JIM SELLS MUSIC REVIEWS

Okay, so I lied. Just get latest joint from the Pack A.D., “Unpersons”, and enjoy it. I am not going to try and break it down because … I am lazy as Hell. No, seriously, I think “Unpersons” works a lot better based on what each of you think of it. It is universal, yet too personal for me to make sweeping statements about. I think that album evolves differently for each listener …

Anyway, let us shift gears completely. Based out of Toronto, The Darcys have a hard-earned reputation for touring theirs asses off and for being seriously musically weird at times. Their first album, “Endless Water”, was recorded at the Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum, for heaven’s sake.

Stuck without a record deal and sonically adrift, the Darcys decided to kill time and amuse themselves recording an interpretation of Steely Dan’s “Aja”, which takes some serious stones. A lot of critics have hated the band from jump just because and, as a result, Steely Dan has always had an invite-only club mindset towards … well, anyone not in Steely Dan.

The Darcys do not shy away from their chosen task – at all. The instrumentation and arrangements are all crazy cool. Their take on “Deacon Blue” sounds like chamber singers laying it down over some choice beats from The Streets, while someone who has listened to a LOT of Matt Johnson (The The) and Johnny Marr goes OFF on guitar. The drummer channels Keith Moon at various moments and then completely drops out of the mix. It maintains the vibe of the original just enough, but not a hair more. It is a ballsy, we’re doing it our way/kiss our ass move that just rocks.

A lot of today’s music listeners have forgotten Steely Dan, and might have forgotten how many hits were on the original album. “Aja” produced three Top 30 singles, which is damned fine for an album with a total of seven tracks. In an era still locked into vinyl, B-side were still important (and played on FM radio, especially) with songs such as “I Got the News” and “Black Cow” becoming favorites of Steely Dan fans through such exposure.

I mention that because on their take on “Aja”, the Darcys do a fine job of focusing on the song at hand, instead of saving up all their bullets for the hits. Album cuts “Home at Last” and “I Got the News” are so atmospheric that Ambulance Ltd. and Broken Social Scene come to mind immediately. Spooky and dark sounds dominate this record. Today’s listeners, raised on a steady diet of the hits and possibly having never heard a Dan album in toto, do not know that Steely Dan’s lyrics were dark. The band takes its name from a sex toy in William Burroughs’ “The Naked Lunch”, if that is any clue. Their protagonists are, at times, wistful, nostalgic, totally screwed, horny, drunk, stoned, and/or any permutation and combination of any of the above. This is not “Lucy in Disguise” or “Fox on the Run” or any other fluff – there is something seriously amiss in the lyrical world of Messrs. Fagen and Becker.

The Darcys, for all the razing and rebuilding of “Aja”, NEVER lose sight of that lyrical vibe, and also how it influences the musical tone. Their version of “Josie”, possibly the truest to the original track on the album, is unsettling – cool to the touch emotionally and psychically, almost anti-soul. It is also fascinating, transforming into a beat poem with backing music and vocal effects. Considering the Burroughs connection and the perpetually jaded lyrical bent of Steely Dan’s lyrics, this is one of the truest interpretations of another artist’s song that I have ever heard.

The Darcys recorded their version of “Aja” because there was nothing else to do, and that quiet desperation echoes throughout “Aja”, landing a gut punch for occasional emphasis that the listener never sees coming.

If – mighty big if here – IF you are in the mood to have your consciousness altered in a weird, weird way, then I cannot recommend this any higher. It is fantastically weird or weirdly fantastic. I am uncertain as to which.

Get this now.

Later taters.

This week will be a collection of thoughts, rants, suggestions, and mental static. In other words, it is all business as usual, only shorter …

Lana Del Rey might be attractive – that is up to y’all – but after the SNL washout, it has become obvious that her audience, outside of music writers that want to bone her, is shrinking rapidly, before her debut has even been released. Her fifteen minutes may have been postdated …

Whatever flashback/neural episode made Steven Tyler think that he could still hit that note during the National Anthem at the Patriots-Ravens game needs to be treated, preferably with electro-convulsive therapy. He has not had that range since “Done with Mirrors”.

Is it just me or do Van Halen keep tripping all over one another in the video for their “new” single, “Tattoo”? I realize Wolfgang is a big boy but hey gents, it is called blocking, and there ARE professionals available to help with that.

Whoever is responsible for the upcoming new Insane Clown Posse album, step forward so that you may be charged with crimes against humanity. Where is a black hole with an appetite for Faygo, Juggalos, and ICP when you need one?

Craig Finn’s “Clear Heart Full Eyes” illustrates where some artists are good solo but great inside the dynamic of a band. It is good, but it is nowhere near “Almost Killed Me” or even “Stay Positive”.

The Scorpions have a new album coming out. Why?

I am slowly sliding towards being in Howler’s cheering section. “Give Up, America” is not perfect but it is white-hot for a debut album, especially one driven by a 20 year-old who is only beginning to realize his talent.

The Arctic Monkeys are only getting better, album-by-album. Alex Turner is a force to be dealt with. Why does virtually no one know this?

NME has awarded Noel Gallagher its Godlike Genius Award for 2012. Two thoughts arise here: a) it is about damned time and b) I wonder if tea shot out of Liam’s nose when he heard the news.

The new Pack A.D. albums rules but the computer ate the review, so I will try again next week to give y’all the full-length lowdown. This week, my patience is at an end, as is my son’s, for I am being summoned for the late-night Dad/milk quality time.

Y’all stay dry and stay the Hell away from Birmingham for a while. It has tornado magnet written all over it lately.

More better next week.

Love ya, Red. Always.

Later taters.

I think the Pack A.D. will have to wait until next week, and it has nothing to do with Lana Del Rey’s suck fest appearance on this past weekend’s “Saturday Night Live”. What has happened is Nada Surf has a new album out, and that fact trumps nearly everything.

Twenty years into their career, Nada Surf has worn many labels such as “the next big thing” and the unfortunate follow-up, “one-hit wonders”. Anyone who would use such labels for an act that, on any given night, may very well be the best band in the world is, at best, a misguided soul and, at worst, an abject idiot.

Nada Surf has had to live with every yahoo in the world thinking that their song, “Popular”, is the only song they have ever recorded. Not only have they managed to carry on in the face of that indignity, they have also managed to record some of the finest power-pop you have never heard. 2005’s “The Weight Is a Gift” was THE album of that year, unrelenting in its perfection, with hooks, riffs, and lyrics for days. Here is an early one: if you do not have “The Weight Is a Gift”, get it yesterday, and pretend as if you have owned it all this time.

Nada Surf hits nothing but home runs on this album. The combination of an unflagging wide-eyed optimism, hook-laden tunes with great harmonies, and lyrics that unerringly bring to mind that perfect, exact image makes for an album that had me grinning the entire way.

The opening track, “Clear Eyed Clouded Mind”, starts out smoking, with thunderous drums and throbbing bass lines providing a solid foundation for some big guitar sounds. Frontman Matthew Caws is one of a handful of vocalists alive that can make a couplet like “The stars are indifferent to astronomy/and all that we think we know” work. Work? Hell, it soars.

Another standout in an album of incredible songs is “Teenage Dreams”. A tight mix gives life to great lines such as “Sometimes I ask the wrong questions/ but I get the right answer” and the topper, “It’s never too late for teenage dreams”. It is quite the companion piece to the Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks” …

It is so difficult to maintain a linear thought process reviewing an album when all you wish to do is to immerse yourself in it completely.

“I try to say all the right things/but get hung up on the tone”, Caws intones on the album’s last track, “The Future”. If there has been a persistent problem on prior Nada Surf efforts, it is that Caws seems unhappy with his vocals at times. The doubt should die on this album, as the lead vocals and the harmonies are pristine. Caws finally seems to realize what he has going on vocally and how good it is. Lord, he could have asked me three albums ago. I would have been glad to clear that up for him.

The theme here is the passage of time, as indicated by some of the song titles (“Looking Through” and “When I Was Young”) and the last line of the album, “I cannot believe the future’s happening to me”. Nada Surf emerges on this latest album as a band that has survived being “Popular” to become stalwart elders in the indie scene, and more optimistic now than when they started. It seems that they have been big and decided that they would much rather be happy, with both themselves and their music. That appears to have been the correct decision, for it has produced one of the best albums I have heard in a long time.

Get this one the second you can.

Later taters.

Well, I hung y’all out to dry last week, offering up eight albums, instead of six, including one I have never reviewed here. Ain’t that a bitch? Therefore, I thought I would give y’all the scoop on my 1A of 2011, The New Division’s “Shadows”.

“Shadows” is the finest example of the neo-New Wave music that is starting to build some momentum nationally, with bands like She Wants Revenge, Cut Copy, and The Exploding Boy all having gained differing levels of exposure in the States. There are bands out there doing similar music, but The New Division understand that they have to offer something new out of the stew of their influences, not just a reheated version of something that has already been done. Yeah, I am looking at you, She Wants Revenge. Your rehashes of Joy Division have steadily gotten worse – straighten up or give up.

Anyway, The New Division channels influences you would expect – Joy Division and New Order – with some that you might not expect – Camouflage, Yaz(oo), OMD, the Chameleons (UK), and the Fixx. The resulting album, “Shadows”, is dark, danceable, and captivating.

The opening track, “Opium”, is a dance your ass off track, just to get things rolling. The next track, “Shallow Play”, is the one that really brought to mind the Chameleons. It is different instrumentation than he would use, but you can very easily hear Mark Burgess singing this.

“Sense” is a fine track, with a sense of space that is rare in pop/rock music, and it is as suited for the dance floor as it is suitable for college radio, or all radio, for that matter. This is the track that really carries the hints of OMD, Camouflage, and (of course) Depeche Mode, the band that has had some of the biggest influence on the bands of the past fifteen-twenty years and been given little credit for it.

There are instrumentals – “Shadows” and “LA Noire” - that bring to mind the ones that Tom Waits used to set the mood in his Frank’s Wild Years trilogy. They make perfect bridges between the previous tunes and the following ones, shaking the musical Etch A Sketch blank, preparing it perfectly for a new song.

There are other great tunes here, but to name them all would belabor the point. The only complaint that comes to mind is one of whimsical notion, namely wishing that The New Division had the budget and big label behind them to clean up and flesh out the sound. Bandcamp is a great idea and allows bands to set goals for making albums, leaving it up to their fan base to put their money where their mouth is. However, very few bands that succeed in their goals on Bandcamp raise enough money to record at, say, the Power Station. That lack of technical access shows at times on “Shadows”, but it never detracts from the brilliance of this album. It just leaves you wanting to hear it sounding improved.

Now, go and get this and grok it well. It is THAT good and gets better with each listen.

Next week, maybe we will revisit our old friends, the Pack AD. They have a new one out that will melt your speakers.

Y’all be good and stay warm. Or cool. Or dry. You never can tell with the weather here.

Later taters.

Here is hoping that Santa brought y’all everything you wanted. In case he did not, let us wrap up this Top 13 of 2011 list and you can finish that list yourselves.

6) The Men – “Leave Home”

On an album titled in homage to the late, great Ramones, a listener would expect a sonic barrage. I am not sure anyone anticipated this sonic gauntlet, where making it to the end is an almost visceral triumph. I have not been beat up this severely by an album in a long time … until now. This is loud, distorted, raw, and freaking magnificent.

