so completely when all that stuff was new that there just wasn't much left over, to the extent that nowadays people end up listening to alternate mixes with the most minor changes imaginable. Turns out we didn't really need vaults for most of this stuff after all!
As in most other regards, however, Bob Dylan is a major exception to this depressing rule -not really that surprising when you consider how favorably some of his recent albums (“Love and Theft” and “Time Out Of Mind” both come to mind) compare to his heyday. He should be completely irrelevant by now, but instead, the latest volume of his cast-offs, “Tell Tale Signs, Rare and Unreleased 1989 – 2006”, which is also volume 8 (!!!) of his bootleg series, is amazingly powerful and in fact is in many ways preferable to his last CD of original material, 2006's “Modern Times”, which wasn't half bad itself.
I really can't tell you what I like so damn much about Bob. After all, he's an incredibly mannered singer, frequently pretentious as all get out, a noted poseur, rootsy to the point sometimes of not seeming to care all that much about melodies at all, and he has always seemed to have a flagrant disregard for the process of making records, using very little of all the studio chicanery available to him and usually seeming pretty happy to get in and out as fast as possible.
Of course, when everybody else was getting real slick there in the eighties and nineties, his steadfast first take approach grew to have a certain charm, just as Neil Young's did when he and Bob seemed to be the last guys on earth who refused to buy guitar tuners. But I've never been a big guy for combing through lyrics that sound like literature, plus Bob's basically still kind of a folkie who frequently writes songs that are way longer than my attention span. What the hell -why would I care about this?
Well, just because Bob is still one righteous stud, is all I can figure.
First, let's be practical: there's some math involved here: the “normal” version of “Tell Tale Signs”, has two CDs and a fucking booklet, all for only $15.99 at Amazon, and the booklet has what they call your extensive (and actually exceptionally good) liner notes by Larry “Ratso” Sloman. Hell, it's a pretty good deal for 27 mostly high quality Bob tunes and a fucking booklet so lovely yet so chunky that it could fairly be called, a “book.”
So far so good, but check this out: there's another, different version for rich people! It looks pretty similar, but it has all the same stuff plus another (as usual) exceptional CD (twelve tracks and easily as good as either of the others), plus a vinyl single (two largely redundant selections), plus an additional book(let) or book or whatever, now don't get me going on that again, OK, but I'd pretty much say “book”, that has a large selection of his single sleeve cover art over the years -no doubt something you don't need that badly, unless you're an un-repentant geek or hopelessly wealthy, in which case, line up, Rodney, that'll be $115.99. Does that seem crazy to anyone else? Like, possibly a hundred dollars is a lot to pay for a CD, a single, and a book(let) or even a fucking book. So I don't know what the hell you wanna do about that, hey don't shoot the messenger, I'm just trying to help. His batting average doesn't change much over the course of the three CDs -christ, he's old as a hill but still batting about .600 and hitting one out of the park every 3 or 4 at-bats, a great power hitter and definitely still hitting to all fields -an amazing value in any league.
The two CDs a normal person would buy contain: a great, loping “All Shook Up” Elvis version of “Dignity”, which is a song I could swear I'd heard from him elsewhere, but couldn't find during my extensive research; an incredibly mangy, rabid vocal on a live take of a song from “Love and Theft” (one of my real favorites) called “Lonesome Day Blues” that is basically a seminar in “bad” singing (only in the sense that it always sounds nowadays like Bob is on the verge of losing whatever meager pipes he had, though of course they're wonderful pipes to me; but still, when he covered “Froggy Went A'Courtin'” or whatever the hell that was, back when he did those one-man trad/folk albums in the nineties, jesus, that was rough, but Bob has always demanded a long rope, and who better to endow with one? I only meant to say omigod what an amazing singer, how can he do all that, all those different voices over the years, what is he a fucking ventriloquist or what?
How does he make himself so compelling? What makes this magic work? Twenty thousand Dylan imitators down the road I should know that I'll never figure that out, and neither will you. It's like, agnosticism, or something.
Where was I? Oh yeah: a less-revolutionary-than-usual version of “Everything Is Broken” (from “Oh, Mercy”, which I don't remember paying much attention to), but this is a nice little rocker; a spooky little acoustic bass and organ number called “Dreamin' Of You” (as is frequently the case, I don't really know what he's singing about here -just haven't gotten around to it yet -but he sure sounds good doing it)...
The tragic third big money CD that no one could possibly afford contains a ridiculously groovy thing called “Marchin' To the City” (most of this stuff is from “Oh Mercy” and “Time out Of Mind”, both beautifully produced by Damiel Lanois -I knew the latter was great, and I'm figuring I better check out “Oh Mercy” again, too); the better of the two versions in the collection of a tune called “Born In Time” that's just a nice pop tune with some slightly Chinese melody lines... and generally lots more whole new songs he's never released before; but try to forget about that one, you really probably shouldn't be spending that much money on pop music at your age.
The regular, poor people's version also has a long, stately, gorgeous tune called “Cross the Green Mountain”, apparently from the sountrack to “Gods and Generals” (there's a few songs from soundtracks here, but this one is particularly stunning); the better of the two nice mariachi versions of the leisurely, traditional “Red River Shore”; and each CD has one of three -count 'em, 3 – wonderful versions of a “Love and Theft” tune called “Mississippi” that are 180 degrees away from the relatively modern-sounding version they released originally (which still worked -it's just a great song – but I like all the alternates better); as Ratso says in the notes, “I could listen to a whole album of various takes of it.” Usually, that's pretty boring in practice, but, like I said, there's exceptions to rules...
It's not like this is all great, just most of it. There's some solo-ish, folky thing I don't care for much - the live take of “The Girl On the Greenbriar Shore” is pretty bad, as are both takes of one called “Ring Them Bells”; other than that, though, it's really all at least pretty listenable -which is a little strange, too. You can put on whole sides of Bob's last few records as background music nowadays, which I never would've figured would ever be the case; but somehow, Bob's kooky-froggy singing is, yes, almost re-assuring at this point, despite how often he's warning us of the apocalypse. It really has been fun having a little Bob party lately...
See, now in just thinking about these songs I remembered that I hadn't paid enough attention to the song he sings with Ralph Stanley, “The Lonesome River”, which I loved, a true battle of car-horn singers; and then remembered liking the one before it, a little ballad called “Miss the Mississippi” that features a great, silly/pretty little harmonica interlude where he bulldozes along through these changes that his harp doesn't really have enough notes for, (or does it?) -jesus I'm really strarting to like this one, too. Looks like I got kind of a Bob fad going here, which is pretty damn fun, for a change.
Bob Dylan, “Tell Tale Signs, Rare and Unreleased 1989 – 2006” - ***and ½ – crazy ol' Bob, in his latest, most comfy incarnation a la “Love and Theft”, “Time Out Of Mind” and “Oh Mercy”, still provides more high quality music than normal people should expect or afford.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Of Montreal's "Id Engager"
OF MONTREAL- “Skeletal Lamping” -
Over the last decade or so, there has been no new band I've respected or been dazzled by more thoroughly and consistently than Of Montreal (who actually hail from Athens, GA., and are the brainchild of singer/songwriter Kevin Barnes.) I've been proselytizing for this bunch for years, and been rewarded with many albums that I consider masterpieces, not to mention surprises. “The Bedside Drama A Petite Tragedy”, “The Gay Parade”, and “Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies” all come to mind quickly, and there's lots of other highlights scattered through the surprisingly large catalog they've built up over the years; I've also seen them a few times, and that's always been a blast, too.
Their last couple of albums have sent interest in the band sky-rocketing, which is delightful, especially if you've gotten used to seeing creativity of this magnitude routinely ignored; but these albums have also gotten more and more techno-oriented and less human sounding, partly due to the presence of less humans: in the studio, the band, always largely a one man show anyway, seems to use the other band members contributions less and less (though they're all credited on the new CD, they're getting harder and harder to find) -and therein lies the rub. Their latest, “Skeletal Lamping”, continues the trend, and, while it's an impressive piece of work with more than its quota of interesting ideas, the band's prior achievements make it look to me like another step in a less rewarding direction.
Track one, “Nonpareil Of Favor”, makes nice at first with a bit of hammered dulcimer, but it only takes a few seconds before the techno bass drum and Kevin as both David Bowie and Prince sets the tone for what's to come, followed by about a half minute of more normal-sounding Kevin, followed by his announcement that he is “cracking his sweet love”, followed by a particularly relentless crashing and pulsing section (hello, Lightning Bolt!) that lasts for almost 4 minutes.
The next one, “Wicked Wisdom”, starts with the assertion that “I'm a motherfucking headline oh bitch you don't need to know it”; shortly after, he adds, “I'm just a black she-male”, which hadn't been my assumption. Here, he's starting to make a mistake that millions before him have made by counting on the fact that the listener will be fascinated, or at least curious, about his sexuality, when, at least in my case, nothing could be further from the truth. It is also not altogether uncommon for these sort of revelations to be backed up with all manner of technoid white funkisms, and I just wanna say that doesn't help either, as, up to now, there have been few eartlings less funky than Kevin Barnes (again, not a dig -he's always had way better things to do!) But then, after a minute or so, when you're just about ready to throw in the towel, damned if he doesn't come up with a nice funky little chorus, followed by an even nicer little section along similar lines -a couple of quality minutes! -followed by some auto-harping and mildly Lennon-esque ranting.
Our next stop illustrates my biggest problem with this phase that Barnes has been going through these past few albums, which is that they sound like they were done by one man in a small and airless room. It sounds like most of the instrumentation is keyboard generated, so hardly anything sounds like real instruments; and it's all extremely competent, unlike the Of Montreal I once treasured so, which was fallible, a little clumsy, and still seemed to feature other, less-talented musicians -yes, I'm pining for Dottie. “For Our Elegant Caste” might've made a fairly average (and satisfying) vintage Of Montreal song, but the time is always perfect, there's no false moves, and no air left in the music, and it suffers. There's still plenty of interesting ideas here, if you're intrepid enough to go in for them, but the presentation as is is pretty claustrophobic.
