Springfield Calling

This is great. Further proof that I grew up in one of the shittiest towns in the world, Springfield, DELCO, Pa. My dad tells me today that Curt Weldon, local congressman, and Charlie Sexton, Springfield GOP leader are the subject of an FBI investigation. If you’re from Springfield and hated it, this is just classic stuff. Here’s the article from that great bastion of journalistic integrity, The Delco Times.

I do feel slightly bad taking pleasure in the destruction of two men’s careers, but these petty tyrants have ruled Delaware County far too long, and I’ll be glad to see them go, if they do get the boots, get indicted. Fellow Philadelphia-area politician, John Street, showed last election that you can survive a scandal like this, even so close to election day, but I don’t think Weldon and Sexton will have as easy a time crying foul here, or conspiracy. They’re just too well connected to be the subject of conspiracies at the hands of the very people with whom they’re supposed to be in cahoots.

So here’s to a Democratic Springfield. Now if only we were a true democracy . . .

The Closing of CBGB

There’s a decent editorial by Richard Hell in the NY Times about the closing of CBGB. Personally, I don’t care much about the closing. During the two years I lived in New York, I never felt the need to go there. Very few bands of any merit ever played there, at least not any that you would recognize. I’m sure that some acts that I really dig today might have played first gigs there during my time in NYC, but it just wasn’t the type of place that you’d go to just “check out new music,” like the North Star, Fire, Unitaritan Church, Making Time, etc. in Philly or Arlene’s Grocery, Tonic, North Six, etc. during the time I was living in New York, at least as far I was concerned. The only band that I can remember ever playing there who I thought about going to see, just based on name recognition, was Luna, who was doing some kind of warm-up/rehearsal/residency gigs. I can remember at least being in there one time, maybe a couple times, I don’t remember. And it was as infamously dingy as you’ve heard, and that was kind of cool. But the music that I heard sucked, the staff was rude, and the beer was too expensive. I do think that new ‘punk’ bands still had the chance to play there without a lot of hassle, which is good too, and kind of a disappointing loss, I guess, but it’s not as though the NYC market isn’t going to pick up the slack and probably in an exciting and creative way. Plus, the punk scene is too overpopulated by scene fascists or just utter fascists these days anyway to really lament its diminution. I’ll see you at the house party.

Califone, “Roots and Crowns”

Despite the fact that Califone has the rare distinction of being one of the few bands who I first heard/heard of as an opening act (for Modest Mouse at the TLA in Philly, Summer of 2000; Modest Mouse was horrible and this is why I still don’t like them very much; also the night I started officially “going out” with SM; thanks again, CE for the free tix) and actually went on to like, this new record really snuck up on me.  I downloaded the Heron King Blues and Quicksand/Cradlesnakes albums a couple years back, gave them both a couple of spins, and was pleased, but I never really bought into the band wholesale.  Until now.

I can say without hesitation, and after only listening to it a couple of times, that this is one of the best pure “indie rock” (read: non-hip/hop, metal, hardcore, noise, dance, pop, or electronica albums) that I’ve heard in the past couple years, and probably the best bar-none since Joanna Newsom’s Milk-Eyed Mender.  (Of course, Ms. Newsom is just about to outdo herself with Ys, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.) I know that some readers will take issue with me playing fast and loose with the term “indie-rock” here since either the new Califone or Joanna Newsom could also easily be described, variously, as folk, alt-country, roots music, experimental music, etc., etc. But I interpret these more as sub-categories under the big umbrella of indie-rock.  If you want, here, you can even consider indie-rock simply as a market driven, labelling term.  At least in part, I am doing so.  Indie-rock, as I understand it, doesn’t really have an aesthetic associated with it.  It’s more a set of marketing practices, or less cynically, artistic practices—ways an album is produced, recorded, distributed; touring practices, etc.  It is not a coincidence that both of these “indie-rock” albums were released on Chicago based labels, Thrill Jockey and Drag City, with a lot of personnel crossover.  (Chicago, in my opinion, really has become the seat of indie-rock; New York be damned.  Maybe I’ll write a series of posts on this some time soon, too.)