5) The Rifles – “Freedom Run”

Having progressed from the greatest Jam album never recorded, “No Love Lost”, to a fantastic pop-rock masterpiece, “Great Escape”, the Rifles have now produced the best pop-rock album of the year. Losing two members seems to have cleared the decks for the shift in sound. Whereas the influence of Paul Weller was heaviest on the first album and noticeable on the second album, “Freedom Run” has touches of the Beatles and Brian Wilson that Verve producer Chris Potter wisely allows to surface and shape the sound. This is the best pop album of the year.

4) Mogwai – “Hardcore Will Never Die but You Will”

Read the album title a couple of times to etch it into your brain and then hold on tight. This lot from Scotland takes the fork in the road where M83 went the other way. Here is seriously atmospheric instrumental music that rocks. It is the best album yet from a band with a Hell of a back catalog.

3) Tom Waits – “Bad As Me”

After what seemed like a century-long wait for a new album, Tom Waits returns with a loose, swinging masterpiece that opens the door to another chapter of his career. It would have been easy to record a “Tom Waits” album or even an “old Tom Waits” album. Instead, we are given the sounds of a man still writing great songs and having a blast doing so. The haters of this one need to get over themselves because this one is as good an album as he has done in a long time.

2) The Horrible Crowes – “Elsie”/The Gaslight Anthem – “The iTunes Sessions”

Okay, so I am cheating here – sue me. The Horrible Crowes’ debut was strong as train smoke, with tales of everyday life immersed in music the type of which Brian Fallon has never really tried on an album by the Gaslight Anthem. “The iTunes Session” showed the Gaslight Anthem to be as capable a band, recording this album on the road when they had the time, as 99 percent of the bands out there are when those bands are in the studio with all the bells and whistles to clean up the sound and nothing else to drain their energies, such as … oh, I don’t know, being on tour. The two albums are the album equivalent of a double A-side single, with each being equally essential.

1) Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – “Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds”

Liam may have struck first with a more danceable record that was very good, but Noel laughed last and loudest with an album of mid-tempo songs that do a fantastic slow burn, rewarding the listeners that put it on repeat and let it rip. The big single to date, “If I Had a Gun”, is one of the best songs Noel has ever written, and I bet Liam would kill to have been around to sing it.

Moreover, ‘cause I can be a sneaky bastard, here is one I meant to hip y’all to but never did.

1A) The New Division – “Shadows”

As the name suggests (Joy Division plus New Order equals The New Division), the band draws from a great history of New Wave/New Romantic music and add touches of dark wave and dance music to create a neo-New Wave masterpiece. This album is freaking fantastic - dark, danceable, and atmospheric. More accessible than Exploding Boy, the New Division is essential listening.

Here are the top six – okay, seven – albums of 2011’s Top 13. Get ‘em and get ready for some serious listening. You WILL dig.

Have a happy New Year. Be safe, have fun, and we will meet up here when it is 2012.

Later taters.

Alright, let us break down 2011’s Top 13 by starting this week with the 7-13 albums. Then next week, we will break out the 1-6 albums. The order is somewhat arbitrary, as I could not tell you why an album is number 12 instead of number 11; however, what I can do is get them into subdivisions (cue Rush here) of three or four albums of the same heft. Whereas numbers 12 and 11 may not have much separating them, numbers 13 and 1 will.

Let us begin …

13) Lowline – “Lowline”   This self-titled debut that the music press in the UK tried to disparage without ever bothering to listen to. Too bad, because if the had, they would have been treated to a UK band processing all their influences into an album that has a bone to pick with the entire damned world. A great listen when I first heard it, and an even better one now.

12) Cults – “Cults”   I had never heard a perfect piece of summer pop music with a Jim Jones – yeah, THAT Jim Jones – intro before I heard “Go Outside”. After that light bulb went on in my head, it somehow all made sense, which is somewhat scary, as is the entire album. I do not mean Ozzy fake scary or Mastodon rage scary. I mean start a bright, so trebly it had to be made for AM piece of perfect pop with words from one of the Seventies’ darkest stars and it works, perfectly. That is scary, and it is catchy as Hell.

11) Brett Dennen – “Loverboy”   Yeah, I know he looks 15 and his main claim to musical fame has been earnest folk-rock that shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” love to use to set the tone for key moments in the story. Well, screw that on this album. Brett Dennen stated that he wanted to record an album that his fans could dance to and he succeeded. All the tunes are catchy and danceable, but “Comeback Kid (That’s My Dog)” and, my God, “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” both make you just rock the Hell out. This is a great change of pace from Mr. Dennen.

10) James Leg – “Solitary Pleasures”   I have had the pleasure of hearing John Myers play in a number of joints over the years, and he has never disappointed. Some of those ventures highlighted his talents better than others, and I think John might have been taking notes during that time because every note played here, every lyric sang is right in his wheelhouse. That is not to say he does not experiment, for it would have been safe to make a Black Diamond Heavies-like album here. Instead, we are treated to a Hell of a musician stretching out and seeing just what he can do and what he wants to do, which happened to translate into a great album.

9) Motopony – “Motopony”   This album is hard to place, what with xylophones, shuffle drumming, twanged-out guitars, and some incredible songwriting. That is just fine by me ‘cause I can keep this one real simple – “Motopony” is just a great pop-rock album that hints that they have just scratched the surface of the music they are capable of creating. Hell yeah.

8) The Panics – “Rain on a Humming Wire”   Australia has always had some mystical hold on my mind, if not my soul, and a disproportionate number of bands hailing from there have ended up in my permanent heavy rotation, e.g. Midnight Oil and AC/DC. Add one more to the list, as The Panics have created an album reminiscent of the Triffids at their finest. The West Coast of Australia has spawned a guitar-driven pop-rock masterpiece that should make more lists like this one than it will and that is a damned shame.

7) Elbow – “Build a Rocket, Boys!”    On any given day, Guy Garvey is my favorite singer in the world, a bruised tenor that seems to carry the weight of the world in each syllable uttered. Elbow keeps on being merely astounding, putting out albums in a world that does not value mature rock. I do not mean Depends Bop, but music with themes a bit more complex than Rebecca Black’s “Friday”. The longing for youth, the nostalgic whimsy, and moreover the sense of optimism for the future creates a heartfelt paean to Greater Manchester, where they all grew up and, from the sound of “Build a Rocket, Boys!”, hope to grow old. This is brilliant work.

There we have 7-13, the first part of 2011’s Top 13. Y’all argue about that (or send me hate mail or whatever) for a week and we will get together next week for 1-6. How does that sound?

Have a merry Christmas. Much love to all y’all. Hope Santa brings you everything you asked for.

Later taters.

It is extremely strange to come upon an album that the very existence of proves some point about the randomness of the universe and the total absurdity of ever thinking that you have a grip about what is going on around you. The perfect example of this train wreck of thought is Smith and Burrows’ “Funny Looking Angels”. This may be the only album that plumbs all the emotions and thought that Tom Waits covered in four and a half minutes in “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”. It contains the laughter and the sorrow, the joy of the season and the dread of that joy, where not all the glad tidings in the world mean a thing.

Andy Burrows - ex-Razorlight, I Am Arrows, and We Are Scientists – teams with Tom Smith from Editors again, this time to record a Christmas album that is a welcome weird alternative to all the other holiday crap crammed on the shelves this time of year. Instead of seeing just how many “ho ho ho”s they can squeeze out of old standards, they mixed some inspired covers – “The Christmas Song”, which features Danish singer/songwriter/goddess Agnes Obel, Black’s “Wonderful Life”, and Yazoo’s “Only You” – with some killer original tunes like “When The Thames Froze”, where Smith states, “God damn this snow/will I ever get where I want to go?” over some nice brass and piano work that slowly moves from a sad, defeated dirge to a swelling chorus that compels the listener to “Tell everyone that there’s hope in your heart/tell everyone or it will tear you apart”. It is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s “River”, a sad song rife with melancholic twists and turns that somehow never despairs.

Burrows’ high point comes on “As the Snowflakes Fall”. His higher vocal register adds to the orchestral riffs, percussion, and guitar to create a sound for the lyrics, “Just like a fairytale/feels like some other world”. It works – the song is a jangly ethereal carol for the flipside of the season, stating finally, “Just like another world/you took your love away”, illustrating why suicide and domestic violence rates spike during the holiday season. Happy Holidays, indeed.

Their cover of Delta’s “Funny Looking Angels” is fantastic, acoustic guitars, light percussion, and handclaps. “Funny looking angels/ain’t got no money/we’re always sick and tired/Always think it’s funny” might be the best down-and-out take on Christmas since the aforementioned Tom Waits classic. Smith and Burrows display excellent and esoteric taste in their choices for covers. This song transforms from a catchy enough number into an exquisite earworm.

The one that snuck up on me was “This Ain’t New Jersey”, with the killer line of “It’s A Wonderful Life/seen it a thousand times/but it don’t get old/it don’t get old”, describing a fight for a love that is worth the battle. It is uncertain whether the singer wins or loses. The battle, the unwillingness to surrender is what is important here, another brush with the season’s darker undertones clothed in a beautiful arrangement.

Look, I usually do not run around throwing out recommendations for Christmas albums. Songs? Sure. You have to have “Father Christmas” by the Kinks, Robert Ear Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family”, and most definitely Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, along with “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” and “River”. However, necessary Christmas albums that are not compilations do not readily jump to mind … until now. “Funny Looking Angels” is out now, so get it yesterday. This is so unexpectedly good as to be a Christmas present for us all. Listen and enjoy to an adult’s Christmas album and grin like a kid.

Y’all stay warm/cool/dry. You cannot ever tell with the weather here.

Later taters.  

Well, so much for the winter weather that wasn’t. Weather here is all the pains and discomfort associated with pressure changes with none of the cool looking weather, just grey rain everywhere. I like rain and that gets old, even for me.

I was going to review the new and probably last Amy Winehouse album, one which should illustrate how much she had left to give artistically, but evidently my computer thought that one was too good to let go, so it ate it. Yay.

Fortunately, when you have an astute publisher and the hermanos Gallagher, you are never at a loss for a topic. I was tipped off to the latest volley in the battle of words between Liam and Noel Gallagher, one that has been ongoing ever since either a) Oasis threw out Noel and kept on as Beady Eye or b) Noel said, “Screw you guys”, and went home.  Which version is correct is a question that will never be answered but I do know one thing – it makes for better reality than any reality show ever will.

The short take is that Noel tells NME that Liam got off the band’s plane as he was getting on because Liam’s then-wife, Patsy Kensit, called and stated that they needed to buy a house, leaving Oasis to head into the first show of the tour, a 16,000-seat arena, with no lead singer.

Look, I understand every dude in the world wanted a shot of Patsy Kensit ever since she was in “Lethal Weapon 2” but pulling your husband off a flight to buy a house right then? Sweet Jesus, that is insane, even for the Gallaghers. Noel wonders in the NME piece just exactly what the two were doing the three months prior when Oasis was NOT touring. That would seem to have been a perfect time for buying a house, with nothing else to do and plenty of available cash, but what do I know?

The second volley is that Noel considers Liam’s behavior, such as that noted above, to be the reason that Oasis never broke as big in America as they did everywhere else. That might seem a ludicrous statement at face value. After all, “Definitely Maybe”, “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”, and “Be Here Now” all went platinum in the States. However, that leaves four studio albums and a live album out in the cold, even after their resurgence with “Don’t Believe the Truth”. Oasis is a British band but they have always translated well worldwide, in most every country except here. Reading the piece, it becomes evident that that fact sticks in Noel’s craw a bit. Who knows why they did not have a longer heyday here? We, as a nation, have terrible music taste, so that probably has something to do with it. Musical trends and tastes in the U.K. and the U.S. diverge at weird points as well. And, to be honest, Liam was being an ass on a steady basis at that time, so maybe Noel has a legitimate beef. Who knows?