Then you get “Touched Something's Hollow”, a mopey, introverted little minute and a half voice and piano thing that again evokes “Mind Games”-era John Lennon, which proceeds suddenly into “An Eluardian Instance”, which ain't so bad, but it's still a bit glam-y, and ends with the singer requesting “Don't you pimp out my heart” -like, right, that's just what I was thinking about doing. No one likes obsessive compulsives more than I do, but there's a chance this guy needs a hobby.
Then it's back to techno/funk/dance land in “Gallery Piece”, though with some of the album's most compelling lyrics, all in the service of love's most contradictory impulses: “I wanna show you off, I wanna tell you lies, I wanna write you books” -kinda fun, but does it have to sound like a Chic album? Also seems to be one of those songs in search of a chorus -right now, it's all verse.
And again, a lot of this sounds pretty personal, and in Of Montreal's case I'd trade personal for hallucinatory anytime. Lyrically, there's not much in the way of characters and whimsy -it's mostly Kevin being uncomfortable. I certainly don't begrudge him needing to write about something different, because of course he has to change, and no one needs to be counted on to be fun all the time, but I'll be glad when this phase runs its course. Unfortunately for me, the band has attained its greatest success during this period, so while I'm truly and tremendously gratified to see them finally having some long overdue recognition, I know they can't go back, and only hope boredom will eventually trump commerce and we'll move on to phase 3 asap.
Meanwhile, “St. Exquisite's Confessions” is his most egregious Prince rip yet; “Triphallus, To Punctuate!” is again sorta fun, but too relentlessly techno and perfect to be entirely endearing; and then you've got one that starts up as a full-fledged 70's Stones-rip, about “turning tricks on the hood of Jasmine's car”, making me yearn once again for the days before Kevin seemed to be need street cred. Still, even during this little two-and-a-half minute sliver, there's a ton of cool ideas, but I don't know if I want to dance long enough to appreciate them. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't want to dance at all, and that if I did it would mainly be to something else. And then the next song thinks it's really sexy, too,
and, uh, well, er...
This sounds harsh, and I don't mean it to, but the Flight of the Conchords take on the whole Prince/Bowie thing is more soulful, less pretentious, and funnier. And first -like, a year ago! Too many bands are still doing this shit nowadays -cut it out!
And so it goes, more or less, until the last cut, “Id Engager”, which was also the track the band let out ahead of time as a sneak preview, and is by far the most successful model of the current blueprint. It's just as techno/disco-y as the rest, but its one of the few where it sounds like fun is being had; you still get the Prince thing, but it doesn't take over so completely -the Of Montreal side actually wins on this one! Plus, it doesn't sound so damn autobiographical, and there's gratuitous ninja references popped in at the end just for laughs. So we leave fortified by the knowledge that the new formula can work, yet looking forward to getting out of this phase at some point in the future... please?
OF MONTREAL- “Skeletal Lamping” *** A relatively irritating manifestation of an incredibly wonderful phenomenon -I'd say download “Id Engager” first, then “Wicked Wisdom” and “Triphallus, To Punctuate!” before heading back to their earlier masterworks. If you're new to the band, this isn't where I'd start.
Over the last decade or so, there has been no new band I've respected or been dazzled by more thoroughly and consistently than Of Montreal (who actually hail from Athens, GA., and are the brainchild of singer/songwriter Kevin Barnes.) I've been proselytizing for this bunch for years, and been rewarded with many albums that I consider masterpieces, not to mention surprises. “The Bedside Drama A Petite Tragedy”, “The Gay Parade”, and “Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies” all come to mind quickly, and there's lots of other highlights scattered through the surprisingly large catalog they've built up over the years; I've also seen them a few times, and that's always been a blast, too.
Their last couple of albums have sent interest in the band sky-rocketing, which is delightful, especially if you've gotten used to seeing creativity of this magnitude routinely ignored; but these albums have also gotten more and more techno-oriented and less human sounding, partly due to the presence of less humans: in the studio, the band, always largely a one man show anyway, seems to use the other band members contributions less and less (though they're all credited on the new CD, they're getting harder and harder to find) -and therein lies the rub. Their latest, “Skeletal Lamping”, continues the trend, and, while it's an impressive piece of work with more than its quota of interesting ideas, the band's prior achievements make it look to me like another step in a less rewarding direction.
Track one, “Nonpareil Of Favor”, makes nice at first with a bit of hammered dulcimer, but it only takes a few seconds before the techno bass drum and Kevin as both David Bowie and Prince sets the tone for what's to come, followed by about a half minute of more normal-sounding Kevin, followed by his announcement that he is “cracking his sweet love”, followed by a particularly relentless crashing and pulsing section (hello, Lightning Bolt!) that lasts for almost 4 minutes.
The next one, “Wicked Wisdom”, starts with the assertion that “I'm a motherfucking headline oh bitch you don't need to know it”; shortly after, he adds, “I'm just a black she-male”, which hadn't been my assumption. Here, he's starting to make a mistake that millions before him have made by counting on the fact that the listener will be fascinated, or at least curious, about his sexuality, when, at least in my case, nothing could be further from the truth. It is also not altogether uncommon for these sort of revelations to be backed up with all manner of technoid white funkisms, and I just wanna say that doesn't help either, as, up to now, there have been few eartlings less funky than Kevin Barnes (again, not a dig -he's always had way better things to do!) But then, after a minute or so, when you're just about ready to throw in the towel, damned if he doesn't come up with a nice funky little chorus, followed by an even nicer little section along similar lines -a couple of quality minutes! -followed by some auto-harping and mildly Lennon-esque ranting.
Our next stop illustrates my biggest problem with this phase that Barnes has been going through these past few albums, which is that they sound like they were done by one man in a small and airless room. It sounds like most of the instrumentation is keyboard generated, so hardly anything sounds like real instruments; and it's all extremely competent, unlike the Of Montreal I once treasured so, which was fallible, a little clumsy, and still seemed to feature other, less-talented musicians -yes, I'm pining for Dottie. “For Our Elegant Caste” might've made a fairly average (and satisfying) vintage Of Montreal song, but the time is always perfect, there's no false moves, and no air left in the music, and it suffers. There's still plenty of interesting ideas here, if you're intrepid enough to go in for them, but the presentation as is is pretty claustrophobic.
Then you get “Touched Something's Hollow”, a mopey, introverted little minute and a half voice and piano thing that again evokes “Mind Games”-era John Lennon, which proceeds suddenly into “An Eluardian Instance”, which ain't so bad, but it's still a bit glam-y, and ends with the singer requesting “Don't you pimp out my heart” -like, right, that's just what I was thinking about doing. No one likes obsessive compulsives more than I do, but there's a chance this guy needs a hobby.
Then it's back to techno/funk/dance land in “Gallery Piece”, though with some of the album's most compelling lyrics, all in the service of love's most contradictory impulses: “I wanna show you off, I wanna tell you lies, I wanna write you books” -kinda fun, but does it have to sound like a Chic album? Also seems to be one of those songs in search of a chorus -right now, it's all verse.
And again, a lot of this sounds pretty personal, and in Of Montreal's case I'd trade personal for hallucinatory anytime. Lyrically, there's not much in the way of characters and whimsy -it's mostly Kevin being uncomfortable. I certainly don't begrudge him needing to write about something different, because of course he has to change, and no one needs to be counted on to be fun all the time, but I'll be glad when this phase runs its course. Unfortunately for me, the band has attained its greatest success during this period, so while I'm truly and tremendously gratified to see them finally having some long overdue recognition, I know they can't go back, and only hope boredom will eventually trump commerce and we'll move on to phase 3 asap.
Meanwhile, “St. Exquisite's Confessions” is his most egregious Prince rip yet; “Triphallus, To Punctuate!” is again sorta fun, but too relentlessly techno and perfect to be entirely endearing; and then you've got one that starts up as a full-fledged 70's Stones-rip, about “turning tricks on the hood of Jasmine's car”, making me yearn once again for the days before Kevin seemed to be need street cred. Still, even during this little two-and-a-half minute sliver, there's a ton of cool ideas, but I don't know if I want to dance long enough to appreciate them. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't want to dance at all, and that if I did it would mainly be to something else. And then the next song thinks it's really sexy, too,
and, uh, well, er...
This sounds harsh, and I don't mean it to, but the Flight of the Conchords take on the whole Prince/Bowie thing is more soulful, less pretentious, and funnier. And first -like, a year ago! Too many bands are still doing this shit nowadays -cut it out!
And so it goes, more or less, until the last cut, “Id Engager”, which was also the track the band let out ahead of time as a sneak preview, and is by far the most successful model of the current blueprint. It's just as techno/disco-y as the rest, but its one of the few where it sounds like fun is being had; you still get the Prince thing, but it doesn't take over so completely -the Of Montreal side actually wins on this one! Plus, it doesn't sound so damn autobiographical, and there's gratuitous ninja references popped in at the end just for laughs. So we leave fortified by the knowledge that the new formula can work, yet looking forward to getting out of this phase at some point in the future... please?
OF MONTREAL- “Skeletal Lamping” *** A relatively irritating manifestation of an incredibly wonderful phenomenon -I'd say download “Id Engager” first, then “Wicked Wisdom” and “Triphallus, To Punctuate!” before heading back to their earlier masterworks. If you're new to the band, this isn't where I'd start.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Deerhoof, Flying, and the Greenheads
Hi hi! Hi! Fun! Fun! Groovy times! Happy ok fun-ness! Cool man -go!!
That's my new opening for the column. I'm trying to appeal to a broader demographic, particularly reaching out for a change to the under-seventy-five-sters out there because I've been told that the youth market is “where it's at”, as they say (or at least some of them do, sometimes.) And now, on with the writing part!
Don't know if many folks hereabouts know about the San Francisco band Deerhoof, but I'd certainly like to suggest that it's a good idea, particularly for those who like surprises. Deerhoof are noisy, experimental, playful, melodic, and generally intriguing in a number of ways; for instance, though they are definitely an indie band and prone toward occasional stretches of whimsicality, they can in fact play their way out of a paper bag.