This digression into an attempt at defining “indie-rock” is justified because it has a lot to do with my appreciation for this record.  I have been saying for years that the set of aesthetics, poetics, and marketing that are practiced in the indie-rock ghetto have basically killed what we used to call punk and, before that, rock, by turning them into post-punk and indie.  More recently, they have threatened metal, dance, electronica, and to some extent, even gotten their paws on underground hip-hop and rap.

What this record reminds me is that the set of practices associated with the indie-rock ghetto can still, from time to time, produce great art, indepent-minded in the true sense of the word, truly original, and well developed.  Roots and Crowns is not a masterpiece, even if the second song, “Spider’s House,” does sound like it could have been outtake from either Pet Sounds or Big Pink, but it is a great album, up there with the best so far this year—Ghostface, The Drift, Mastodon, Hold Steady (also indie rock, also good, but not in the same way).  I’m not going to give it the full track-by-track treatment that I gave Modern Times a couple weeks ago, few artists are interesting enough to merit that kind of dedication, but I will probably post a couple track reviews throughout the week.  I also have a review of the new TV on the Radio almost ready and a Backyard Phenomenology post too.  Please do check in throughout the week.

Informal Poll

I asked a few readers of the blog this question a couple weekends ago at Skinner’s in Philly.  Did or do you, your parents, grandparents, etc. use the word “dungarees,” and how so? I am trying to put together a definition/etymology of the word in the Americas to submit to the OED.  I won’t give any more info for now so as not to prejudice your responses.  Please also include a little background info on anyone you’ve heard use the word, especially where they came from (e.g. Western Pennsylvania, California, County Cork).

Marie Antoinette preview-Lost In Translation-Marie Antoinette

This is kind of a dumb post because it’s about the preview for a movie. And I wrote it 3 days ago but was unable to post it because my internet was down. I should have more tomorrow.

Did y’all see the Marie Antoinette movie preview near the end of The Office tonight? The film looks sumptuous. Ready to be consumed or consumptive? Only time will tell.

I’m basing a lot of my pre-movie opinion on what I think of Sofia Copolla. The Virgin Suicides was a non-starter for me, as I think it was for most. And if you’d talked to me in the last couple years, then you’d know that I ended up not liking Lost in Translation as much as I did when I first saw it. It was a pointless movie. Love can be found in the strangest places? True love never really works out? You get old? Marriage sucks? Tell me something I didn’t know. Of course, most all Amerikan films are founded on love plots, life plots, death plots, so to pick on Lost in Translation for barking up that same tree is a little lame, but it’s not just that its barking up the tree that turns me off. What really turns me off about that film and any number of other films like it is the post-ironic, authentically inauthentic pose they take towards their love plots. You can’t have your cake and eat it too unless you’re a very special movie made by, say, Douglas Sirk or Fassbinder or Todd Haynes or something. Lost in Translation was a bunch of OK actors and a young director working at the top of their game to produce a painfully earnest depiction of honest people in a dishonest world, but the movie was dishonest about it all, and constructed so as not to seem earnest. People find redemption in the strangest places in Lost in Translation because no one (in ‘real life’) really finds redemption in the places the characters find it in the movie. So they only seem strange, quirky, surprising. Make me a multi-millionaire and send me to Japan and I promise you I’ll have a good time. And I’ll also read a book and visit a Zen Buddhist sanctuary and I’ll sing karaoke to “(What’s So Funny Bout?) Peace, Love, and Understanding.” I do that daily anyway.