What I do know is that rock and roll needs more bands like this, rolling train wrecks chock full of talent and ego, so much so that they are impossible to ignore even after they split into two bands doing completely different types of music. Beady Eye does what they do well and are only going to get better. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have released a fantastic album with their first effort. Yet, that is not what we talk about when we talk about Oasis and their legacy. We talk about who said what about whom now, and I think that is good, because it keeps talking and thinking about music alive in the everyday world and not restricted to people like me who cannot go a day without talking music for at least an hour with somebody. Fear Factor’s returning to television this winter and Joe Rogan is a personal hero, but they have already lost the top spot. As long as the Gallaghers can speak or write, they ARE the best reality show going, bar none.

Something written about something recorded next week, promise. Or maybe not.

Stay warm and y’all be good.

Later taters.

Well, so much for the winter weather that wasn’t. Weather here is all the pains and discomfort associated with pressure changes with none of the cool looking weather, just grey rain everywhere. I like rain and that gets old, even for me.

I was going to review the new and probably last Amy Winehouse album, one which should illustrate how much she had left to give artistically, but evidently my computer thought that one was too good to let go, so it ate it. Yay.

Fortunately, when you have an astute publisher and the hermanos Gallagher, you are never at a loss for a topic. I was tipped off to the latest volley in the battle of words between Liam and Noel Gallagher, one that has been ongoing ever since either a) Oasis threw out Noel and kept on as Beady Eye or b) Noel said, “Screw you guys”, and went home.  Which version is correct is a question that will never be answered but I do know one thing – it makes for better reality than any reality show ever will.

The short take is that Noel tells NME that Liam got off the band’s plane as he was getting on because Liam’s then-wife, Patsy Kensit, called and stated that they needed to buy a house, leaving Oasis to head into the first show of the tour, a 16,000-seat arena, with no lead singer.

Look, I understand every dude in the world wanted a shot of Patsy Kensit ever since she was in “Lethal Weapon 2” but pulling your husband off a flight to buy a house right then? Sweet Jesus, that is insane, even for the Gallaghers. Noel wonders in the NME piece just exactly what the two were doing the three months prior when Oasis was NOT touring. That would seem to have been a perfect time for buying a house, with nothing else to do and plenty of available cash, but what do I know?

The second volley is that Noel considers Liam’s behavior, such as that noted above, to be the reason that Oasis never broke as big in America as they did everywhere else. That might seem a ludicrous statement at face value. After all, “Definitely Maybe”, “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”, and “Be Here Now” all went platinum in the States. However, that leaves four studio albums and a live album out in the cold, even after their resurgence with “Don’t Believe the Truth”. Oasis is a British band but they have always translated well worldwide, in most every country except here. Reading the piece, it becomes evident that that fact sticks in Noel’s craw a bit. Who knows why they did not have a longer heyday here? We, as a nation, have terrible music taste, so that probably has something to do with it. Musical trends and tastes in the U.K. and the U.S. diverge at weird points as well. And, to be honest, Liam was being an ass on a steady basis at that time, so maybe Noel has a legitimate beef. Who knows?

What I do know is that rock and roll needs more bands like this, rolling train wrecks chock full of talent and ego, so much so that they are impossible to ignore even after they split into two bands doing completely different types of music. Beady Eye does what they do well and are only going to get better. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have released a fantastic album with their first effort. Yet, that is not what we talk about when we talk about Oasis and their legacy. We talk about who said what about whom now, and I think that is good, because it keeps talking and thinking about music alive in the everyday world and not restricted to people like me who cannot go a day without talking music for at least an hour with somebody. Fear Factor’s returning to television this winter and Joe Rogan is a personal hero, but they have already lost the top spot. As long as the Gallaghers can speak or write, they ARE the best reality show going, bar none.

Something written about something recorded next week, promise. Or maybe not.

Stay warm and y’all be good.

Later taters.

I do not think I have ever done a column of this type, mainly because it is EXTREMELY reminiscent of columns past in other publications where reasons to be thankful were tied into the last two digits of the calendar year and some of the reasons were real space fillers, e.g. “I’m thankful to be breathing”. Well Hell, who isn’t?

Anyway, it’s 2011 and if I operate by the logic of previous columns for this holiday season, I only need to come up with eleven reasons to be thankful and even I can handle that, so here we go.

11. I am thankful that I did not suffer any permanent mental impairment or serious physical side effects from listening to Lou Reed and Metallica’s joint suckfest, “Lulu”. I thought at first I might be struck blind or possibly suffer from Broca’s aphasia after listening to that piece of garbage, but somehow I managed to make it through relatively unscathed. Never again, though …

10. I am thankful for the return of Urge Overkill. Currently, rock is full of people who are not cool. I submit as evidence the petition circulating urging, begging, and pleading with the NFL to pull Nickelback from the Thanksgiving Day halftime show. Urge Overkill was ultra hip and people missed the satire, which should be expected as most people wouldn’t know satire if it bit them in the ass. Anyway, UO is back, cooler than ever, and I am way thankful for that.

9. I am thankful that for all the bands and venues, the gypsy hacks and insomniacs that keep on plugging away, making live music viable in Chattanooga. The City Council has passed a sprinkler law that will take effect in the coming months that make very well sound the death knell for live music except in powers-that-be approved venues. If so, they should be damned well ashamed of themselves. I would venture that they have never been to see any live music downtown outside of Nightfall, where you’re there to be seen – music be damned. Maybe they have been to one of the library benefits (Hey - WAY TO GO, Hamilton County! Who needs a library anyway, right? Ignorance is bliss, right?), but I would say that would about cover it. So, here’s to the venues we have now. Enjoy them – they may not be around much longer.

8. I am thankful for “Squidbillies”. If you know, you get this. If you don’t know, then get hip.

7. I am very thankful that The Oxford American’s annual music issue is mere days away. Everyone reading this should get a copy. It is full of great music articles and comes with a killer CD gratis. Essential reading.

6. I am thankful MTV screwed up celebrating their own 30th anniversary celebration, proving my contention that they have outlived any usefulness and should be terminated immediately. Hell, they should become a “heritage” video channel, showing nothing but past glories and consigning Snooki to the dung heap of history.

5. I am thankful that the year ends in eleven.

4. I am thankful for The Rifles, The Manic Street Preachers, Motopony, the Panics, Mogwai, and Purple Eve for releasing great albums this year. They are not alone but they jumped to mind immediately.

3. I am thankful beyond words for every one of y’all that read this. Whether you glance at it and say I’m full of crap or you read it and get a good chuckle, I am glad you took the time to bother and if it sparked one conversation about music this year, then I am doing my job.

2. I am very thankful for a good friend and a great publisher. He has been good to me and mine and he keeps this rambling wreck of a column rolling along every week. Thanks, amigo, and have a great Thanksgiving.

1. Last in line but always first in my heart, Red and Dan make me understand how lucky I am every day. I am so thankful for all they bring to my life. I would be lost without them.

There we have it, eleven reasons why I am thankful this Thanksgiving. I am sure y’all have your own.

Happy thanksgiving, y’all, and check out the new deluxe re-release of the Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls”. The first listen sounded pretty good and it may be next week’s pick at this rate.

Later taters.

Once again, time is tight, as Booker T & the MGs would say. Therefore, once more into the breach we go.

This week’s unlikely knockout is The Gaslight Anthem’s “iTunes Session”. Now, if you have been under a rock or something, you might not be hip to this phenomenon. iTunes gets acts as different as the Decemberists, Slash, and Colbie Caillat to crank out an EP’s worth of music. The results have been uneven from artist to artist, but when taken in its entirety, the concept has legs.

This one from The Gaslight Anthem, recorded live, is great. I think we all know by now how I feel about the Anthem – HOT DAMN – and you might think my bias is showing here if not for one fact, the only one I need, and that would be the presence of one great song after another.

iTunes Sessions appear to allow the artists to stretch out and record what they feel like at the time – covers, originals, whatever. The Gaslight Anthem starts out strong with a ripping cover of one of rock’s greatest anthems, the Who’s “Baba O’Riley”. I had seen bootleg videos of this one posted on YouTube, including some versions that would make the hairs on my arm stand straight up. Here, free of crowd noise and uneven sound, the Anthem version is scorching, leaving a path of burnt earth in its wake. Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend must have smiled unknowingly wherever they were when this was recorded, for the karmic waves just pour out of this. It is both a fine tribute and a great example of a band staking its claim to a cover as being theirs, much as Drive By Truckers have done with the Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died”.

The Anthem also does nice, straight-up versions of Tom Petty’s “Refugee” and Pearl Jam’s “State of Love and Trust”. However, outside of the aforementioned “Baba O’Riley”, the best cover on the EP is their take on the Animal’s version of “House of the Rising Sun”. Brian Fallon channels a mixture of Tom Waits, Chris Cornell, and Eric Burdon to provide the perfect vocals on this track. It smokes. I am not aware of any other contemporary American band possessing such a sure feel for covers, knowing both how to pick what songs to cover and how to do them well.

It is not all covers, though. Besides an interesting interview with Brian Fallon, The Gaslight Anthem also reworks “Boxer”, which has a slew of musical changes but does not outstrip the original, and “The Navesink Bank”, where time passed has allowed the Anthem to approach this song with fresh ears and create something new, something better, from the existing song. Add to that mix the song “Our Father’s Sons”, which was at least demoed for “The ’59 Sound”, and the ratio of covers to originals works out nicely. “Our Father’s Sons” is something of a revelation, for if this was not good enough to make “The ’59 Sound”, then there is good reason to expect more buried gems to surface in the coming years.

Okay, so we have The Gaslight Anthem (one of the best bands in the world) and The Horrible Crowes (one of my favorite discoveries of this year) cranking out great stuff left and right, all the while touring their asses off. Where they find the time to record such a great EP, one that sounds incredible even recorded live, is anyone’s guess. GET THIS NOW. If you have an ounce of rock in your body, you will dig this to no end. The Gaslight Anthem is fast approaching the level of achievement that Radiohead has reached, the level where all but the most pretentious and asinine of critics just throw up their hands at the greatness they are reviewing. Because, after all, how many ways can you say “great” or “stunning” or “magnificent” before it all seems a bit futile to get any deeper than to simply state, “This rocked my world”, and be done with it. Hell, maybe the Anthem is already there, because this one rocked my world. Get it yesterday.

Later taters.

I did not receive any Waits, Tull, or Noel Gallagher this week, so my dropping any mind-bending new greatness on y’all will have to wait until next week. Until then, all I can offer are a few quick hits, a brutal reminder, and some other musical bitchery of the first order. What more could you want?

The Manic Street Preachers are one of my all-time bands, having survived their stated original goals of being bigger than Guns N’ Roses, play Wembley Stadium, and then immediately break up. The band survived the loss of their super-ego, Richey James, who disappeared in 1995, to emerge bruised but not beaten. The band determined to set the music world on its ear and get out have now been together for 25 years, with 20 of those spent alternating making mostly great music and taking the piss out of the music business.

A quarter century together has not diminished their sense of humor whatsoever, as the title of their newest singles compilations shows. “National Treasures” is THE perfect title for this compilation because it is a bit of everything this band is and is about in one title: the success almost in spite of themselves and the puckish sense of humor that is always just below the surface. The truth is that they HAVE become one of the UK’s musical national treasures.