They have a pixie-voiced Asian lead singer/bassist named Satomi Matsuzaki, but also a truly scorching rhythm section with actual chops (very unusual nowadays for an indie band), including a slamming drummer, Greg Saunier, and a guitarist, John Dieterich, with an actual sound (somewhat reminiscent of XTC's Andy Partridge), both of whom use some fairly advanced and even jazzy voicings without ever sounding academic.
Luckily for those of us with no money, they've posted their latest album, “Offend Maggie”, in its entirety on their myspace page (“Basketball Get Your Groove Back” is a fun place to start; I also recommend “Jagged Fruit”, “Numina O”, and “My Purple Past” -and if you like these, there's lots more, as this is their seventh album.)
They just toured the New England area last week, and I am inconsolable for having missed them, especially as their support act was the band Flying, which includes a longtime Kelp favorite, Wellfleet's Eben Portnoy. I've talked about Flying in these pages before -their debut album, “Just One Second Ago Broken Eggshell”, is also a real eye-opener, and the more recent “Faces Of The Night” also has some fine moments (for instance, the tracks “A Cloud in Doubt” and “Firetruck”) -and now they're on a cross-country tour with Deerhoof and we should all be very proud indeed!
Last summer Eben married his band mate, Sarah Magenheimer, and they formed a new band (or at least a duo) called Fertile Crescent, who also have some interesting music up on myspace. Both of Eben's outfits share with Deerhoof a real desire to come up with something truly new and original - listed as influences on the Fertile Crescent site are “radios stuck between stations” and “sounds of trees growing”, and their music can sometimes come across as similarly twee, but it's never less than inventive, and in the context of our current musical landscape, this is a public service, a wakeup call of a sort not too many folks go to the trouble to make nowadays, and it's gratifying to see them enjoying some success.
Closer to home, cape stalwarts the Greenheads seem to be enjoying a well-deserved dollop of local buzz lately. A local staple for decades, the band has changed form many times under the stewardship of the inimitable Steve Wood, who first graced our stages as a member of the Freeze, and there's no one who rocks harder and more passionately. The current edition of the Greenheads is a stripped-down trio that also features the singing and songwriting of Sarah Swain, and it has been a lot of fun watching these two camps converge. Sarah's a sweetheart anyway, and when she's on stage with Steve she's almost always glowing like a kid in a candy store, and her enthusiasm is infectious to the point that the band is really having a whole new life.
When I saw them at Joe's Beach Bar in Orleans last week, not only did they have a whole bunch of new songs, but Sarah's learning to shout, and Steve, in an explosion of gentlemanliness and maturity, has actually turned down some. Now, to me, the idea of Steve Wood turning down is more than slightly blasphemous, and I never would've suggested it, but right now everyone in this band (including Steve's son and drummer, Sam Wood, who gets better every time I see them and is now slamming with real authority) is having so much fun that it's just working like a charm. See for yourself this Saturday at the Island Merchant in Hyannis -tell 'em Thursty sent you.
That's my new opening for the column. I'm trying to appeal to a broader demographic, particularly reaching out for a change to the under-seventy-five-sters out there because I've been told that the youth market is “where it's at”, as they say (or at least some of them do, sometimes.) And now, on with the writing part!
Don't know if many folks hereabouts know about the San Francisco band Deerhoof, but I'd certainly like to suggest that it's a good idea, particularly for those who like surprises. Deerhoof are noisy, experimental, playful, melodic, and generally intriguing in a number of ways; for instance, though they are definitely an indie band and prone toward occasional stretches of whimsicality, they can in fact play their way out of a paper bag.
They have a pixie-voiced Asian lead singer/bassist named Satomi Matsuzaki, but also a truly scorching rhythm section with actual chops (very unusual nowadays for an indie band), including a slamming drummer, Greg Saunier, and a guitarist, John Dieterich, with an actual sound (somewhat reminiscent of XTC's Andy Partridge), both of whom use some fairly advanced and even jazzy voicings without ever sounding academic.
Luckily for those of us with no money, they've posted their latest album, “Offend Maggie”, in its entirety on their myspace page (“Basketball Get Your Groove Back” is a fun place to start; I also recommend “Jagged Fruit”, “Numina O”, and “My Purple Past” -and if you like these, there's lots more, as this is their seventh album.)
They just toured the New England area last week, and I am inconsolable for having missed them, especially as their support act was the band Flying, which includes a longtime Kelp favorite, Wellfleet's Eben Portnoy. I've talked about Flying in these pages before -their debut album, “Just One Second Ago Broken Eggshell”, is also a real eye-opener, and the more recent “Faces Of The Night” also has some fine moments (for instance, the tracks “A Cloud in Doubt” and “Firetruck”) -and now they're on a cross-country tour with Deerhoof and we should all be very proud indeed!
Last summer Eben married his band mate, Sarah Magenheimer, and they formed a new band (or at least a duo) called Fertile Crescent, who also have some interesting music up on myspace. Both of Eben's outfits share with Deerhoof a real desire to come up with something truly new and original - listed as influences on the Fertile Crescent site are “radios stuck between stations” and “sounds of trees growing”, and their music can sometimes come across as similarly twee, but it's never less than inventive, and in the context of our current musical landscape, this is a public service, a wakeup call of a sort not too many folks go to the trouble to make nowadays, and it's gratifying to see them enjoying some success.
Closer to home, cape stalwarts the Greenheads seem to be enjoying a well-deserved dollop of local buzz lately. A local staple for decades, the band has changed form many times under the stewardship of the inimitable Steve Wood, who first graced our stages as a member of the Freeze, and there's no one who rocks harder and more passionately. The current edition of the Greenheads is a stripped-down trio that also features the singing and songwriting of Sarah Swain, and it has been a lot of fun watching these two camps converge. Sarah's a sweetheart anyway, and when she's on stage with Steve she's almost always glowing like a kid in a candy store, and her enthusiasm is infectious to the point that the band is really having a whole new life.
When I saw them at Joe's Beach Bar in Orleans last week, not only did they have a whole bunch of new songs, but Sarah's learning to shout, and Steve, in an explosion of gentlemanliness and maturity, has actually turned down some. Now, to me, the idea of Steve Wood turning down is more than slightly blasphemous, and I never would've suggested it, but right now everyone in this band (including Steve's son and drummer, Sam Wood, who gets better every time I see them and is now slamming with real authority) is having so much fun that it's just working like a charm. See for yourself this Saturday at the Island Merchant in Hyannis -tell 'em Thursty sent you.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Kelp on Randy
[Originally published on my friend Sam Maclean's new webzine, In Review Online, a kinda cool new thing featuring beaucoup music and film reviews you might want to check out (you might find a couple of older Kelp things up there, too: a review of the Ruby Suns and a hilarious interview with Ms. Kami Lyle.) Meanwhile, here's the latest, a Kelp essay on Randy Newman ~]
An old friend called me tonight and mentioned that he had just bought the new Randy Newman cd, “Harps and Angels”, and hadn't heard it yet; he was about to go on a long drive with someone who was relatively unfamiliar with Newman's work, and, wanting to start his friend in the right place, wondered if I thought the new one was as good a place as any.
It was a hard question to answer. My friend -let's call him “Pelnarminous Gilahootaroonie”, though that's obviously not his “real” name -and I are both huge Randy fans, and I knew he'd love the new album and so I had to say that it is truly difficult to be objective about Randy Newman, and at this point, a new album pretty much immediately feels like a comfortable old coat.
But that's just me. It has lately come to my attention that there's a whole new generation (or two!) who mostly know, or at least firstly met, Randy Newman at his day job, shilling for Disney in a succession of wildly popular animated movies, and (I think mostly for that reason) most of them can't stand him.
I think this is a bad rap, and that's why I'd like to address the young people of today on Randy's behalf, by saying, you must be retarded; Randy is way cool.
Now, I admit that on some levels, Randy does not seem to change much. Ever! And that he does have a few songs he likes, that he seems to re-write quite a bit sometimes. That he sings like a frog -this does seem to be something people below the age of twenty are pretty much agreed on, and I understand how they feel, and even agree with them in a way. He's also a truly affected singer, and I despise affected singers -never dug Tom Waits' vocals, for instance, much as I like many of the other elements of his music and personality; and no, I can't tell you why Randy can get away with that bullshit and Tom can't, but for me, that's just how it works. Go figure.
But you little whippersnappers should have heard that voice when I first did, on “Randy Newman”, his 1968 debut, coming so out of nowhere he made the Band's whole anachronistic Matthew Brady thing seem cautious, singing these bitter. totally un-groovy and un-PC character study mini-operas, nasty little songs with unconventional structures, fully orchestrated and then some, with this Jewish kid from Beverly Hills imitating Ray Charles as a Louisiana cracker. He was immediately a critic's darling and no one else's; man, they couldn't give that album away -something Warners even tried with Randy's pal, Van Dyke Parks (ah, yes, the golden age of record promo! sigh...)
And it's still an amazing, eye-opening piece that he may have equaled ('74's “Good Old Boys” would be the contender), but never surpassed; also a record that somehow manages to sound as strange and elusive now as it did then. It's Randy before he figured out how to get cozy with us, when he was channeling Phil Spector more than Fats Domino... before he became a roots guy (Uncle Randy!) It's still exhilarating to hear him from before he actually landed, when the music was actually fully as loopy as the lyrics.
Let's just try to get the lyrics out of the way: unfailingly beautifully observed, shockingly candid, funny, heartbreaking, surprising, sweet, nasty, gorgeous miracles of concision -did I already say funny? The guy is a stone genius.