But speaking of cake, what I was really blogging about was the cake movie, Marie Antoinette. I’m sweating this thing. The visuals in the preview just look great. And it’s got one of those soundtracks that’s gonna expose people to music they’ve never heard before, so they’re going to like the movie better. And the shitty thing is that I already like a lot of this music (New Order, Gang of Four), so it’s not doing me any good and I’m going to have to listen to people acting like New Order has never existed for 20 years. It looks like the kind of movie, like Lost in Translation, that I’m going to have a hard time not liking in public, in mixed company and not because its deadly serious or ultra-romantic, but because it’s super-cool. It’s also super-consumable. And that’s what it’s there for. Or is it? This is the thing too. And the only reason I would really blog on something like this anyway. This movie also has the potential to be something I really like, i.e. good. There’s something intriguing about a punk rock version of Marie Antoinette, and if the logo and the soundtrack are any indication, it’s the Bromley contingent, Jamie Reid, Howard Devoto-type version of punk, not the bonehead post-Ramones, sub-Green Day version we’ve all grown so accustomed to. I might have told you about the time I took a paddleboat out in the reflecting pool at Versailles with a Canadian girl. I leaned back in it, puffed on a cigarette, like Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, looked up at the palace and for the first time grasped the monumentality of the French Revolution, and perhaps revolution in general, though that one might have been an exception. And I’m wondering if this Marie Antoinette can capture that feeling, or if it’ll even want to. Or if it’s just gonna sell me a style or two that Madonna was already parading 10 years ago.

send this link to children

this is fucking mindnullifying. i love it. it helps you shop if you’re a child.

More reflections on The Hold Steady

Just listened to the Hold Steady’s first, “Almost Killed Me,” which I’d never really listened to attentively before, and it led me on to some reflections.

There are no keys on this album, and that makes a big difference. (Obviously, this is obvious, but like I said, I hadn’t listened to the album attentively before.) It makes the album sound, on one hand, more like Springsteen, and on the other hand, less. Less, because Springsteen of course used keys himself to great effect, on every album. More, because it still sounds like Springsteen in spite of the lack of keys.

“Almost Killed Me” is the most bar-bandish and that’s not just because Finn mentions, again and again, bar bands, and bars, and drinking, and bartenders. He does this on every album. It’s the most bar-bandish because of the lack of keys, because it’s the loosest and the riffiest. The guitars on this album slash and reverberate and go off in ways that they don’t on the more self-contained and rhythmic tunes of “Separation Sunday” and “Boys and Girls.” HS is a lot more Replacements-like here (and, conversely, less Springsteen-like, in this regard).

There is a sax solo on “Almost Killed Me.” I don’t know if there are on other HS songs.

And the latter, the sax solo, and the slashing guitars, etc. made me reflect on the HS and genre, i.e. what genre they’re playing in. It’s the same genre as Springsteen and it’s the same genre as the ‘Mats. What they’re bringing to light for me here is that this is a genre, it might even by a ‘type of music,’ but it’s not a style. The style is The Hold Steady’s own. And, in this, they’re a little limited. They don’t do nearly as much, musically, as Bruce, at his best, was capable of. They might approach the ‘Mats in words or talent, but they don’t have the same charisma. At least not yet.

But they’re still moving ahead. And since they’re moving ahead is why I can say that I wish there were more bands like this without sounding conservative, old-fashioned, nostalgic or narrowminded. What we should be hearing is bands copping HS, Boss, and Mats moves, but then introducing totally new elements — new scales, harmonies or rhythmic patterns; exotic instrumentation; electronic elements; more gender diversity; greater thematic breadth (ideas: war, peace, capital, sexuality, chemical fires, SUVs, computers, insects, God), etc.

I will think of the HS when I’m out at the bar tonight but I’d like to think of more.