The singles fall in a rough chronological order, but it never uses Richey’s disappearance for a cheap emotional ploy, eschewing some of the more seminal songs from the last album to feature Richey, “The Holy Bible”, songs such as “If White America Told The Truth For One Day Its World Would Fall Apart” and "4st. 7lb.", to avoid any hint of exploitation of that old, sad tragedy. Even with those songs excluded (a great reason to get a copy of “The Holy Bible”). The compilation is one great song after another. “Stay Beautiful” gives way to “You Love Us” which leads to “Everything Must Go”. This 2 CD compilation is a bit difficult to find on this side of the pond but well worth every effort. Get it now and enjoy their newest single, The The’s “This Is The Day”, added for extra bonus joy.

Do not, I say again, DO NOT touch, gaze upon, or (God for-freaking-bid) attempt to listen to Lou Reed and Metallica’s “Lulu”. Just say no. This is a musical train wreck of Biblical proportions.

Instead of wasting your time on “Lulu”, get Mayer Hawthorne’s “How Do You Do” instead. The throwback soul/r&b sounds mix well with the modern vibe throughout the album, and the single, “The Walk”, is on my mega-heavy rotation at the Fortress lately.

The jury in LA found Michael Jackson’s doctor guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Shit, who’s going to fill this prescription NOW? Dammit.

Here’s wishing a big happy 236 birthday to the USMC on Thursday. Friday, remember why we have a Veterans/Remembrance Day and thank a vet.

In addition, 11/11/11 marks the eleventh anniversary for Red and me. Funny, most of the naysayers when we got hitched are divorced now. Last laugh and such, bitches. Love you always and forever, Red.

Later taters.

I am making this short and sweet, as a house full of sick folk is not conducive to lengthy and deep reviews. Such moments lend themselves to quick takes and little else. Fortunately, something arrived in the mail the other day that fits perfectly into what I am capable of pulling off this week.

It is hard to believe that Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” is 40 years old but, then again, I am 43, and it seems “Aqualung” has been part of the soundtrack of my life for as long as I can remember. In April of 1971, Jethro Tull released “Aqualung” and permanently changed the face of rock. Here was an album that tracked man’s separation from God by organized religion with pointed lyrics. The music throbbed and pulsed on some songs and, on others, it was almost pastoral, strummed guitars and piano mixing with the ever-present flute.

No serious music critic/reviewer can even start to make a case against this album. “Aqualung” rocks harder than most progressive rock, but it also has prettier arrangements and instrumentation than damned near all their rock contemporaries. It has produced three singles – the title track, “Cross-Eyed Mary”, and “Locomotive Breath” – that no self-respecting classic/heritage rock station could leave out of its library. Regardless of all the handwringing of candy-ass critics worldwide, Jethro Tull persevered, winning a worldwide audience and influencing countless acts that followed, though possibly in ways not as noticeable as the influence of, say, a band such as Led Zeppelin. Jethro Tull, and especially the album, “Aqualung”, are sui generis, too unique to be anything but an indirect influence, yet capable of being a direct inspiration. Tull could inspire bands to form, yet the bands inspired by them had neither the musical chops nor the lyrical insights to show influence. No, the best most of that lot could aspire to be was either slavish imitation or homage. It is impossible to copy that which exists only on the threadbare fringe of reality, the squalid native environment of “Aqualung”.

Chrysalis has just released the 40th anniversary Special Edition of “Aqualung” with 2 CDs, the first being a new stereo mix of the original album and the second consisting of additional tracks from 1970-1971, also remixed. This in not some tired re-mastering, where polishing a turd takes on new meanings. Instead, this is a new stereo mix utilizing the technologies of today to realize more fully a timeless album. The lurching, barely controlled frenzy of “Locomotive Breath” is palpable. The thudding bass notes are akin to kidney punches as Anderson’s flute throws flurries of musical jabs, leaving the listener gasping for air like a fighter taking a standing eight count and trying to just hold on.

The album sounds magnificent, better than any other mix I have heard, and I have heard most of them. The depth of the sound on “Aqualung” is like moving from the kiddy pool to the deep end of an Olympic-sized pool. The acoustic guitar and piano gain clarity; the bass and drums gain depth and power; and Anderson’s vocals and flautist work are once again crisp and sharp, after decades of slowly being buried in every subsequent cheap re-mastered version released to gouge another Jackson out of the music-buying public. This is how “Aqualung” should sound.

I cannot in good conscience rave about this being one of this year’s best new releases as the industry whores that pass for reviewers did for the Rolling Stone’s re-release of “Exile on Main Street”, because the album was released in 1971, not 2011. What I can say is get this now because this is how “Aqualung” should have sounded then; however, technology could not keep pace with Ian Anderson. Thus, we have had to wait until now to hear this masterpiece correctly. This is what the reissue of an album ought to be.

I now retire back to my realm of “Wow, I feel like ass”. Y’all be good.

Later taters.

Finally, our long national nightmare is over. Tom Waits has returned with his first new album in seven years, “Bad as Me”, and it is incredible. Very rarely can any artist capture my attention in his or her absence; however, Waits is one of the very few who can. Periodically, I would scan all the music news sources at my disposal, hoping for a snippet of news, a glimmer of hope … and now here it is.

At 61, Tom Waits returns with an album that ranks with the finest works of his career. He surrounds himself with superior talent on “Bad as Me”, with Marc Ribot, David Hidalgo, and Keith Richards adding exquisite guitar work throughout the record. Richards illuminates the opening track, “Chicago”, with brilliant flourishes and runs that never overwhelm the song; instead, they compel the runaway train to maintain speed and if it flies off the track, so be it. The opening track sets the pace on many albums. Here, notice is served immediately that any rumors of mellowing with age have not just been greatly exaggerated, but that they are flat-out lies.

“Talking at the Same Time” sounds like an outtake from “Frank’s Wild Years”, but bluesier and grittier. It is a skewed funky back-alley shuffle dissecting our present-day zeitgeist with surgical precision. “Well we bailed out the millionaires/they’ve got the fruit/we’ve got the rind/and everybody’s talking at the same time”. Damn, talk about nailing it to the wall…

Les Claypool and Flea add their respective bass styles to different tunes. One of my favorites, “Hell Broke Luce”, features Flea, Richards, and Charlie F’ing Musslewhite on an anti-war jam that rattles the rafters, all the while telling the story of Geoff the chef who joined the army and lost everything. Just for what, well, there is the rub, for the answer is nothing, nothing at all. “Now I’m home/and I’m blind/and I’m broke/what is next” is the final verse, leaving the fate of Geoff unanswered and therefore even more terrifying.

Claypool gets his chance to shake it up with the same line-up on “Satisfied”, Wait’s ode to the “satisfaction” that is his aim. “Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards/I will scratch where I’ve been itching/before I’m gone”. In the hands of a lesser artist, those lyrics would be laughable, but with Waits, they are stone declarations of intent to by-God get his. “Satisfied” is only another great song on an album that is full of them.

A real revelation on “Bad as Me” is the drumming of Tom’s son, Casey Waits, who appears on the majority of the album’s tracks. A small sample of the percussionists Tom Waits has worked with over the years – Bobby Previte, Richie Hayward, Stephen Hodges et al. – are some of the finest in the business, and for him to place his trust so fully in his son’s abilities speaks volumes. Casey Waits’ work here is fantastic, never failing to match the mood and pace of this masterpiece of an album.

There is not one damned misstep or overreach on the whole album. This is essential listening, on the level with the “Swordfishtrombones/Rain Dogs/Frank’s Wild Years” trilogy, that shows Waits bringing to life yet more strange, sometimes demented characters to haunt his tales and populate his towns with no cheer. At 61, Tom Waits sounds as vital as he did when his first album debuted 38 years ago, if not more so. At an age when many artists of the performing arts hang it up or semi-retire only to drag out overpriced reunion/greatest hits tours every three to four years, Waits does not give one damned inch. In fact, “Bad as Me” rocks more than anything he has done quite the while. In getting back to his blues and early rock influences, Waits illustrates a renewed vigor and, in fact, that he has hit another creative spurt as he did when he resurrected his career with “Swordfishtrombones”. If that indeed is the truth, we are all in for a treat for years to come. If not, “Bad as Me” is still as good an album as he has ever recorded, and that is a fact.

Get this now. Sell plasma or whatever – I do not care. Just get it.

Later taters.

Sometimes albums fly by under the radar and the best you can do is try to catch up with the good ones, once you realize you missed them in the first place. Occasionally, entire bands fit in that category for me, as many of the long-term sufferers of this column would know. Do y’all remember when I completely missed The Beautiful South? I missed them completely, and then proceeded to listen to them for about a year solid. Oh well …

Out of Seattle, Motopony’s self-titled debut dropped sometime around May earlier this year, but I did not catch it at the time. I was probably touting some band from Upper Volta or some such craziness. I will be the first to admit that I missed the boat on this lot. Motopony’s music, like their name, is a bit off-kilter, catchy, and hard to forget. This is good stuff.

Motopony’s sound is varied but never scattered. It is modern rock sound on one track, “Seer”, and a country-rock shuffle with a nasty backbeat married to a xylophone next, “King of Diamonds”. On this debut, the instruments and the vocals show just a touch of reverb, fuzz tone, or other distortions. The spices never overwhelm the main dish, though, adding exactly the right amount of accent in the right places, highlighting the wonderful musical stew Motopony cooks up here.

Daniel Blue’s vocals are a treat, precisely because of his phrasing and styling. For whatever studio effects used at times on his vocals, they are no flawless and soulless studio creation. When Daniel Blue sings, you want to listen. There are some miles on that voice, and that quality tells you that there are tales he is telling that are worth hearing.

The band - Buddy Ross (producer/multi-instrumentalist/loops and beats), Brantley Cady (lead guitar), Forrest Mauvais (drums) – are tight, shifting from one sound to another on a dime. “God Damn Girl” is a neo-psychedelic, dreamy love song wrapped around distortion, reverb, and some magnificent drumming. The opener, “June”, is an almost whispered tale of breaking out of the mundane constraints of everyday life that starts as an acoustic strummer and wanders into keyboard effect-laden dreamland within the space of two-and-a-half minutes.

The song that closes the deal on this album, though, isdefinitely “King of Diamonds”. Here Daniel Blue works some serious magic, telling the tale of a love sought through the lingo of a poker player looking for the title card. The trials of love and poker unfold through the verses, bringing an admission that the song’s protagonist “damn near just up and cheated” from the pitfalls and pressures from both games. It closes with a casino couplet for the ages:

 “I’ve been looking for the king of diamonds

But I the queen will work just fine

I’ve been looking for the king of diamonds

Until the dealer made you mine”

If there is a better love song going right now, I could not point you to it. “King of Diamonds” is a serious contender for Single of the Year, and Motopony continues the hot streak here at the Fortress of Hollytude with a great pop-rock album with a variety of influences that roam but never get lost. The album, whether driving or relaxed, never meanders. It knows exactly where it is going and it is up to the listener to keep up. Keep pace, because the album is well worth the effort, outstanding on all fronts.

Hell, I think fall might actually be here for real by the end of the week. Oh bullshit, you know and I know it will hit 85 some day next week. Dammit …

Later taters.

Liam Gallagher has done pretty well in the post-Oasis period. He kept the entirety of Oasis when Noel left/was shoved out. Their new band, Beady Eye, have already released and toured on an album that I am a huge fan of, “Different Gear, Still Speeding”. It is reflective of Liam in that is not reflective in the slightest. Instead, Beady Eye produces one fine track after another of impulsive, shake it up rock.