I remember a conversation in 1977, around the time of his only “hit”, “Short People”, where a few of us were trying to figure out which musician had made the fewest mistakes. See, by 1977, we felt the bloom was well off the rose for many of our heroes, almost all of whom had let us down grievously at some point or other. The Beatles, much as we loved them, regularly scheduled something lame for Ringo, and had also started the whole notion of getting back to our roots -thanks, fellas; the Stones had hired Mick Jones; Ray Charles had recorded “America the Beautiful” (beautifully) and “Elenore Rigby” (not); the Who had discovered synthesizers; Stax and Motown were in the process of giving in to disco; the list goes on and on. We felt that Randy, however, had up to that time not done anything at all that was really degrading and embarrassing -except for having the Eagles do background vocals on his latest album at the time, “Little Criminals”. (It was Randy, though, and after all, it was just background vocals -they were way in the background.) (Nobody's perfect.)
I'm probably not saying this right at all, and if you already don't like the guy, you're probably not reading this anyway, especially after I called you retarded paragraph 4. But the fact remains that this is a man who has produced zero really bad albums. The closest one to being bad is probably 1979's “Born Again”, which featured his worst backup cast yet (including the dread Waddy Wachtel, Stephen Bishop, and a couple guys from Toto. It was also made during his mercifully brief flirtation with having synthesizers stand in for strings (I'm sure the record companies begged, and what's a considerate, cost-conscious guy to do?), but it still has a solid handful of outstanding songs, as well as “It's Money That I Love” and a front cover with the artist in Kiss make-up with dollar signs over his eyes, made at the height of the musician's equivalent of the gold rush. And that's as bad as it ever got.
Meanwhile, you've got “Good Old Boys”, as sweeping and courageous as Faulkner, but funnier (and if you want gorgeous, download “Marie”); “Sail Away”, with the remarkable cuts “Political Science” and “God's Song”; “Faust”, with an assortment of bona fide rock stars assisting in the selling of Randy's soul (try “James Taylor's “Northern Boy” or Bonnie Raitt's version of “Feels Like Home To Me”); “Shame”, a beauty off his recent “Bad Love”, where he can't agree with his background singers; “Trouble in Paradise”'s epic “My Life Is Good”, where he defends his way of life at a PTA meeting; and “Love Story” and “Davy the Fat Boy” off his debut, “Randy Newman.” Download these and tell me he sucks and watch me have a fit.
Not a lick of rockstar bullshit in the bunch, either. Back when folks were jamming and getting psychedelic and grand, Randy was refining the patented Randy Newman ending, which is the shortest, most straight-forward, modest, and some might even say perfunctory ending possible- a simple period.
And let's talk about the damn movie music, too. There isn't a better string writer around, not since Elmer Bernstein died. His scores for “Avalon”, “Ragtime”, and “The Natural” are as good as conventional movie music gets, and his string charts on his own albums are a constant wonder, little miracles of concise emotion. Do you know how lucky we are that Randy got the call on the Disney stuff instead of Elton John or Andrew Lloyd Webber or any of those other clowns? Maybe “You've Got a Friend in Me” isn't the greatest thing going, but it beats the shit out of the fucking “Lion King.”
And the new album, “Harps and Angels”, is just fine. It won't change the world, but as usual, he calls a spade a spade. “A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country” comes to mind, in which he affably points out that the the ol' USA is going down the drain at this point and happy to beg for handouts:
Or the jaunty “Only a Girl”, where an older man weakly defends an affair with a much younger woman as it slowly dawns on him that it's his money she's after. Even his re-recording of “Feels Like Home” is way more satisfying than it should be -I thought Bonnie Raitt pretty much owned that one, but turns out ol' Froggy can still put one over with the best of them.
It's hard to explain, but it's hard for me to think of a living singer/songwriter whose work I'm more grateful for.
An old friend called me tonight and mentioned that he had just bought the new Randy Newman cd, “Harps and Angels”, and hadn't heard it yet; he was about to go on a long drive with someone who was relatively unfamiliar with Newman's work, and, wanting to start his friend in the right place, wondered if I thought the new one was as good a place as any.
It was a hard question to answer. My friend -let's call him “Pelnarminous Gilahootaroonie”, though that's obviously not his “real” name -and I are both huge Randy fans, and I knew he'd love the new album and so I had to say that it is truly difficult to be objective about Randy Newman, and at this point, a new album pretty much immediately feels like a comfortable old coat.
But that's just me. It has lately come to my attention that there's a whole new generation (or two!) who mostly know, or at least firstly met, Randy Newman at his day job, shilling for Disney in a succession of wildly popular animated movies, and (I think mostly for that reason) most of them can't stand him.
I think this is a bad rap, and that's why I'd like to address the young people of today on Randy's behalf, by saying, you must be retarded; Randy is way cool.
Now, I admit that on some levels, Randy does not seem to change much. Ever! And that he does have a few songs he likes, that he seems to re-write quite a bit sometimes. That he sings like a frog -this does seem to be something people below the age of twenty are pretty much agreed on, and I understand how they feel, and even agree with them in a way. He's also a truly affected singer, and I despise affected singers -never dug Tom Waits' vocals, for instance, much as I like many of the other elements of his music and personality; and no, I can't tell you why Randy can get away with that bullshit and Tom can't, but for me, that's just how it works. Go figure.
But you little whippersnappers should have heard that voice when I first did, on “Randy Newman”, his 1968 debut, coming so out of nowhere he made the Band's whole anachronistic Matthew Brady thing seem cautious, singing these bitter. totally un-groovy and un-PC character study mini-operas, nasty little songs with unconventional structures, fully orchestrated and then some, with this Jewish kid from Beverly Hills imitating Ray Charles as a Louisiana cracker. He was immediately a critic's darling and no one else's; man, they couldn't give that album away -something Warners even tried with Randy's pal, Van Dyke Parks (ah, yes, the golden age of record promo! sigh...)
And it's still an amazing, eye-opening piece that he may have equaled ('74's “Good Old Boys” would be the contender), but never surpassed; also a record that somehow manages to sound as strange and elusive now as it did then. It's Randy before he figured out how to get cozy with us, when he was channeling Phil Spector more than Fats Domino... before he became a roots guy (Uncle Randy!) It's still exhilarating to hear him from before he actually landed, when the music was actually fully as loopy as the lyrics.
Let's just try to get the lyrics out of the way: unfailingly beautifully observed, shockingly candid, funny, heartbreaking, surprising, sweet, nasty, gorgeous miracles of concision -did I already say funny? The guy is a stone genius.
I remember a conversation in 1977, around the time of his only “hit”, “Short People”, where a few of us were trying to figure out which musician had made the fewest mistakes. See, by 1977, we felt the bloom was well off the rose for many of our heroes, almost all of whom had let us down grievously at some point or other. The Beatles, much as we loved them, regularly scheduled something lame for Ringo, and had also started the whole notion of getting back to our roots -thanks, fellas; the Stones had hired Mick Jones; Ray Charles had recorded “America the Beautiful” (beautifully) and “Elenore Rigby” (not); the Who had discovered synthesizers; Stax and Motown were in the process of giving in to disco; the list goes on and on. We felt that Randy, however, had up to that time not done anything at all that was really degrading and embarrassing -except for having the Eagles do background vocals on his latest album at the time, “Little Criminals”. (It was Randy, though, and after all, it was just background vocals -they were way in the background.) (Nobody's perfect.)
I'm probably not saying this right at all, and if you already don't like the guy, you're probably not reading this anyway, especially after I called you retarded paragraph 4. But the fact remains that this is a man who has produced zero really bad albums. The closest one to being bad is probably 1979's “Born Again”, which featured his worst backup cast yet (including the dread Waddy Wachtel, Stephen Bishop, and a couple guys from Toto. It was also made during his mercifully brief flirtation with having synthesizers stand in for strings (I'm sure the record companies begged, and what's a considerate, cost-conscious guy to do?), but it still has a solid handful of outstanding songs, as well as “It's Money That I Love” and a front cover with the artist in Kiss make-up with dollar signs over his eyes, made at the height of the musician's equivalent of the gold rush. And that's as bad as it ever got.
Meanwhile, you've got “Good Old Boys”, as sweeping and courageous as Faulkner, but funnier (and if you want gorgeous, download “Marie”); “Sail Away”, with the remarkable cuts “Political Science” and “God's Song”; “Faust”, with an assortment of bona fide rock stars assisting in the selling of Randy's soul (try “James Taylor's “Northern Boy” or Bonnie Raitt's version of “Feels Like Home To Me”); “Shame”, a beauty off his recent “Bad Love”, where he can't agree with his background singers; “Trouble in Paradise”'s epic “My Life Is Good”, where he defends his way of life at a PTA meeting; and “Love Story” and “Davy the Fat Boy” off his debut, “Randy Newman.” Download these and tell me he sucks and watch me have a fit.
Not a lick of rockstar bullshit in the bunch, either. Back when folks were jamming and getting psychedelic and grand, Randy was refining the patented Randy Newman ending, which is the shortest, most straight-forward, modest, and some might even say perfunctory ending possible- a simple period.
And let's talk about the damn movie music, too. There isn't a better string writer around, not since Elmer Bernstein died. His scores for “Avalon”, “Ragtime”, and “The Natural” are as good as conventional movie music gets, and his string charts on his own albums are a constant wonder, little miracles of concise emotion. Do you know how lucky we are that Randy got the call on the Disney stuff instead of Elton John or Andrew Lloyd Webber or any of those other clowns? Maybe “You've Got a Friend in Me” isn't the greatest thing going, but it beats the shit out of the fucking “Lion King.”
And the new album, “Harps and Angels”, is just fine. It won't change the world, but as usual, he calls a spade a spade. “A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country” comes to mind, in which he affably points out that the the ol' USA is going down the drain at this point and happy to beg for handouts:
Just a few words in defense of our country
Whose time at the top
Could be coming to an end
Now we don’t want their love
And respect at this point is pretty much out of the question
But in times like these
We sure could use a friend
Or the jaunty “Only a Girl”, where an older man weakly defends an affair with a much younger woman as it slowly dawns on him that it's his money she's after. Even his re-recording of “Feels Like Home” is way more satisfying than it should be -I thought Bonnie Raitt pretty much owned that one, but turns out ol' Froggy can still put one over with the best of them.