The Hold Steady, “Boys and Girls in America”

The album is awesome and the title is cribbed from On the Road and the first line mentions Sal Paradise. And then it gets better and better. It ends with a song, “Southtown Girls,” which combines two or three of the best Amerikan song forms: First, the list of places song a la “Route 66″ or Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land,” the one from this genre that I’m currently obsessed with, “Surfin” by the Beach Boys is also good. (Wasn’t there a Mountain Dew commercial where John Lydon sang “Route 66″?) Craig Finn has obviously taken the good advice of Lucinda Williams: “Put as many place names and nicknames into your songs.” This is basically his entire approach to songwriting. Second, the song that lists types of girls, “California Girls”, or sings about one type of girl that you really like or can’t avoid (“Psychogirl,” “Vampire Girls”). I guess what he’s doing here is much more firmly the latter, but there are aesthetic shades of the former. At least, it brought the former to my mind. So it half counts.

Craig has a problem with girls on this album, and that bothers me, a little bit. The worst offender here is “You Can Make Him Like You,” which I think is about a girl that Craig doesn’t like, at least not in that way I mean, so it’s not quite so bitter or misogynistic. I really think that he’s reaching out to a friend of his with boy problems. But I think he could go about it more constructively.

Craig’s foresaken, somewhat, the totally boozy croak that he used all throughout the last album and I’m happy with that. The songwriting goes in a lot of different directions too, including straight-up acoustic on “Citrus.” I’ve been waiting for the Hold Steady to do a number like this, and I’m glad they did, but I’m not completely satisfied since it sounds so much like Bright Eyes that the closing melody is a straight-up rip-off, something from their last album, the folk-sy one. I’m too lazy to dig out the disc, but listen and you should be able to hear. And realize that by making this observation I’m admitting that I’ve listened to a Bright Eyes album enough to pick out one of its melodies a year or two away. Craig Finn sings better, but he doesn’t sing as pretty as Bright Eyes.

Other song directions include the “Chillout Tent” . . . what’s a duet with three voices called? A triad? Who knows . . . Anyway, it’s Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum and some other person, a woman, singing about making out in the chillout tent. Or maybe just talking. The NY Times didn’t like this one. I do. It’s like The Hold Steady admitting that they’re not as good as Springsteen and maybe as bad as Meatloaf but probably better and at least a hundred times more sincere than a hundred million other garage bands today because of all that.

This one’s definitely worth listening to. I can’t say whether I like it more than Separation Sunday. I think it’s no doubt more consistent, but the previous album really had some great highs and it told a story. Not telling a story is fine, but this one also might get repetitive.

It’s streaming here. I would listen straight through or start with “Chips Ahoy!” and “Party Pit.”

You should also go to Mastodon’s website and listen to their new album too, if you haven’t already.

Backyard Ethics: An Interactive Post

I saw a few strange things on a walk to campus today. First, my landlord has put a What Would Larry David Do?-bumper sticker on his station wagon. That’s not strange, but I thought it was cool. I didn’t know he was a Curb Your Enthusiasm fan. Next, I saw a housecat kill a squirrel. I’d never seen anything like this before, or if I had, I never stopped to think about it. The cat was definitely domesticated. It was wearing a collar and looked well fed and groomed. I don’t know why it had to kill the squirrel except because of latent instinct or just because it was an asshole. The squirrel was screaming. I’ve never heard a squirrel scream like that. And I wondered if I should have scared the cat and shooed it off. At first, I definitely thought “no” since, as a rule, I try my best to let nature take its proverbial course, but then I thought that maybe I should have because the killing was so senseless and, as I saw it, there was nothing really ‘natural’ about the fight. There was no biological or ecological necessity as far as I could see. (Although perhaps, even though the cat doesn’t need to eat the squirrel, they still do this in order to keep the squirrel population down.) If anyone would like to comment on what they would have done, I would appreciate it. That’s why this is an interactive post.

Later, I saw what looked like a groundhog run inside someone’s house. Then I saw a huge bird. I don’t know if it was a vulture or a bird of prey or something, but like I said, it was huge and when it swooped down close to my head, it kind of scared me. Two women jogging across the street didn’t seem to notice it. On my whole walk back and forth to campus, 40 minutes each way, I would say I probably saw only about 20 people not driving and 15 of these were joggers, runners, or walkers for fitness. I find that depressing.