Noel Gallagher has stayed out of the spotlight since Oasis was shuttered a couple of years back. He played a children’s cancer benefit, gave a few interviews, and had a few verbal spats with his brother. Nothing new there except for the new low profile.

Wait … that is not quite correct. While Liam bitched, moaned, rocked, and toured, Noel formed Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. While Liam has written better ass-shaking music, Noel has written a better album.

Noel has taken his time with this one, allowing the songs to percolate to the surface. The opening track, “Everybody’s On the Run”, serves notice that Noel’s voice is in fine form here, floating on top of a symphonic arrangement instead of buried beneath it. The acoustic guitar overdrive at the end, along with the soaring backing vocals, seems a bit Doves-influenced (“Spellbound, maybe?), which is fine. If that is what Noel has been listening to for two years, he could have done much worse.

“Dream On” has more acoustic guitar goodness, accompanied by some wonderful bass and drum tones. The technical aspects of the music so often overshadow the feel that good musicians have for just what goes where and when, but not this time. Throw in a fine brass section and a vocal that Liam could not even approach, with Noel’s vocals full of unpolished charm and grace, and what results is a song that is a lock to be in any set list of Noel’s for a long time to come.

The album’s third track, “If I Had a Gun”, is where it all clicks, where you realize the greatness of Noel Gallagher may have wandered at times but it has never left us. Some have compared it to Ryan Adams’ take on “Wonderwall”, but that statement is both lazy and wrong. It is lazy because it relies on a surface sonic similarity to make a false comparison. It is wrong because it does not realize that Adams was wrong. Even completely stripped down, Gallagher’s songs are epic, not comatose. Lord, this is so good.

“The Death of You and Me” ventures into Kinks territory, residing square in the neighborhood of “Sunny Afternoon”. That does not stop it from taking shape as a distinctly Noel song that drifts, daydreaming fitfully as the brass section adds just the right tinge of Tom Waits-ian strangeness to the whole undertaking.

“(I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine” shows that the Beatles were not the only British artists listening carefully to what Brian Wilson had done. Here, Noel plays with every track and effect he can find but never gets lost in the swells and dips of the song. This is a great song on an album of great songs.

“AKA … What a Life!” shows Noel as the rock god who has survived, only to laugh at his own excess. Whether he is doing so tongue-in-cheek is the question left unanswered. Only Noel knows and he is not telling.

“Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks” is Noel’s moment of clarity, much as “That’s Entertainment” was Paul Weller’s moment. A snap reaction to the news captured in song, “Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks” covers the troubling lyrics with a Turtles meets the Kinks musical arrangement that provides a troubling dichotomy, smiling and humming along with the song as the world explodes. Well played, Mr. Gallagher.

The last three songs – “AKA … Broken Arrow”, “(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach”, and “Stop the Clocks” – are all top-notch, with “(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach” being the crowd sing-along of future Noel Gallagher shows.

Oasis died and both Gallaghers rose again, only at different intervals. Beady Eye is damned fine and so are Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Expect yet more verbal jousting and such bullshit, because if either of the bands had sucked, all that would have stopped because one of the hermanos Gallagher would have won and been satisfied. Instead, both bands record fantastic debuts and music fans win. Get this the second you can. This is a great album, in a year full of them.

Eventually I will run into an album that sucks and I pity whoever that happens to be. I have so much venom stored away.

Later taters.

Let us break this down quickly. My head is killing me and my energy meter is less than zero, so let us see if I can hip or unhip y’all to some upcoming/recent releases.

Lou Reed and Metallica evidently got together and had a bad idea simultaneously. Lou is at the point where he can pretty much do anything he wants musically, whereas Metallica has never recovered from the touchy-feely wimp stench that has followed them wherever they may roam since the release of “Some Kind of Monster”. Thank God, Slayer has never been through therapy.

Anyway, when they get together musically, Lou sounds disinterested and Metallica does not kick out the jams, though doing so on the scale that they did previously may be beyond their reach anymore. Thirty years of wear and tear (and drug and alcohol abuse) take different tolls on different people. Metallica sounds tired and uninspired. Lou just sounds like he is killing time until he can pair off with Thurston Moore or Adele or Faith No More – anyone - just as long as it is not Metallica. Avoid this like a case of herpes.

Evanescence is coming out with a new one and I have heard it. Ouch. I have two words for Amy Lee – Ben Moody.

Mastodon has a new one out with “The Hunter”. Get this now. Put it on back to back with Mogwai’s “Hardcore Will Never Die but You Will” and play it at those neighbors that you really do not like. They will be packed and moved within 48 hours flat. This is incredibly tight music from an incredibly tight band. Do not miss it.

Feist’s “Metals” is out now. The singer/songwriter has hit her stride on this one. If you have liked any of her previous releases, you will love this, and it is accessible enough to gain new converts. Worth the cash, if you dig these kinds of sounds or if you are already a Feist fan. If not, borrow a copy until whomever you borrowed it from asks for it back and you end up buying it anyway.

Ryan Adams, alt-country’s favorite screw-up, has ditched the Cardinals and returned with his best album in a LONG time with “Ashes and Fire”. Slow burning, honest, and intense, Adams appears to have ditched the self-defeating bluster of some of his more recent efforts and seems focused on making us remember when all we could talk about was Whiskeytown’s newest release. This is the good, people. Get it.

That is it for this week, just a quick take on some albums you need in varying degrees and one that no one needs at all. The day you need that record is the day that never comes.

Where the Hell is autumn? Every single time I break out my hoodies and Doc Martins, the high get back in the 80s. Nice. That is just great.

Later taters.

All the info here is pulled together from the bum scoop hotline, since what exactly the truth is keeps changing from day to day. If I am behind on just what the latest spin is, forgive me. It is hard to keep up with the ever-changing blame game/denial/bullshit that spews forth from those involved in this stupidity. Not one to usually throw more kerosene on a fire, oh well… here goes…

I thought I could let this go, but it is just too damned much fun to watch the some of Chattanooga’s favorite sons step on their dicks big time. Track 29, the venue made out of the former ice rink at the Choo Choo, has made international news in the music industry a couple of weeks back with the whole Corey Smith debacle. Track 29 pulled the plug on Smith’s most popular song, “Fuck The Po Po” and, while claiming on their Facebook page that “[a]ll decisions were made for safety and safety alone”, they almost managed to create a situation that was unsafe for everyone - a sold-out crowd cheated out of the song they paid good money and, in some cases, traveled a good distance to hear performed.

The outrage from the fans who felt cheated by this act of either ignorance – of the crowd’s expectations, the artist’s body of work INCLUDING HIS MOST POPULAR SONG, etc. – or lack of experience – the club pulling the plug under pressure from the police/beer board/self-aggrandizing morality monitors – was immediate. The Track 29 Facebook page lit up immediately with comments from people who were rather irate and disappointed with Track 29’s lack of testicular fortitude.

What did Track 29 do? They issued on of the best non-apology apologies ever read. Strike one. What was their next step? They deleted comments that were not favorable to their decision and actions. THAT was a brilliant move there, people. The majority of comments on the page were already tearing them a new one for what the crowd saw as censoring the artist they paid good money to see, which was bad enough. Then, to have the sheer BALLS to censor what your paying customers are saying about your poor decision and non-apology apology and stating that, “As Facebook is a primary means of communication, any comments featuring foul language will be removed out of respect to friends, family, staff, and future talent”, thereby reinforcing a rapidly growing and well-deserved reputation for Orwellian Newspeak and censorship of anything that did not fit the official narrative as to what happened that night… well, hey, strike freakin’ two.

Then, almost as if by magic, all the Track 29 supporters from what meteorologists here refer to as the “Tri-State Area” suddenly appeared on the Track 29 Facebook page to assert that the establishment was just working out the kinks and that the management and staff had nothing but promoting the arts in Chattanooga as the “topmost concern” and why didn’t everyone just get off their ass? What a steaming load of shite all that verbiage was. Track 29 shoots itself in the head, in terms of public relations, and we are all supposed to forgive the utter disaster they made of that night, with no refunds, discounted tickets for future shows, or even one real apology offered. For a venue trying to change the way it is viewed in the music world, which is as a narrow-minded backwater good for Kenny Chesney shows and tractor pulls and general apathy and/or hostility towards everything else, Track 29 did nothing but remind us to “meet the new boss/same as the old boss”. That, ladies and gentlemen, would be strike three, looking. Grab a seat, meat.

Against all my hard-earned and well-proven cynicism about the Chattanooga music scene, I hoped that Track 29 might be able to offer something different. If the management DID cave to the cops, which may or may not have been there in an unofficial/official capacity holding/not holding a grudge against the artist that definitely DID perform, then Track 29 is nothing new and continues a long line of clubs and venues that allowed police pressure to skew their perceptions on what was important in the long run about running their business. If Track 29 did it because … Hell, I don’t know, they wanted to, I guess, then they have a lot to learn in running a musical venue of the size that this town has needed for a long, long time.

There have been statements to the effect that music lovers who stated they would never return to Track 29 will find that promise hard to keep and that those pointing out the faults in Track 29’s execution need to get over it. Okay, believe that shite if it helps you sleep at night, but those fans that drove an hour or more to see Corey Smith can easily drive an hour or more to another ‘burg to see Corey Smith perform unmolested. Chances are that they WILL NOT be back and that they will tell everyone they know why. As far as the ability to handle some raw critical feedback from their patrons, Track 29’s management had better toughen up, and quick. If they cannot find a way to keep a greater portion of their paying crowd happy, then enjoy blowing through all that start-up money, gents. Be sure the last one of y’all to leave turns out the lights. That is exactly where ignoring your clientele will lead, but at least it will leave behind one Hell of a consuite for Chattacon.

Later taters.

I make no bones about it – the Rifles are one of the best bands in the world. The fact that so many people carry on listening to the shite that pollutes their ears is proof positive that the dumbest buy the mostest nine times out of ten.

They burst onto the scene with the blistering “No Love Lost”, all loaded with Mod influence. It was four years later when the Rifles released a proper follow-up LP with “The Great Escape”. The songs were utterly brilliant and showed growth, taking small steps outside the Jam-like sound of their earlier releases. The title song of “The Great Escape” was brilliant and, of course, lost some MTVU contest to a bunch of peripatetic public masturbators named Slack-Jawed Sly and the Soulless Sellouts, or something similar … I forget.

Having parted ways with original members Rob Pyne (bass) and Grant Marsh (drums), the Rifles revamped, adding longtime friends/members of the band Garda, Lee Burgess (bass) and Kenton Shinn (drums), to the band’s lineup. They also added keyboard whiz Dean Mumford for live performances. Such turnover might disturb the chi of other bands, but the Rifles are back with their newest release, “Freedom Run”, sounding as if the time regrouping did them some good.

Whatever brought about the musical growth evidenced on “Freedom Run” – the split from Pyne and marsh, recording the LP at Paul Weller’s studio, maturity, etc. – is very welcome indeed. The Rifles have gone from a Mod-influenced “ladrock” sound to a band unafraid to follow the song wherever it may lead. “Freedom Run” is masterful pop. It would sound weak in comparison to their earlier efforts if not for the strength of the songwriting, which is ace.

The opening track, “Dreamer”, talks of “simple things I wish I’d said” and “movin’ on” over a wonderful arrangement that fully illustrates what Verve producer Chris Potter brought to the proceedings. The keys and guitar ride the crest created by the bass and drums, and the song rides the wave perfectly. “Long Walk Back” brings out the kick-drum and handclaps and joins them with some great vocals. The guitar work, while not as driving and near overpowering as their earlier sound, is choice with a bright sound. The string stabs are used for maximum effect and are never annoying.