It's hard to explain, but it's hard for me to think of a living singer/songwriter whose work I'm more grateful for.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Kelp on Muldaur
Well, now I'm all excited about Geoff Muldaur coming to the First Encounter Coffeehouse in Eastham this Saturday (Sept. 27th – 8pm), and just wanted to spread the love. “Genius” is a word that's bandied about too carelessly these days -at this point it might even be bad luck -but I'd be comfortable calling Geoff at least “genius-y.”
Starting with his work in the sixties with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, through a brilliant series of relatively elaborate and adventurous yet relaxed releases both solo and with his then-Mrs., Maria Muldaur, on Warner Brothers in the seventies and early eighties, and climaxing a couple of years ago with his delightful and edifying Bix Biederbecke tribute, “Private Astronomy”, Geoff has consistantly proven himself as a force for good. (And keep in mind, if you don't know that Bix was much more than a Dixieland player, you're missing one of the most surprising and mellifluous anomalies of that era; Ry Cooder also covered a few of his tunes even further back, in 1987, in his lovely “Jazz” album.)
I've always been a huge Geoff Muldaur fan, always dug the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, flipped for the Warners stuff; his solo stuff is great, too, but he has such a unique and well-informed take on our blues, country, and Tin Pan alley roots and is such a fabulous arranger.... and a truly distinctive, strange and fabulous vocal style... that, uhh, something.
I remember being into the Kweskin Jug Band in the late sixties, in prep school yet (!), loving his amazing vocal on “Never Swat a Fly”, for instance... oh lordy, if I could hear him do that one I'd just about die! And since then, along life's highway he has played with Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, the MaGarrigle Sisters, Van Dyke Parks, the legendary James Booker, and a host of others, so his creds are definitely in order.
It would be correct to say that I like the guy's work.
When I talked to him today he was full of enthusiasm for the task at hand, and honored to have been appointed. He seemed to be one of those rare people who actually love their job (not that I don't love mine -I probably just have a hard time showing my true emotions.)
He had amazing plans for the future, and they include an album of chamber music for clarinet, violin, bassoon, cello, french horn, and voice and/or guitar, to feature some tunes he has written to poems by Tennessee Williams; a horn band album, but not annoying crap modern horn band but a Ray Charles-style thing with smart charts and stuff; and an expanded two-cd re-release of “Private Astronomy”, which he expects to include many of the original recordings that he re-recorded for the album. All of which sounds like a swell list to me.
So it's ironic that I, who have never seen Geoff Muldaur play ever, yet love him so, somehow don't get to go to the show this weekend (I have a circumcision ritual that I just can't move.) In fact, I believe this to be an example of general unfairness toward me by random gods (no offense) and it is moments like this that get on my nerves. Grouchy. Irritable.
Geoff, on the other hand, had recently toured Japan, and so was in that blissful state that can only be obtained that way. He said he had played with his old colleague, the great guitarist Amos Garrett, not more than two years ago, and that he was alive and well, playing and living in Canada. He said he'd enjoyed taking seventeen years off from the music biz (save occasional soundtrack work) after his years at Warners, and I tried briefly to get him to talk about whether the Warners years, and the pressure of spending serious money on brilliant albums that made no money, had been a contributing factor; but he didn't rise to the bait, instead offering that even during his least musical employment, he had seen designing software for a steel company as “like writing a symphony.”
These days, Geoff Muldaur seems like a true accentuator of positives, at one point saying “I have a beautiful life where I get to travel all over the world and play for people.” He seems like that rare kind of guy who can actually enjoy himself in the present.
That's good -I always figured he'd sort of have a handle on it.
Starting with his work in the sixties with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, through a brilliant series of relatively elaborate and adventurous yet relaxed releases both solo and with his then-Mrs., Maria Muldaur, on Warner Brothers in the seventies and early eighties, and climaxing a couple of years ago with his delightful and edifying Bix Biederbecke tribute, “Private Astronomy”, Geoff has consistantly proven himself as a force for good. (And keep in mind, if you don't know that Bix was much more than a Dixieland player, you're missing one of the most surprising and mellifluous anomalies of that era; Ry Cooder also covered a few of his tunes even further back, in 1987, in his lovely “Jazz” album.)
I've always been a huge Geoff Muldaur fan, always dug the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, flipped for the Warners stuff; his solo stuff is great, too, but he has such a unique and well-informed take on our blues, country, and Tin Pan alley roots and is such a fabulous arranger.... and a truly distinctive, strange and fabulous vocal style... that, uhh, something.
I remember being into the Kweskin Jug Band in the late sixties, in prep school yet (!), loving his amazing vocal on “Never Swat a Fly”, for instance... oh lordy, if I could hear him do that one I'd just about die! And since then, along life's highway he has played with Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, the MaGarrigle Sisters, Van Dyke Parks, the legendary James Booker, and a host of others, so his creds are definitely in order.
It would be correct to say that I like the guy's work.
When I talked to him today he was full of enthusiasm for the task at hand, and honored to have been appointed. He seemed to be one of those rare people who actually love their job (not that I don't love mine -I probably just have a hard time showing my true emotions.)
He had amazing plans for the future, and they include an album of chamber music for clarinet, violin, bassoon, cello, french horn, and voice and/or guitar, to feature some tunes he has written to poems by Tennessee Williams; a horn band album, but not annoying crap modern horn band but a Ray Charles-style thing with smart charts and stuff; and an expanded two-cd re-release of “Private Astronomy”, which he expects to include many of the original recordings that he re-recorded for the album. All of which sounds like a swell list to me.
So it's ironic that I, who have never seen Geoff Muldaur play ever, yet love him so, somehow don't get to go to the show this weekend (I have a circumcision ritual that I just can't move.) In fact, I believe this to be an example of general unfairness toward me by random gods (no offense) and it is moments like this that get on my nerves. Grouchy. Irritable.
Geoff, on the other hand, had recently toured Japan, and so was in that blissful state that can only be obtained that way. He said he had played with his old colleague, the great guitarist Amos Garrett, not more than two years ago, and that he was alive and well, playing and living in Canada. He said he'd enjoyed taking seventeen years off from the music biz (save occasional soundtrack work) after his years at Warners, and I tried briefly to get him to talk about whether the Warners years, and the pressure of spending serious money on brilliant albums that made no money, had been a contributing factor; but he didn't rise to the bait, instead offering that even during his least musical employment, he had seen designing software for a steel company as “like writing a symphony.”
These days, Geoff Muldaur seems like a true accentuator of positives, at one point saying “I have a beautiful life where I get to travel all over the world and play for people.” He seems like that rare kind of guy who can actually enjoy himself in the present.
That's good -I always figured he'd sort of have a handle on it.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Kami & the Pops
Long one this time folks... get comfy...
I caught up with the always vivacious local singer-songwriter Kami Lyle recently, on the occasion of her gig a couple of Sundays ago opening for the Boston Pops at the 2008 Pops by the Sea concert in Hyannis. Luckily, our conversation was recorded for posterior:
1. So, were the Pops like all wicked old or what?
Well, first I should perhaps mention, I didn’t actually know the Boston Pops were going on after me. I just thought I had a ridiculously huge following in Hyannis. To answer your question, though, I don’t know if it’s so much that the Pops are that wicked old, as much as the fact that I am just so incredibly very, very young, y’know? No one can even believe how young I tell them I am.
2. Do they party down? For instance, how many of the Pops were tripping, how many did 'ludes, glue, etc.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really get to party with anyone. In kind of a crazy aural mix’em up, the guys in my band thought they heard someone saying the Boston Cops were after us. So…needless to say, we got outta there pretty quick.
3. Did you get it on with any of the Pops? Was it much different than making it with a regular musician? Was it super funky?
Me and my band!?! No! I mean, yes, but only with the super funky one…the one we were told was the lead singer.
4. Which one is the lead singer?
Um. You know.
5. Are they really all from Boston?
They are. They all live together in this great big house. It’s actually in Quincy. But the “Quincy Pops” sounded too much like a cool refreshing ice cream treat.
6. Do they have an incredibly big van? (One would certainly assume so.)
You mean the PopMobile? Yes. It’s huge. My band and I had to park our cars in Yarmouth. Fortunately on our walk back to Hyannis we found a place that sold Quincy Pops. They were cool. And refreshing.
7. I once read that Dave Matthews' dad was a Pop -do you think that could be true? Did any of them look like a really old, screwed up version of Dave Matthews?
Oh, see, and we thought they said Dave Matthews’ dad was a cop. Well, there was this one guy that kept following us around yelling, ‘but I know Dave! I know Dave…’ and playing air guitar. I think he wanted to join my band. I felt bad, but I’m kind of all set for air guitarists right now. I mean, our guy’s great! You can’t even see him. He’s literally made of air. And he’s a breeze to work with.
8. The deli tray must be huge. Would you agree that there's probably some promoters who might tend to skimp a little on some of the less popular condiments in a situation like that.
You know, that is such an important question and one that I think is just all too frequently not answered in full. Yes. Their deli tray is freaking huge. We had to sit in Mashpee. Oh, and here’s a little fun fact: They’ll only eat food with the word Pop in it. Poptarts, Popovers, I saw a lot of Jiffy-Pop. You should have seen when they all started in on the Pop Rocks. It was deafening. Then they rinse it down with, well…pop.
9. I know you're a wonderful writer of beautiful songs that are an inspiration to all or most of us. Do you sometimes enjoy putting a period at the end of a sentence that would normally end with a question mark.
What. I think I’ll skip that one?
10. When you're not doing something glamorous at high profile international local artist facilitated events such as The Pops, do you do other things you do instead, perhaps with a loved one or family member or even on your own.
Do I? Oh, definitely! I do that all the time. It’s like, I love doing stuff like that.