Much like “Long Walk Back”, “Sweetest Thing” is full of bright guitars and harmonies, but the feeling here is driving windows down happy, where “Long Walk Back” was touching on reminiscing and regrouping. The first two songs on “Freedom Run” allow the Rifles to reflect long enough to clear the decks for the next two tunes.

If “Sweetest Thing” is driving happy, “Tangled up in Love” is head over heels ecstasy. “When you call my name/the whole wide world could walk away“, is one of the finest love song lyrics I have heard in a while. The arrangement and playing on the track are impeccable. “Eveline” is another love song, though less poppish and more almost Dylanesque, what with the organs, handclaps, and harmonica.

“Love Is a Key” sounds like a long-lost nugget of Swinging London 60s pop rock, jangly guitars and serious high-hat all over the song. The distorted guitar solo here alone is worth the price of the album.

“Falling” reminds me of the La’s for some reason, and that is always a good thing. “Interlude” is a great trip in to the cosmos for 1:21. “Nothing Matters” sounds like Brian Wilson built it track by track to a Hell of a climax. “Coming Home” is sparkly, well-executed good-hearted pop, which makes all the difference.

“I Get Low” is a fine tune but “Little Boy Blue (Human Needs)” shows the Rifles have been listening to some Love, what with the shifts in tempo, tone, and mood. It is a truly brilliant song.

The finale, “Cry Baby”, shows some blue-eyed soul mixed with a little Merseybeat for a sound that cannot be beat. “Cry Baby” is a fine tune for finishing off a fine album.

I do not know how to tell you how good this is. If you are too mature, cynical, or shitheaded to enjoy great pop music, then go buy the latest Betraying the Martyrs album and leave the rest of us alone to enjoy this masterpiece. The Rifles keep on keeping on in the face of a lot of indifferent press, all the while spreading the word of great pop and rock music and building that fan base. The Rifles are comers, and this album is their “one giant leap for mankind” as far as their evolution to date. I am overwhelmed with great tunes lately, so this advice may tax your wallet but GET THIS YESTERDAY. It is so damned good.

A big shout out to everyone stuck in a class with me at Chattanooga State. Yes, I AM this crazy.

Later taters.

As The Gaslight Anthem start work on the new album with material that singer Brian Fallon has described as “pretty aggressive”, now would be the time to step back and give his side project, The Horrible Crowes a shout out. Their debut album, “Elsie”, is the real deal and too damned good to slip by under the radar.

Recorded by Brian Fallon with The Gaslight Anthem’s guitar tech, Ian Perkins, The Horrible Crowes’ “Elsie” is what it must sound like inside Brian Fallon’s head after another show where they tore the roof off the place. The songs here have none of the infectious indomitable goodwill of the Anthem’s finest works. Instead, here are the songs of lost chances, forgotten thoughts, and bruised bravado that are the flipside of the Anthem’s work. This album is essential listening for any fan of The Gaslight Anthem, because it adds a depth and dimension that has never been explicitly expressed on any Anthem album. It is the equivalent of reading a biography of an author to gain greater insight into the author’s works.

Experimenting with drum loops, strings, and organs, they have created a not quite Americana, not quite rock, and sure-as-Hell not folk album that works. So many of the albums reviewed here work on a rock the rafters level, which is always welcome in a music world of half-steppers (Big Daddy Kane!), it is sometimes easy to overlook the albums that require the listener to commit to … well, listening. Some albums are experienced. Slayer’s “Reign in Blood” is an experience – physical, visceral, and utterly unforgettable. “Elsie” is a great listen, an album that requires one to make the time to listen to it properly.

If allowed to do so by the listener, “Elsie” tells tales of people everyone knows with the names changed to protect the guilty. It is all here. All the tales of loneliness, missed opportunities, the price every romantic pays in blood every day just to get out of bed and get through another day, and the small, quiet grace that anyone who has ever lost finds in memories are here. I would break this down song-by-song, but it is a by-God album and is meant to be heard as such.

Some of my personal mindblowers are the lonely “Cherry Blossoms”, the knowing “Sugar”, and especially the ragged gospel of “I Believe Jesus Brought Us Together”. Then again, those are my favorites. Anyone that listens to this album will have their own, because it is that good.

“Crush” invites the girl who inspires the song to “pour yourself a drink/I’ll sing you a song/don’t worry about the money/I got a tab”. Jesus, that is barroom poetry at its finest and something music does not have enough of right now.

There was some heat over the Springsteen influence present on the first two Anthem albums, as if the Anthem could grow up in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and somehow not absorb some Bruce influence. The outcry seemed to insinuate that if the Bruce influence were removed, there would be nothing of substance left. Well, The Horrible Crowes’ “Elsie” disproves that with nary an arena anthem or thunderous riff to be had. It is a wonderful album, beautiful and sad, lyrical and true.

The list of great albums this year to date is longer than it was in recent years past. There is a ton of fantastic music out there in 2011. Here is a little secret – this is the best album I have heard this year. To quote Rick Flair, “To be The Man, you got to beat The Man”, and somebody is going to really have to bring it to top this. GET. IT. NOW.

Later taters.

Robert Pollard puts out many albums, under many different names. In recent years, he has concentrated his efforts on two of his many projects – Guided By Voices and Boston Spaceships. GBV has broken up, reunited, toured, and become more popular in the post-break up era than they were before. Most people would rest on their laurels, tour occasionally, and meticulously curate their own legend.

Thank God that most people are very different from Robert Pollard. Forming Boston Spaceships with Decemberists drummer John Moen and GBV bandmate Chris Slusarenko, Pollard is determined to keep on writing and recording guitar rock, in an age that is constantly ready to declare that sub-genre dead or, at the least, “dadrock”.

Boston Spaceships’ newest release, “Let It Beard”, highlights one great and awesome fact – they do not give a shit what the naysayers think. “Let It Beard” is a double album full of weird songs, punk sounds, acoustic guitars, and fuzzy indie production. The effort sounds like a double album should, not as two Boston Spaceships albums ratcheted together for no real reason. The songs have more room to breathe, with arrangements that are more expansive than those arrangements found on prior single album Boston Spaceships’ releases.

Good-to-great tunes abound on “Let It Beard”. “Minefield Searcher”, “The Vicelords”, and the title track are ones that jump immediately to mind. “Let It Beard” has a line of “Let it beard/and get all weird” and that nails exactly where this double freak-out is coming from.

Robert Pollard has never given a damn whether anyone got “it”, in any of his various musical incarnations. That has to do with the fact that Pollard’s music is psychedelic without psychedelic arrangements or psychedelic instrumentation. Pollard IS psychedelic by nature. He veers off into the cosmos when writing music and makes all the melody that defines his music appear effortless. The sound of his music is so unique that the lyrics almost have to be surreal. Any lyric of a literal or mundane bend would drown in the sonic world of Robert Pollard. “Let It Beard” might be the most succinct explanation of Pollard’s musical intentions to date.

The last double album that rocked my world was Drive By Truckers’ “Southern Rock Opera”. Now I can change that statement to the last one being “Let It Beard”. The releases of 2011 lacked a release this strange and affecting, but no longer. “Let It Beard” has come to the rescue of all those looking for something, well, stranger than what they have heard this year, and that is wonderful news.

Get this now. Then, after you listen to it 100 times or so, go listen to all the Robert Pollard tunes you can find. He is a weird bird and a musical treasure.

Does anyone have a spare canoe?

Later taters.

Since no one over here saw much, if any, of the BBC coverage of the Reading and Leeds Festival (two sites, one festival) that went down this past weekend, allow me to recommend you get on the internet, venture over to YouTube, and check out the footage. Some corporate heavy, who is killing music but just does not understand exactly how, will make them take down the video footage soon and you need to see it.

As far as big festivals, we have Bonnaroo, Coachella, Lollapalooza, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, the Vans Warped Tour, and the various festivals that Newport, Rhode Island holds annually. Okay, that is a decent list for a country of roughly 300 million people.

Now, let us compare that with the United Kingdom, population roughly 62 million shall we? They have Sonisphere, the Isle of Wight Festival, and T in the Park, Glastonbury, Cardiff Admiral Big Weekend Festival, Latitude, and the Rewind Festival for the nostalgic, as well as the V Festival, Wireless Festival, and Radio1’s Big Weekend. I have left off a few – Green Man, Download, etc. – to spare our slack asses any further embarrassment at getting our asses kicked any further.

Wow, we must be severely spoiled over here, with festivals folding left and right, and big acts struggling to fill venues that sold out in the past. Remember, the UK’s economy is presently in the crapper, as is ours. Yet, they flock to festivals where they get serious value for the money spent. What is our problem?

I think it resides in the part of the American Consciousness that has turned the American Dream into the American Scream, the part that does not wish to take the time to read something besides “Sports Illustrated” nor listen to anything more challenging than Lady Gaga. It is the part of our society that finds “16 and Pregnant” compelling television and thinks Seth Rogen is a funny person. Boiled down to its quintessence, this part of us backs the car down the driveway to check the mail.

Perhaps it is that we, as a country, cannot be bothered to get together for anything. In a world where people five feet away text one another instead of having an actual conversation, it is possible, even probable, that we can no longer handle being around one another in large groups. The number of people in this country on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medicines – I miss the honesty behind calling them tranquilizers – bears that out, and maybe there is a good reason for all the drugs floating around Bonnaroo. Spending four days on a 700-acre hot dry field in Manchester, Tennessee, trying to hear some great music while smelling 90,000 unwashed people, would try anyone’s patience.

However, I think our continuing national trend of self-isolation robs us of more than just knowing the neighbors. Go to YouTube, check out the video of the Strokes and Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker covering the Cars’ “Just What I Needed”, and listen to the crowd chanting “Jarvis! Jarvis!” repeatedly. The cover starts a bit ragged but comes together to finish in fine form with a good time had by all. Call me a cynic, but I have the nagging feeling that if that had occurred at a festival on this side of the pond, the vibe would have been much darker. We can barely tolerate each other, so a gaffe from someone we PAID TO SEE, DAMN IT would be unacceptable.

Being a Doctor Who fan, there are times when I ponder what I would do if I had a TARDIS and all the time to go and do as I pleased. This week, I think I would go back to Woodstock, the Monterey Pop Festival (see the restored film if you have not already), and Watkins Glen, which few know of but, to my knowledge, is still the largest rock festival ever in the United States. In 1973, 600,000 people came to the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway to see the Grateful Dead, the Band, and the Allman Brothers Band perform. I think it would be interesting to see a time, long since passed, when people came together to have a good time and did. So many people that have attended Bonnaroo rave about the bands but cannot wait to bitch about the people. That is too bad. Call me a hippie but it feels as if all those that feel that way missed an opportunity that does not present itself often.

Anyway, next week will be reviews and bitchery. In exactly what proportion, I cannot say.

Love you, Red, more than you will ever know. You too, Dan.

Later taters.

There are, however, occasional exceptions to this vortex of suck surrounding artists returning from the dead. The one that landed in my hands is Urge Overkill’s “Rock & Roll Submarine”, and it kicks ass.

Urge Overkill burst out into the national spotlight after honing their chops in the Guyville scene in Chicago. Signed to the Touch & Go label, UO progressed rapidly from the bleh “Jesus Urge Superstar” to the superior “The SuperSonic Storybook”. They jumped ship to David Geffen’s DGC label, still owing Touch&Go an album and earning serious backlash from the Chicago and indie scenes in the process.