Fortunately for all, Kami's local performance schedule this summer is extensive indeed, and includes every Wednesday night at Bubala's in Provincetown and myriad outdoor shows, not just as a leader but also with the Stage Door Canteen, the Rip-It-Ups, and the Chandler Travis Philharmonic; further details can be gleaned at kamilyle.com. Kami's cute as a button and plays a mean trumpet to boot, and her husband and accompanist, Joey Spampinato, known for his fine work with NRBQ, is one of the world's truly great bass players -to miss them would be sheer folly.
And furthermore: A new band called Cathy from New York City makes their Wellfleet Beachcomber debut this Saturday and Sunday, and lord, they make a hell of a din. Their latest big hit is called “Do the F***ing Awesome”, and one of them is my nephew -what more can I say?
Speaking of awesome, the Greenheads are. Newcomer Sarah Swain is starting to get comfy, and guitarist Steve Wood is still... well, awesome, as evidenced by a recent cameo appearance with the Incredible Casuals, during which he purposely smashed himself in the face with his guitar (preserved for future generations on Youtube under the heading “Incredible Casuals w/ Steve Wood - "Jack the Ripper" .) Blood was shed; it was an Iggy Pop moment, and all I can say is “thank you.”
On the other end of the gore/sonic mayhem scale are Wellfleet's Parkington Sisters, a young quintet just putting the finishing touches on their latest album. Their music tends to be gentle, thoughtful, and largely acoustic, with instrumentation that includes piano, cello, violins, guitar, and lots of vocal harmonies; samples (including Radiohead and Nico covers and -my favorite -a lovely instrumental version of a theme from the movie “Amelie”) can be found on their website, parkingtonsisters.com. And/or you'll be able to catch them live on Thursday, August 14th at the Music Stroll on Main St. in Hyannis, Saturday, August 16th at the Wellfleet Library, and Monday, August 18th at the Eastham green.
While we're on the subject of things that are fantastically pleasant, the amazing Zoe Lewis (yup, zoelewis.com) is playing locally just slightly less than usual this summer due to circumstances beyond her control, but she's got a fab new album out called “A Cure For the Hiccups”, and if you want to have a terrific time and see something done absolutely perfectly, go on her sunset cruise on the Viking Princess in Provincetown on Saturday, August 23rd. Seeing Zoe is always a pleasure, but seeing her do her thing on a boat cruising around P'town at sunset is just entirely sublime.
I caught up with the always vivacious local singer-songwriter Kami Lyle recently, on the occasion of her gig a couple of Sundays ago opening for the Boston Pops at the 2008 Pops by the Sea concert in Hyannis. Luckily, our conversation was recorded for posterior:
1. So, were the Pops like all wicked old or what?
Well, first I should perhaps mention, I didn’t actually know the Boston Pops were going on after me. I just thought I had a ridiculously huge following in Hyannis. To answer your question, though, I don’t know if it’s so much that the Pops are that wicked old, as much as the fact that I am just so incredibly very, very young, y’know? No one can even believe how young I tell them I am.
2. Do they party down? For instance, how many of the Pops were tripping, how many did 'ludes, glue, etc.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really get to party with anyone. In kind of a crazy aural mix’em up, the guys in my band thought they heard someone saying the Boston Cops were after us. So…needless to say, we got outta there pretty quick.
3. Did you get it on with any of the Pops? Was it much different than making it with a regular musician? Was it super funky?
Me and my band!?! No! I mean, yes, but only with the super funky one…the one we were told was the lead singer.
4. Which one is the lead singer?
Um. You know.
5. Are they really all from Boston?
They are. They all live together in this great big house. It’s actually in Quincy. But the “Quincy Pops” sounded too much like a cool refreshing ice cream treat.
6. Do they have an incredibly big van? (One would certainly assume so.)
You mean the PopMobile? Yes. It’s huge. My band and I had to park our cars in Yarmouth. Fortunately on our walk back to Hyannis we found a place that sold Quincy Pops. They were cool. And refreshing.
7. I once read that Dave Matthews' dad was a Pop -do you think that could be true? Did any of them look like a really old, screwed up version of Dave Matthews?
Oh, see, and we thought they said Dave Matthews’ dad was a cop. Well, there was this one guy that kept following us around yelling, ‘but I know Dave! I know Dave…’ and playing air guitar. I think he wanted to join my band. I felt bad, but I’m kind of all set for air guitarists right now. I mean, our guy’s great! You can’t even see him. He’s literally made of air. And he’s a breeze to work with.
8. The deli tray must be huge. Would you agree that there's probably some promoters who might tend to skimp a little on some of the less popular condiments in a situation like that.
You know, that is such an important question and one that I think is just all too frequently not answered in full. Yes. Their deli tray is freaking huge. We had to sit in Mashpee. Oh, and here’s a little fun fact: They’ll only eat food with the word Pop in it. Poptarts, Popovers, I saw a lot of Jiffy-Pop. You should have seen when they all started in on the Pop Rocks. It was deafening. Then they rinse it down with, well…pop.
9. I know you're a wonderful writer of beautiful songs that are an inspiration to all or most of us. Do you sometimes enjoy putting a period at the end of a sentence that would normally end with a question mark.
What. I think I’ll skip that one?
10. When you're not doing something glamorous at high profile international local artist facilitated events such as The Pops, do you do other things you do instead, perhaps with a loved one or family member or even on your own.
Do I? Oh, definitely! I do that all the time. It’s like, I love doing stuff like that.
Fortunately for all, Kami's local performance schedule this summer is extensive indeed, and includes every Wednesday night at Bubala's in Provincetown and myriad outdoor shows, not just as a leader but also with the Stage Door Canteen, the Rip-It-Ups, and the Chandler Travis Philharmonic; further details can be gleaned at kamilyle.com. Kami's cute as a button and plays a mean trumpet to boot, and her husband and accompanist, Joey Spampinato, known for his fine work with NRBQ, is one of the world's truly great bass players -to miss them would be sheer folly.
And furthermore: A new band called Cathy from New York City makes their Wellfleet Beachcomber debut this Saturday and Sunday, and lord, they make a hell of a din. Their latest big hit is called “Do the F***ing Awesome”, and one of them is my nephew -what more can I say?
Speaking of awesome, the Greenheads are. Newcomer Sarah Swain is starting to get comfy, and guitarist Steve Wood is still... well, awesome, as evidenced by a recent cameo appearance with the Incredible Casuals, during which he purposely smashed himself in the face with his guitar (preserved for future generations on Youtube under the heading “Incredible Casuals w/ Steve Wood - "Jack the Ripper" .) Blood was shed; it was an Iggy Pop moment, and all I can say is “thank you.”
On the other end of the gore/sonic mayhem scale are Wellfleet's Parkington Sisters, a young quintet just putting the finishing touches on their latest album. Their music tends to be gentle, thoughtful, and largely acoustic, with instrumentation that includes piano, cello, violins, guitar, and lots of vocal harmonies; samples (including Radiohead and Nico covers and -my favorite -a lovely instrumental version of a theme from the movie “Amelie”) can be found on their website, parkingtonsisters.com. And/or you'll be able to catch them live on Thursday, August 14th at the Music Stroll on Main St. in Hyannis, Saturday, August 16th at the Wellfleet Library, and Monday, August 18th at the Eastham green.
While we're on the subject of things that are fantastically pleasant, the amazing Zoe Lewis (yup, zoelewis.com) is playing locally just slightly less than usual this summer due to circumstances beyond her control, but she's got a fab new album out called “A Cure For the Hiccups”, and if you want to have a terrific time and see something done absolutely perfectly, go on her sunset cruise on the Viking Princess in Provincetown on Saturday, August 23rd. Seeing Zoe is always a pleasure, but seeing her do her thing on a boat cruising around P'town at sunset is just entirely sublime.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
George Carlin R.I.P. (fat fucking chance, I'm sure)
George Carlin and I actually had some history together. For instance, George was the only person ever to fly me (and my performing partner at the time, Steve Shook) to Alaska (first class, mind you -and not just because he was trying to get rid of us, either, as he was on the same plane.) It was the early seventies; people did crazy things like this back then.
Steve and I first met George sometime around 1971, when we shared a bill at a wonderful coffeehouse in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania called the Main Point. We had been booked as an opening act for (if memory serves) Dave Van Ronk, who apparently had had to cancel at the last minute. We were delighted to find out that George would be his replacement, because we had seen George a couple times on Ed Sullivan and liked his stuff (of course, that had been back in George's straight, short-haired days, but he was still good -not famous yet, but still funny.) We actually got busted for pot on the way to the gig (well, technically, Steve got busted, but it was for my pot -totally typical), and had the un-nerving experience of sitting in the Fishkill (NY) state police barracks, watching through the window as an officer searched our car for more contraband. We actually saw him take out the Band-Aid cannister that we knew had pills in it and poke around in it and somehow fail to find The Stuff.
Which explains why when we got to Bryn Mawr, we had no pot, but we did have a few tabs of a brand new kind of dope (at the time) that we just loved called MDA , which was considered sort of a “love drug”, in that people under the influence tended to love everything. We gave some to George, and it had the usual effect; in return, he gave us some pot (ditto), and we hung out later on with some sisters who had a fabulous collection of rock n' roll 45s, found out that we were both record collecting geeks, and became great friends for life (I believe it was also on that night that we discovered Fats Domino's recording of “I Wanna Walk You Home”, which my band the Philharmonic still performs to this day.) (And, by the way, kids, don't take drugs. Or, do. Suit yourself.)
We also loved each other's acts. George, of course, was a genius, but a warped enough genius that he actually really “got” our strange act, too. We had a ball trying stuff out on each other (he liked using an idea of Steve's about haggling with toll booth attendants: “A dollar twenty-five?!? You've got to be kidding! One lane was closed for ten miles! I'll give you eighty-five cents”; and we were always trying to get him to sit in with us on piano, or, one time somewhere in Michigan, trumpet -“Miles Carlin!!” -invitations that he usually, but not always, had the good sense to resist.)
We opened almost all his shows from the mid-seventies through the mid-eighties, and even after that he was still my best, most generous and steadfast supporter up to the present, even though, with my various eccentric presentations, I'm sure he must've had people telling him he was crazy (even Groucho Marx, after seeing Travis and Shook open for him in at the Roxy in L.A., commented, “these guys have been on way too long.”) He got us on the Tonight show a couple times, tried to get us on his label, tried to help in lots of ways, but we proved largely success-proof. Sure had fun trying, though!
Plus, there were occasional excursions, like going to see him in Las Vegas where he was playing for a Soldiers of Fortune convention at the Sands (talk about a bunch of guys you really want to be drinking and gambling with!) Jerry Hamza, George's longtime manager (a delightful fellow who we always called “The Hammer”), was an avid fisherman, so we did a handful of fishing trips, up in Minnesota or Maine or wherever, and it was always great to see the city boys fitful attempts at rustication. I'll never forget George's roadie, the great comb-over specialist Billy Buisso, casting off from our houseboat, having thrown in the towel on the whole wilderness thing, muttering “Fumes! Fumes! I need fumes!” as the dingy putt-putted him back to civilization. Don't remember for sure if that was the morning after we practically blew up the houseboat with erratically aimed fireworks or not, but it may've been.
It's funny, but for a comedian, George was remarkably easy to be around. A lot of comedians are “on” all the time, many to the extent that you might feel the need to slap 'em around, or at least tell them to shut up. George, too, was on all the time, in the sense of the mind always churning and inventing, but he somehow managed to channel it into a sincere attempt to listen to people, even total strangers, and achieved an empathy that usually seemed effortless, but couldn't have been. He was truly engaged -somehow, he never seemed to be on automatic pilot, even in the sort of fan-performer relations that must've gone way beyond repetitious.
In all the years we traveled together, I don't recall ever seeing him getting uppity or pulling any diva crap backstage. Only saw him lose his temper once, on the discovery that his travel bag, with his notes and papers, had been stolen in whatever strange city we were in (a writer's worst nightmare - at which point he did kick the living shit out of a random Styrofoam cooler. Stupid cooler, anyway.) Other than that, I don't think I ever heard him raise his voice unless it was in jest.
Or unless he was doing his act. I do remember strolling along the bay with my wife in San Diego on a gorgeous spring evening, heading toward an outdoor show George was doing, arriving a little late. It was an idyllic night, the air balmy and delightful, and as we got nearer to the venue, you could hear his voice being carried by the breeze, louder and louder as we approached the stage, a torrent of epithets and the most bitter, angry, filthy profanity imaginable, and thinking, ah, that's ol' George, our buddy, doing his thing, enlightening the populace, what a strange job!
I have speculated from time to time that the frequently abrasive nature of his performances must've made therapy largely unnecessary, and it's true that in civilian life he was unfailingly gentle, kind, and genuine, with an instinctive appreciation of the art of being a regular guy. You could talk to him like a normal person, and he knew how to be quiet sometimes, too (always an important quality in a friend.)
One of my few regrets about George -right up there with not making sure to spend more time with him lately -is that he never got to come to our house. We'd talk about him coming over whenever he'd play in Hyannis, which was once a summer, more or less, but he'd always be in the middle of a round of one-nighters, and it's usually best to stick with your routine when you're doing those things (though on the other hand, it's sometimes really delightful to take a break from it.)
Now I'm feeling like we should've shanghai'd him when we had the chance. George was a very neat, orderly person -I believe the word is anal -and I know he would've really admired the filth and chaos that one can only acquire with the presence of multiple pets and the absence of any proper sense of modern hygiene. He would've liked sitting on our porch and hanging out with the dogs; it might've even slowed him down for a few minutes, given him a brief respite from being such a creative dynamo all the time.
My wife reminded me that we once had a George Carlin Memorial Sock Tree in our yard -I suspect the dogs may've had something to do with that one -years ago, well before there was any need for him to be memorialized. She remembers that it died pretty quickly, she suspects from the odor of the socks.
Seems like it was fairly widely acknowledged that he was a genius, not to mention smart, entertaining, and prolific beyond any reasonable expectation, years ago. It may take years before we figure out how irreplaceable he is. The part that's bugging me the most is that he was just such a sweetheart.
Damn.
(Hello up there, boss!)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Men vs. Women vs. Dishwashers
So very much to talk about this week, for instance: why can't women load dishwashers? My wife, the insultingly glamorous Mrs. Kelp, is an altogether more resourceful and vigorous housekeeper than I, thank god, and in fact way ahead of me in every other respect, but she has no understanding of how to load our dishwasher, and in fact openly rebels against the whole idea of there even being a proper way to do it in the first place.
She repeatedly -despite my protests -puts plates in spaces that have obviously been designated for glasses and insists on loading cutlery chaotically and including large pans that are obviously better dealt with elsewhere. A perfectly reasonable woman in most every other regard, she has absolutely no understanding of the need for orderliness in the dish washing sector as a means of cramming the damn things as full as they could possibly be.
Magically, Mrs. Kelp is not an isolated problem: I have at least one friend (well, truthfully, also at most pretty much one friend) who says his wife frequently does loads of up to forty or fifty percent under capacity, and it's slowly tearing their marriage apart. I have a feeling this is a lot more wide-spread than you might think, so don't be taken in by a pretty face, only to wake up one day and have your forks facing the wrong way.
Unfortunately, they don't have support groups for this yet (well, maybe in California, but not in the regular United States), but as soon as they start up, we're going.
In other scary news, they've discontinued the Spicy Baconator at Wendy's. Sure, they've still got the regular Baconator, and it's still as spectacular as ever, and you can have them throw a few jalapeño peppers on there, and that's not bad at all; but without the special sauce, it can never truly scale the heights of the Spicy Baconator. Still, it's hard to stay mad at them, granting that they were the first visionaries to realize that almost any sandwich benefits from twelve pieces of bacon.
I've heard two really interesting new local bands lately, namely Johnny & the Hellhounds, an extremely spirited little rockabilly quartet spearheaded by the slappin' string bass of Jared Souther and almost Hank Williams-like vocals of Johnny himself (didn't catch the young feller's last name, but you'll know him, he's the one with the Hellhounds); and Toast and Jam, an altogether more refined outfit helmed (perhaps) by Wellfleet maestro Tim Dickey featuring lovely, polished three part harmonies and generally impeccable musicianship.
Toast and Jam -and yes, I've talked to them about the name; I suggested calling it the Mormon Tabernacle Trio (band name courtesy of comedian George Carlin), but they didn't listen -play a relatively fresh and adventurous selection of rootsy song choices (I certainly wasn't expecting the New Pornographers song they covered), while Johnny and the Hellhounds write most of their stuff (and who wouldn't go for any song graced with the title, “Zombie Hooker”?)
The good news is, both bands are so new that they (delightfully) don't have websites yet! The bad news is, I can't get either of them to tell me where they'll be playing in the near future -I'm not sure if it's because they just don't have any jobs, or that they're worried that if they tell me where they're playing, I might show up again. No worries -I'll just keep stalking both of them until they crumble, and pass the savings on to you!
(Wait! Hold the presses! One of 'em already succumbed: Toast and Jam will be back at Joe's Beach Bar in Orleans on May 9th.) (Wait, now the other one has a job, too: Johnny and the Hellhounds will be at the Land Ho with the East Coast Tremors -also led by the ubiquitous Mr. Souther -on Saturday, June 21st!!! Make your reservations right now -this one's doing boffo box office, as they say in Variety.)
Meanwhile, my friend Julie who works at Blockbuster gave me my favorite movie review of the young year so far when, describing the recent Tim Burton – Johnny Depp version of “Sweeney Todd”, she opined “it's good, but they do sing.”
Myself and the radiant Mrs. K (who, despite her considerable intelligence and generally angelic demeanor, puts the forks in funny) are absolute devotees of the original musical, and though neither of us warmed much to the casting (the leads are altogether too young and nice-looking), I liked that it maintained a high level of nastiness and malevolence. Surely, this was a man who would've known how to load a dishwasher.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Busey Stands Tall at Oscar Time
You've caught me in quite a quandary this week: don't know whether to finally unleash the long overdue Kelp Kristmas '07 Wrap-up or go right to this year's Oscar Prognostications. Some would say, well, sometimes it's good to get your Oscar predictions in not too long after the winners have been announced -that's certainly the traditional way of looking at it. But here at the Kodder, we believe that haste makes waste. When you “predict” most of the award winners days in advance, you're relying on chance and witchcraft; doesn't it make sense that you've got a way better chance of making 100% accurate predictions in hindsight, once something has already happened? Of course it does!
2007 was actually a pretty good year for movies and all the people who won this year were basically the ones that should've won, and were rightfully honored. Nothing went wrong -no one swore or fell over, there was scarcely a whiff of politics, the show went off like clockwork -even the fashions seemed relatively understated. The capable and witty Jon Stewart, of the daily show, was adequate. Many deserving folk were given overdue recognition. It was SO BORING!
The ONLY GOOD MOMENT of the ENTIRE ORDEAL was provided by the legendary Gary Busey, during the Red Carpet segment preceding the Oscars capturing the arrival of the various luminaries. As “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest interviewed Jennifer Garner, you could see that they were both reacting nervously to an unspecified disturbance happening off-camera; then Busey lumbers in, looking very much like he was on his way to the can and had just been thrown off a bit by the crowd, and plants a big kiss on Laura Linney, who had been standing at the edge of the fracas, adding how much he has enjoyed her work. He proffers a boisterous but incidental hello to interviewer Seacrest, who tries to deflect him by introducing him to Jennifer Garner, who obviously is shaken and mentally patting the intruder down for weapons.
Busey at first doesn't seem to know which member of the crowd Seacrest has sacrificed to him; when Seacrest repeats, “Jennifer Garner”, he grunts, “What?”, and then grabs her quickly for a perfunctory hug and a kiss on the neck -he obviously has no idea who she is, and his priority is still finding the john. Neither interviewer nor interviewee seems to have any idea who he is, either, but that's nothing: Busey not only doesn't know who they are, he also hasn't noticed that they're all on TV, trying to do an interview. Then he lunges away, as mysteriously as he came. Garner is in shock; Linney tactfully leads her away. Gary Busey's job is done here -god bless and keep you in your good work, Gary (we may have found our host for '09!)