The move seemed ready to pay off in spades. Their first DGC release, “Saturation”, had breakout written all over it, led by the smoking single, “Sister Havana”. It appeared that the trio in the 70’s hipster suits with the medallions bigger than any rapper’s was going to take their mix of indie/power pop to arenas nationwide.

It never happened. Quentin Tarantino used their cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon” in his film, “Pulp Fiction” and it was a much bigger hit than anything off “Saturation”. The very success that UO had openly lusted after since their early days had happened but with someone else’s song AND off an EP from a label they had screwed over. It made for a very tense attempt at a follow-up album.

Somehow, “Enter the Dragon” turned out to be a tight, dark album, a serious contrast to the flash and noise of “Saturation”. The songs were gangster lean, the playing was smoking, and the band was falling apart. A heroin possession bust for drummer Blackie Onassis exacerbated the tension between main songwriters, guitarist Nash Kato and bassist Eddie “King” Roeser. Roeser split. Kato and Onassis tried to carry on. The label dropped them and that was it for Urge Overkill … until now.

After a sixteen-year hiatus, Urge Overkill has returned, with Kato and Roeser in fine form with new additions drummer Brian Quast (also of Polvo) and bassist (with Roeser moving to guitar) Mike Hodgkiss rounding out the band’s sound. “Rock&Roll Submarine” is the result and it is smoking, more the stripped-down sound of rock survivors than the overproduced-to-the-tits sound of aspiring Rock Gods. It is all riffs and reflection, woven together in the unique UO style.

The realization and weariness in the songs and voices of Kato and Roeser on this album set it apart from the rest of their catalog, good and bad. Before now, the key to understanding most of their body of work was being in on the joke, the “if we act famous, then, by God, we’ll BE famous” UO motto that alienated so many during their heyday. Here on “Rock&Roll Submarine”, Urge Overkill plays it straight by playing great rock just to play great rock. No irony, no satire, no angle – just killer tunes like “Mason/Dixon” and “Effigy”, tunes that kick that ass without so much as a smug look.

This is a great comeback, one done as it should be – low-key on the PR, heavy on the great songs. Urge Overkill do not apologize for their Nineties excess nor should they have to. It was the band’s adolescence, after all. However, the adult slightly jaded 2011 version of UO shows that there may be a lot more music to come, and good music at that.

Get this now. This reminds me of the “Before the Frost/Until the Freeze” Black Crowes – older, wiser, scarred, and smarter.

Man, the Wisteria Café kicks ass. Google if you do not know.

Fair seas and following winds to Barry Evinger, a fellow Marine gone to soon. Semper fi, brother.

Later taters.

MTV was at the forefront of animation when Fox was still “Married with Children” and “Herman’s Head”. Cartoon Network had not even been thought of, much less Adult Swim. MTV, however, had “Aeon Flux”, “Stevie and Zoya”, and “Liquid Television”. I remember watching the “Frog Baseball” short. I turned to the friend I was watching it with and said, “This is going to be huge.” Later on were “The Maxx”, “Daria”, and “Celebrity Deathmatch”. Throw in reruns of “Speed Racer” aimed at insomniacs, and it was animation heaven.

MTV brought “The Young Ones” to the States and showed every episode of “The Monkees” in order on a “Pleasant Valley Sunday”. They got serious about metal with “Headbangers Ball” when most of radio thought Warrant was “heavy”. They also handed every hot band a free album with their “Unplugged” series.

Then it all went to Hell. “The Real World” led to “Road Rules” which begat “My Super Sweet 16” which vomited forth “16 and Pregnant”. Music is so much of an afterthought that, in moments of weakness, “Total Request Live” seems almost tolerable in retrospect. MTV is bringing back “Beavis and Butthead”, but they bent to pressure to tame the show in its first incarnation and I have no doubt that lightning will NOT strike twice with this, no matter how talented Mike Judge is. Do not even get me started on the return of Matt Pinfield and his horrible version of “120 Minutes”.

All that to say that, on this past weekend, all I wanted was a little cool weird music, some “Aeon Flux” (in all fairness, they did show about 15 seconds or so) and maybe a Danzig video. Instead, the ONLY cool thing I saw was the first hour of MTV as it was shown the day it debuted. Mark Goodwin looked extremely high. The argument over the second video played on MTV was settled, and some band named PhD had a video shown, probably for the first AND last time. That was it. I had more fun on Facebook commiserating with Alan Hunter about how heinous the “tribute” was.

A snafu of this magnitude shows that any hope of MTV realizing that they have completely lost their way and correcting their path is misplaced, cruelly so. It is now just a reality show factory with questionable taste and shitty quality control. Alas, poor Martha … Mojo Nixon REALLY wanted you. “Stuffing Martha’s Muffin” makes me laugh every time I hear it. It is too bad that MTV will never inspire anything that good or funny again.

Oh well. At least, VH1 Classic will be back to normal this coming weekend, with videos and late-night “Classic 120 Minutes” episodes. Wow, just the stuff that had many of my friends and me watching MTV in the first place. Weird, huh? Guess we are all “Classic” now.

Love you, John and Dawn. Red, you kick ass. Dan, cool it or I am coming down there … to tickle the fire out of you, boy.

Later taters.

“Leave Home” sounds raw and unfinished at first listen, but I think The Men decided that they recognized everything wrong with rock music today and decided to erase said shite from the face of the Earth. The dirtiest wall of sound I have ever heard runs roughshod over the listener. After the second listen, I could not tie my own shoes, much less rail about the dreck killing the airwaves and brain cells of America, mainly because I could not remember any of those Satanic servants of The Plot To Kill Music, not even their names. Maybe that is how The Men plan to save music. They melt your face; they rock your ass; and they leave you unable to remember anything for a good while after you finish the album. That is brilliance, ‘cause all I know at this moment is that “Leave Home” is one of the most powerful, no-nonsense rock records this year.

Get this and run for cover. You are going to get your ass kicked.

Real quick - if you have not heard Neko Case and Nick Cave’s take on the Zombies’ “She’s Not There”, quit screwing around and find it. iTunes, YouTube … whatever. You NEED to hear this.

Much love, Dawn and John. Thinking about y’all and hoping it is cooler there than it is here.

Red and Dan, y’all are the best.

Dammit, the dog melted again. I gotta go.

Later taters.

“Two Matchsticks”, on the other hand, draws the listener out into the perfect summer day, the kind of which that exists somewhere besides here – mid-70s, low humidity, nice breeze … you get the drift.

DO NOT work to listen to this album. It will prove counter-productive and possibly painful. This is a Seventies album in the sense that, like playing baseball, you have to let it come to you. The harder the listener tries to get it “right”, the more evasive this album’s charms become. This is tailor-made for a relaxed evening, sprawled on the couch with the brain on shuffle.

Every song is immediately hummable, with the majority being sing-along material by the second listen. “Struck By Lightning”, with the “struck by love/struck by lightning” juxtaposition, jumps to mind as does the opening track, “Folly Club”. Leslie Sisson shows that she is present for more than her guitar work. Her harmonies and occasional lead vocal duties (“Baby Jeans”) show that Kenny is slowly opening up The Wooden Birds for others to shine in. It may still be his baby – after all, he plays all instruments on both of The Wooden Birds’ albums – but he is learning to share with others, a big step in the development of any growing, evolving organism.

This is good … if you are chill enough to grok the vibe. The Wooden Birds are not here to rock your world. They just want to groove out and make some good music. Ain’t a thing wrong with that, at all.

Get this, unless you are craving Prong, Manowar, or such. If that is where you are at, wait ‘til that eases off and THEN get this.

Much love, John and Dawn.

Later taters.

Lowline is where the Chameleons meet Oasis, post-punk soaring guitars and effect-laden vocals reeking of impersonal alienation and fear slamming head on into anthems of personal, yet public tales of everyday anguish and aggression, tribal and universal at once.

The opener, “Disko Killers”, provides a good idea of what is to come, jarring bass notes riding on top of the mix and setting a pace that never flags. “Monitors” follows and it kills. “All of Your Scars” follows that and so on and so on. It is one great tune after another, with “Outside” and “Sound of Music” (just cannot escape that somewhat-muted Joy Division influence here) rising slightly above the rest.

God love the British music press. Outside of “The Big Takeover” and “Under the Radar”, they have us beat, hands down. However, they also have this truly intriguing urge to find and anoint the Next Big Thing before said act has even released an album. It is a strange and sometimes frightening thing to watch. The band Viva Brother has been picked as the Next Big Thing and they are talented, judging by their three available singles. However, they are also a tad arrogant (“We want to be the biggest band in the world”), and the backlash they have received before releasing a SINGLE LP is impressive indeed, on level with what The Knack unjustly received from the American music press when “Get the Knack” did not cure cancer or stimulate penile growth upon its release.

Well, the Brits are trying to do the same thing with Lowline that they did with Viva Brother, with the added pressure brought about by Manchester itself always trying to produce the Next Big Thing. The difference is that Lowline can handle it. They have the hooks, the riffs, the chops AND the attitude to kick about anyone’s ass musically. Lowline should be the Next British Rock Gods and if they are not, there is no justice in this world. Get this now.

I am thinking about you, John and Dawn, and hope today was a good day.

Take care of yourselves, y’all. Water, shade, water. Repeat constantly. Heat injuries are no joke. Take it from me; I should know.

Later taters.

The duo that comprises the band, Yano Yano and Ave Yassen, recorded this latest project pretty much sans studio. That deficit works in the band’s favor, forcing the band to strip their music down to its core and creating a dark ambient/witch house feel from the limitations of the recording process.

The band describes the songs on “Submersus” as “grim tales of drowning and harsh words of censure, spoken just before a suicide in the watery abyss... “. Damn, I cannot put it any better than that. That is exactly the soul of the album – paranoia, anger, bitter recriminations – set to some very intense atmospheric electronica. The witch house tones suggest a few of the songs here – “Privilege”, the aforementioned “Shoot the Sun”, and especially the opening track, “Waiting” – are a remix away from being dark dance brilliance.

The Exploding Boy is more commanding of attention. The Corrections threaten to sweep the listener along with them, headfirst into the maelstrom. Purple Eve works on a different level, drawing in the listener by telling one tale after another, constructing a bleak, yet beautiful storybook of betrayal, bitterness and boredom that allows no escape. This is the stuff of everyday nightmares put to the perfect soundtrack.

If Purple Eve’s “Submersus” is indicative of what the Russian underground music scene has to offer, consider me sold. This is an excellent album, familiar enough to not alienate the initiate but unique enough to captivate those familiar with this type of music.

If you can find it, get it. Now. This is weirdo groove shite, the perfect soundtrack for a remake of the David Bowie/Catherine Deneuve vampire flick, “The Hunger”.

Hey, very quick. Get your ass to the John Johnson benefit this Saturday at JJ’s Bohemia. There will be bands galore, beer, and a silent auction with some killer stuff in the mix. Go raise Hell for a god cause and a great guy.

Later taters.

I have had a major bandcrush on this lot since I first heard “Afterglow” and they have yet to disappoint. The best dark wave/Goth/dark dance is so good as to seem effortless, which puts The Exploding Boy at the head of the class. “The Black Album” has one ordinary tune amongst nine very good to great ones. The Exploding Boy sounds dark, angry, lost, lonely, scary and scared, all without ever sounding like they are trying to. Few bands can do that (Editors) but more should try. Bands of this genre too often sound as if they are trying to tell you things instead of allowing the listener the freedom to find them on his or her own. They should take note of, and notes from, The Exploding Boy.

Love you, John Johnson.

Later taters.