Well, I'm obviously not going to have time for the Kristmas Roundup again, so we'll just have to postpone that until next time. Couple of random comments before we go:
Finally (and inadvertently, of course) happened to catch a bit of one of the debates between Hilary and Barack, and to me it felt more like Bill Clinton vs. Jimmy Stewart. Hilary has the Bill thing down -that smoothness, the effortless engagement, an unstoppable stream of instant, intelligent, constructive unflappableness -you'll never catch this one snoozin'. Barack is alternately stirringly idealistic and a tad ungainly; also smart, constructive, and energetic. Even McCain seems reasonable, compared to what we've been through lately. In fact, I can't remember a time when all of the candidates across the board were this much of an upgrade. This is gonna be great! Vote for anybody -you can't lose!
Which reminds me - to K. Lyle of Harwich: “Helpy” is not a proper name for a snake. Whether stuffed, imaginary, or normal, no one should be called “Helpy the Snake.” Even if he really is helpful, I can't believe that any self-respecting snake would ever want to be named “Helpy”, let alone the whole thing, “Helpy the Snake.” It is my understanding that snakes generally prefer names like “Lyle”, “Sid”. and “Lawrence” (though rarely Larry.) (Still, even Larry is a better name for a snake than “Helpy.”)
“Helpy” just does not work, snake-wise. Next time you need to name a snake, we hope you'll consult someone qualified to deal with such matters, because this is the kind of situation where youthful high spirits will only get you into trouble.
Until next time, keep your eyes open for a pop band called Vampire Weekend, who do a song called “Walcott” (“gotta get out of Cape Cod, outta Cape Cod tonight” -actually, a couple of the members, were brought up around here, I heard); the web-only TV show, “Penelope, Princess of Animals” starring Kristen Schaal, who played the groupie Mel in the ever supple Mrs. Kelp's favorite TV show, “Flight of the Conchords”; and the outtake albums from the vaults of Motown (you won't believe the hits they left in the can, though you sort of have to get in and root around to find the good ones -it's a great job for iTunes and their ilk, as 30 seconds is usually all the time you need to figure out whether it's a hit or a miss, and the hits are as good as it gets.)
Remember, no matter how bad it gets, spring is coming... come on, we can make it...
2007 was actually a pretty good year for movies and all the people who won this year were basically the ones that should've won, and were rightfully honored. Nothing went wrong -no one swore or fell over, there was scarcely a whiff of politics, the show went off like clockwork -even the fashions seemed relatively understated. The capable and witty Jon Stewart, of the daily show, was adequate. Many deserving folk were given overdue recognition. It was SO BORING!
The ONLY GOOD MOMENT of the ENTIRE ORDEAL was provided by the legendary Gary Busey, during the Red Carpet segment preceding the Oscars capturing the arrival of the various luminaries. As “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest interviewed Jennifer Garner, you could see that they were both reacting nervously to an unspecified disturbance happening off-camera; then Busey lumbers in, looking very much like he was on his way to the can and had just been thrown off a bit by the crowd, and plants a big kiss on Laura Linney, who had been standing at the edge of the fracas, adding how much he has enjoyed her work. He proffers a boisterous but incidental hello to interviewer Seacrest, who tries to deflect him by introducing him to Jennifer Garner, who obviously is shaken and mentally patting the intruder down for weapons.
Busey at first doesn't seem to know which member of the crowd Seacrest has sacrificed to him; when Seacrest repeats, “Jennifer Garner”, he grunts, “What?”, and then grabs her quickly for a perfunctory hug and a kiss on the neck -he obviously has no idea who she is, and his priority is still finding the john. Neither interviewer nor interviewee seems to have any idea who he is, either, but that's nothing: Busey not only doesn't know who they are, he also hasn't noticed that they're all on TV, trying to do an interview. Then he lunges away, as mysteriously as he came. Garner is in shock; Linney tactfully leads her away. Gary Busey's job is done here -god bless and keep you in your good work, Gary (we may have found our host for '09!)
Well, I'm obviously not going to have time for the Kristmas Roundup again, so we'll just have to postpone that until next time. Couple of random comments before we go:
Finally (and inadvertently, of course) happened to catch a bit of one of the debates between Hilary and Barack, and to me it felt more like Bill Clinton vs. Jimmy Stewart. Hilary has the Bill thing down -that smoothness, the effortless engagement, an unstoppable stream of instant, intelligent, constructive unflappableness -you'll never catch this one snoozin'. Barack is alternately stirringly idealistic and a tad ungainly; also smart, constructive, and energetic. Even McCain seems reasonable, compared to what we've been through lately. In fact, I can't remember a time when all of the candidates across the board were this much of an upgrade. This is gonna be great! Vote for anybody -you can't lose!
Which reminds me - to K. Lyle of Harwich: “Helpy” is not a proper name for a snake. Whether stuffed, imaginary, or normal, no one should be called “Helpy the Snake.” Even if he really is helpful, I can't believe that any self-respecting snake would ever want to be named “Helpy”, let alone the whole thing, “Helpy the Snake.” It is my understanding that snakes generally prefer names like “Lyle”, “Sid”. and “Lawrence” (though rarely Larry.) (Still, even Larry is a better name for a snake than “Helpy.”)
“Helpy” just does not work, snake-wise. Next time you need to name a snake, we hope you'll consult someone qualified to deal with such matters, because this is the kind of situation where youthful high spirits will only get you into trouble.
Until next time, keep your eyes open for a pop band called Vampire Weekend, who do a song called “Walcott” (“gotta get out of Cape Cod, outta Cape Cod tonight” -actually, a couple of the members, were brought up around here, I heard); the web-only TV show, “Penelope, Princess of Animals” starring Kristen Schaal, who played the groupie Mel in the ever supple Mrs. Kelp's favorite TV show, “Flight of the Conchords”; and the outtake albums from the vaults of Motown (you won't believe the hits they left in the can, though you sort of have to get in and root around to find the good ones -it's a great job for iTunes and their ilk, as 30 seconds is usually all the time you need to figure out whether it's a hit or a miss, and the hits are as good as it gets.)
Remember, no matter how bad it gets, spring is coming... come on, we can make it...
Friday, January 18, 2008
(Prelude to) the Kelp Kristmas Round-Up for '07!
Do you think it's tacky to write your Christmas kolumn after Christmas? Is it like wearing white pants after Labor Day?
Well, so what if it is? This has always been an unflinching, hard hitting kolumn where talk is cheap and nothing is taboo, and the Man can't stop me from writing about Christmas any gosh darn hell the phooey time I want to, because I'm an American, and I'm free to do what I gotta do and be a man and all stuff like that, yay.
The nice thing to think about this is that I love everyone so much that I'm willing to think about Christmas even way after it has happened, during a time when no one is and no one has to. No one should have to think about Christmas in January, but I am, because I love you, or something along those lines. Can't we all be friends and have had the Merriest Christmas in the Whole Wide World? Of course we did -and can!
That's one way to look at it (an illiterate way, but still, a way.)
And then the other way is... well, never mind the other way, just do the first one and none of your lip.
I'd like to dedicate this, my Kelp Kristmas Round-up of '07, to all the little people everywhere who still believe(d) in Christmas, and even the regular-size people who try so hard to be small but aren't, at this most sacred time of year.
Man, I really should've done this a couple of weeks ago.
Look, right now while we're still at a compleat standstill, momentum-wise, I'd like to mention that there is a bill coming up this Saturday at O'Shea's in West Dennis (at 348 Main Street / Rt. 28; 508-398-8887) that is simply adorable and I mean A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E, Adorable, that includes the legendary and hilarious older person Philo “Rockwell” King (AKA Rock King) vs. the also hilarious and ever-appealing Kami Lyle in an epic battle of the sexes. The history of the earth will be blithely portrayed in their mighty rolling and grunting would certainly be the wrong sentence to have after that last one; let's try another approach, quickly!
Rock truly is a local legend, a classic suit-and-tie comic, sophisticated but with a lovely crude streak that he lords over the (semi-) innocents, and he's been doing this a long time (and I mean a lo-o-ong time -this last season at his beloved Sand Bar in West Dennis was his 48th!) His sophistication is almost Catskillian in its epic range. Not many people do this any more and he does it really, really well. As you might expect, or even hope, there is an occasional reference to his wife, Cobra. And he'll probably also do a couple of songs, but you should go anyway.
If Kami Lyle majors in writing and singing (and her writing and singing is quite fine indeed), her minor is definitely something way sillier. Kami has mastered the art of personality, and the raps between her songs -usually unrehearsed ramblings about whatever is going on in Kamiland that day -are themselves well worth the price of admission. On occasion I've seen her improvise a jazz song read out of a catalog or a magazine picked at random. She's youthful, cute, and vivacious, and she's an enormous Rockwell King fan and bound to provide memorable counterpoint, not to mention trumpet.
This is a perfect beauty and the beast set up -but wait! That's not all! You also get Sean Brennan and Johnny O'Sullivan, and a loverly dinner, if you pay $30 (the non-dinner version goes for $15, which is a savings, also, of $15, if I'm not very much mistaken.) I'd go to this show even if I was dead -well, as long as I had $15, I would. And I'd do my level best to get there at 7:30, which is when it starts.
Ok, now I'm too excited to write the Christmas kolumn. Forget it! It's off. Maybe next week. Sorry. You guys must be totally dying for some shopping tips.
One thing before I go, though: Tim Dickey and Friends with Julie Wanamaker will be appearing at the Snow Library in Orleans on Saturday, February 2nd at 4pm. I know that's still a few weeks away, but that way you can make reservations now, unless it's one of those weird libraries that doesn't take reservations, which of course I wouldn't know, but this too could be a very nourishing program, despite the fact that some of the time, they will be playing bluegrass.
You're just going to have to sort it out yourselves.
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