John Johnson, if tomorrow is go, good luck and Godspeed. We will talk at ya on the flipside.

Later taters. The Exploding Boy will just have to wait.

It seems, though, that the notable parts of “Whatever’s On Your Mind” (besides a band having four good songwriters) revolve around the music itself. The rhythm section sounds as tight as I have ever heard them, the years together lending a serious Vulcan mind meld to the mix. They flat-out drive the tune, “Equalise”.

Gomez remains the same five guys that won that Mercury Prize in 1998, a span of time that must feel like eons now as promotion, placement, and product have come to destroy what’s left of pop and rock music. The continuity in personnel has given the band an almost muscular confidence in the studio. Gomez has the best sense of when and where to use brass in a song out of any of their contemporaries. Another thing Gomez does really well that many bands nowadays do not is that they write some great guitar lines, Gomez guitar lines, not some derivative shite that sounds like about 1000 other bands.

Gomez released “Whatever’s On Your Mind” at the right time, a light and breezy album that has summer written all over it, with a sense that something a bit darker lurks just under the surface. This album breaks no new ground for Gomez, but that is okay. Gomez is the band equivalent of Eddie Murray (if you do not know, Google is ready when you are). They are consistently very good with moments that burst into true greatness. “Whatever’s On Your Mind” is not great – some songs feel as if there is more there than we are hearing – but it is very good. So, they hit .310 instead of .335. That is still a batting average your average band would die for. Get it and dig.

Man, this past week-and-a-half makes me realize that all I need at the end of the day is to kiss my wife goodnight and watch my boy sleep for a while before I drift off. Combine that with a patient, tres cool publisher and I cannot complain.

Y’all stay out of trouble. Riverbend’s here and like any other gathering of any size, you know and I know that somebody is just going to HAVE to show his or her ass. Make sure y’all do not get anywhere near any of that silliness.

Later taters.

Cults hail from San Diego, are currently based in Brooklyn, and sound as if they were part of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound stable of artists back in the Sixties. The album is constructed exactly like most rock albums were in the Sixties before everything got SERIOUS, which is to say that any and all the songs on “Cults” could be a single, and probably should be.

There is far too much buzz flying around the Interhipsternet right now trying to find a string to pull at so that the fabric of this band will unravel and everyone can resume being cooler than everyone else, or some such silly shit; the intentions of the tragically hip are hard to read, even in the best of times, and doubly so when you just do not care what any of those poseurs think.

Yes, this owes much to Phil Spector, but Phil got too crazy and started playing with guns and is now in prison and playing don’t drop the soap – I doubt he can collect any debts. Yes, it is twangy and trebly, mixed as if it should be coming out of some radio tuned to an AM station back around ’65 or so. Yes, the spoken word intros are almost completely unintelligible. This is all reverb guitar and layered vocals, chunky snares and (almost) Casio keyboards. It is retro defined.

That makes it more “modern” than ninety percent of everything I have heard this year. The songs are reminiscent of some of Best Coast’s work but less stoner vibes per beat. It reminds me of Hurts in the sense of “this is what we do and we do it very well”. The production is essentially another band member, also like Hurts; it is impossible to imagine this album sounding any different that it does.

There are nits that could be picked: the band’s aesthetic is a narrow one; the songs’ construction is very similar; the vocalist uses a very limited range of expression, etc. Those all could also be seen as strengths – the band mines their aesthetic for all it is worth; the songs’ similarities show an excellent awareness of what the bands’ sound should be, as does the vocalist’s repetitive styling.

This album is strangely push-pull with bright melodies and production combined with some darker lyrical moments, the Jim Jones sample on “Go Outside” being the darkest. However, it all works wonderfully to produce the summer music album of the year so far, one of the best albums I have heard this year. Unique does not begin to describe the mega-weird meets ultra-cool vibe that is “Cults”.

If it ever gets less than 100 degrees here before, say, December, I fully intend to cruise around with this on the stereo and wind in my hair. That is what this album exists for.

Get it now.

John Johnson, hope you feel better, brother.

My tank is now officially on E, so off to NyQuil I go.

Later taters.

The next track, “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)”, with Jim James’ strong, clear vocals mixing with a muted bass drum and some nice strings, is noteworthy for taking a clichéd idea – what a great/beautiful/groovy day/night I/you/we had/are having/will have – and making a solid song of it. It is stamped in the My Morning Jacket mold and never morphs into some saccharine overdose garbage.

“Outta My System” is an ode to past misdeeds, intentional or otherwise, and how damned fun they were. The regret here is tongue in cheek – “if you don’t live now/you ain’t even tryin’/you’re living on your way/to a midlife crisis …” – and the song is funny in the Randy Newman mode of wry observation and lyrical zingers when you aren’t looking for them.

Next up is the one getting all the airplay, “Holding On To Black Metal”, and it is smoking, all spacey vocals over a snap-tight rhythm section and 70s horns/guitar interplay. This has 70s AOR written all over it, cool as the other side of the pillow, play after midnight only. I suppose an ode to a teenage musical obsession could sound better, theoretically at least, but I am not sure how. This great rock tune swings.

“First Light” is up next, opening dissonance and noise, before My Morning Jacket settles into a slightly ahead of the beat neo-psychedelic freak-out. This is the strongest or the weakest track on the album, depending on what you like.

The following song, “You Wanna Freak Out”, lives up to the title to be an enjoyable ramble through your mind’s back roads. However, “Slow Slow Tune” is annoying, the same way REM mutilating “King of the Road” on “Dead Letter Office” was annoying – you get the feeling the band knew it was annoying when they recorded it and kept it on the album ANYWAY. Why? What the Hell did we do to y’all to deserve this? Whatever…

The final track, “Moving Away”, with the delicate vocals, pianos, and 4/4 drumming reminds me of Pink Floyd’s slower, even gloomier pieces, but it never gets that depressing, thank God. As you listen to it, it seems more and more appropriate as the album’s last tune – a slow soulful coda for a great album … well, I mean minus “Slow Slow Tune.”

“Circuital” is a great album, especially in an age where professional music reviewers – you know, the ones that get paid the big bucks and this is ALL they do – write that Lady Gaga’s “Born Like This” is a pop masterpiece. I got two words for that – my ass. Hang up your spurs if you bought into that shite ‘cause your pro card has been revoked.

Get this. It is light-years better than I thought it would be and it kicks Lady Gaga’s derivative ass all over the place.

Later taters.

First up is the newest release from Ponytail, the immensely enjoyable noise-poppy art rock (??) band from Baltimore that blew me away with their 2008 release, “Ice Cream Spiritual”. Titled “Do Whatever You Want All The Time”, this album finds the band moving a bit closer to a more atmospheric sound; the possibilities for dance club remixes of tracks from this album, especially “AwayWay”, are almost endless. However, Ponytail has lost none of the manic energy and sheer fun that makes listening to them such a blast.

I have yet to decipher more than one or two lyrics per song, which lends Ponytail’s songs an almost shamanistic quality, chants to the gods of fun and rock that deliver the weird/wired/goof vibe better than anyone has since the early B 52s. “Do Whatever You Want All The Time” is a mere seven tracks, yet the listener never feels cheated as each song expands, warps, implodes and reincarnates into something genre-less and wonderful.

If you enjoy linear songs in 4/4 time, stay away. If the Flaming Lips try hard but are nowhere near weird enough for you, this is your band. A friend of mine pointed out that I semi-consciously seek bands to review that are non-commercial. Albums like “Do Whatever You Want All The Time” make me glad of that fact.

Okay, the second “Hot damn!” release this week is from Sweden’s The Exploding Boy, who have just released an EP titled “Human”. As was the case with Ponytail, my first exposure to this band pinned my ears back. My initial exposure to the band was their second album, “Afterglow”, which I cannot recommend highly enough, a reinvention of the music genres of Electronica, Goth, and New Wave, combined and refined through a filter of distance (the UK to Sweden) and time (the early 1980s to the late 2000s).

“Human” finds the band gaining confidence in their vocals, no longer layering every song with vocal effects galore. There are still vocal effects used, mainly on the third track “Sweet Little Lies”, but they feel as if they are used for specific impact on the song and the listener. The second track shows how much this lot has learned since their formation in 2006. The space in the mix and the bare vocals make the dense wall of synths and guitars on the chorus all the more effective. The acoustic guitar is also quite a nice touch. Much like the likeminded Editors, the Exploding Boy is finding that mining the history of the Electronica/Goth/New Wave scene of the 80s and 90s yields a rich and varied mix of sounds and styles. The main trick is combining the right parts in the right way to yield something that, while indebted to bands of the past, is the sound of this band at this moment. The Exploding Boy succeeds all expectations with the “Torn” EP. I cannot wait for the next full-length album.

Get both of these now. If you like weird, you will dig. If you do not, it is time you broadened your horizons. It is 2011, for God’s sake.

John Johnson, keep us posted. Hope all is getting better bit-by-bit every day.

Later taters.

The risk you run when searching for, stumbling upon and listening to a lot of music over any given period is that you run the risk of missing the release of an essential piece of music. That is where I have to rely on friends and acquaintances to help me out.

I had a friend recently point out that I had missed the boat on Street Dogs’ self-titled release in 2010. I have a few other albums on the backburner, but an oversight of this magnitude deserves an immediate resolution.

“Street Dogs” is the best I have heard from the band, and “Fading American Dream” blew me away. The blistering opening song, “Formation”, all bagpipes and gunshot snares, sets the tone and the second tune, “Rattle and Roll”, is a beer-soaked sing-along paean to Dorchester. It also happens to rock way hard.

Street Dogs return to one of their favorite topics, labor and unions, on the third track, “Up the Union”. The lyrics are spot on but, more importantly, Street Dogs practice here what the Clash learned so long ago – it is much easier to make converts when everybody is rocking their asses off. The music on the tune is tight. It is a great punk rock song, equal amounts of message and energy.

“Punk Rock and Roll” is a statement of purpose, not just for Street Dogs but also for every punk band and every punk everywhere. “I want a good feeling/push and shove” is a mantra every punk I know can get with and “Yeah, just forget about life on a Saturday night/I don’t care if the world goes down and ends tonight”, describes every great rock show I have ever seen. Turn this one up all the way and play it at your normal neighbors.

“The Shape of Other Men” is a great two-and-a-half minute treatise on getting your head on straight, that you have to take care of yourself, how you never know “the shape of other men”. It is another fine tune, rocking balls out the whole way.

“Too Much Info” feels like a Bad Religion tune, which is about as high a praise as I can give to a punk rock tune. “Bobby Powers” is a tribute to a working-class hero that shows where Street Dogs’ heart is at, always finding the heroes in their blue-collar neighborhoods and telling their tales in kick-ass 4/4 time.

“Hang ‘Em High” is a rip-roaring “fuck you” to Bernie Madoff. “Ghosts”, about a dead friend, never lets up and never slips into any morose bullshit either.

Look y’all, I could go through this track-by-track but there is no point, because there is not a single bad – no, scratch that – there is not one average track on this album. Every song here is played with supreme assurance but no arrogance, loose and rocking but never sloppy.

“Street Dogs” finds the band at the pinnacle of their powers (so far) with a batch of great songs that show how far this lot has come since their first effort, and it also gives some tantalizing hints as to how far they might yet go.

Get it now. Put it on your stereo, get a 12-pack, and call up some friends. Tear it up and raise Hell. Street Dogs made this album for that exact purpose.

I cannot believe I missed this one. Do not make the same mistake.

Hey John Johnson, how ya doing this week? Hang tough, hombre.

Later taters,