Poly Styrene/Gang of Four

Couldn't make the wedding. Sent a $50 Macys gift certificate. Appropriate?

New Strokes' album has some great "singles"- forget the titles-not sure about the rest yet. Of course every Strokes' album has some great songs. That's like automatic and not to be discounted in rating this NYC band.

All due respect, 'though, I don't think there's anything to "get" about these kinds of sensibilities. You either tolerate -- or like, or agree with, or whatever -- them (it's back to my point about the explicit and/or implicit attitudes/values/bel​​iefs represented in music again) or you don't.

Thumbs-up for this (re: Smiths/Cure, who I sometimes enjoy)

Just home from tUnE-yArDs --

 

Where do I start?  How about the data points.  Small club, probably 500 max.  Audience demographics - equal gender split, almost all white, probably middle 20's to middle 30's.  Several older.  Very few noticeable tats and even less piercing.  Both unusual for Portland.  Don't know what to make of that, kind of like there were as many fedoras as knit caps, and calf and knee-high boots decidedly out-numbered Chuck Taylors.

 

12 songs total; 8 from the new album (everything but "Wooly Wolly Gong" and "Riotriot").  Alto and tenor sax on stage for not quite half, Nate on bass for all but two.  Merrill, Merrill and more Merrill.

 

She performs with two mikes.  As her YouTube videos make clear, she uses one to record her multiple loops and then the other to sing the actual song into.  Each song starts with her laying down 1-3 drum loops, followed by a vocal loop or two, and then whatever else the song needs, frequently a ukulele rhythm as well as a keyboard for "My Country" and a tambourine for "Fiya" for example.  She runs the loops as the songs play out with a complicated arrangement of foot pedals and switches, and then sings and plays on top of all that.  The saxes and bass play as normal, except that nothing that band does is normal.  My technical skill betrays me here, except to say that there had to be twice as many non-standard chords and keys as normal ones.  The layers of rhythm seemed to exceed those from the albums, and I would swear the same was true for the vocal loops.  After an extremely rich "Bizness", which had to be denser than the album, she responded with a simple "Aw shucks" after the applause died down.

 

The rhythms are kind of blocky, not smooth like Sade for one ridiculous example, but so complex that you can't help but move to them.  There were plenty of couples dancing.  And her vocals are the not-so-secret weapon.  Her singing was as clear and strong as the albums, flawless even.  And she challenges herself vocally on just about every song, either with ululated loops, other vocal sound effects or jumps throughout her range. She carried the high notes at the end of "Powa" without even trying hard.

 

With the equipment set-up she uses, she could add as many new rhythm and vocal ideas as she can come up with on the spot and on at least one occasion, "Bizness", I would swear she did just that.  It causes some disjointedness in the pacing of the show.  Every song requires her to construct the loop foundation before the song can begin.  Watching that becomes more of an analytical pleasure than a visceral one.  Once, and maybe twice, either her technology or her touch failed her and she had to start over.  It will be interesting to see how she develops that skill set as the years go by.  It seems to me that the sky is the limit for her.  She can create as big a sonic canvas to sing against as there are instruments she wants to bother with on stage.  And her voice will be up to the task, in all likelihood.  After the show, I told her soundman, who she thanked from the stage as if he were a member of the band, that someday she'll just record an album on stage every time she performs.  By herself I mean.

 

And yes, I got an autograph.  A brief, but very gracious and mutually grateful interaction.

What finally managed to interest Roommate Erik in the Sonic Youth is their tablature. We're sitting here trying to tune to Thurston's F# F# F# F# E B in "Panty Lies."

John: Everybody likes Something/Anything? and rightfully so (though it has its dips), but that special place in my heart is more reserved for The Ballad of Todd Rundgren ("Be Nice To Me"! "Range War"! "Wailing Wall"!), plus a handful of pick hits from the entire canon from Nazz Nazz ("Only One Winner"!) through, I dunno, Deface the Music ("I Just Want to Touch You!") (including the Runt keeper you mentioned, which I'll bet everybody likes too). And a lot of his production work as well -- the late Skylarking, yessir. (Weird that he was behind the boards for the first Dolls record.) As for Jackson Browne, my favorite thing having anything to do with him is the Paul Nelson article on Pretender -- neither figure impresses me very much but that piece is astonishing. The album itself is bland by me but does contain a thing called "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate", which kills me and may be the only part of his oeuvre that does so. And hey, he was behind the boards on the great Warren Zevon. Finally, as for quibbling re: the Boss, I'd throw a B-, B+, high A- and A to those first four records, all of which I've heard lots & lots, respectively. (I have less of familiarity with the gated-drums/Elvis-vo​iced 80s phase*, dig some RC picks from the 90s and very much enjoy "Radio Nowhere" & the absolutely staggering "Queen of the Supermarket", which my girlfriend loathes.) E Street Shuffle is a highly memorable and very admirably crafted record, but he sounds too young and rough and Dylan-derivative when he lets his snazzy jazzy guard down. And everything on Born to Run is quite-good-plus, but nothing quite-so-perfect as tracks 2 & 5. C'est my piece.

 

Peterike: I'm a bigger fan of your comprehensive list than a solid handful of its inclusions. But rather than cataloguing my objections (you're more of an expert on pre-Yusuf Yusuf than me), I myself would add the Xgau-doubted Trouble, Sing Out/Sing Out, Where Do the Children Play? & especially Hard-Headed Woman from Tillerman (wasn't the title track well-used on Extras?), as well as the Xgau-approved Katmandu & that lil' Catch Bull riff called Can't Keep It In. Why worry when it's warm over here? (What??)

 

* EDIT: I wanna clarify this part lest I seem like more of a know-nothing than I sort of am. I've heard The River a couple of times and the only thing that sticks is the thing that was stuck there in the first place -- "Hungry Heart", which is a pop masterpiece & proudly resides somewhere in my top 10 songs ever. Nebraska is very good if a little An Horseish ifyaknowhatimean, and thus the gorgeously eerie "Atlantic City" (hey, that's not in the cornhusker state) is my pick hit. Born in the U.S.A. is great but not my kind of great, though "I'm On Fire" and the title track are and everything gets me at least a little bit. I don't like the two things I've heard off of Live 75/85 (the deathly slow Tom Waits cover and the long, ridiculous spoken intro to [I believe] "Born in the U.S.A.") and know I can't define the whole thing by that. And, shame on me, I've never heard Tunnel of Love.

Ryan: If by early TR you mean Something/Anything? I'm right with you. And who doesn't like "We Gotta Get You a Woman"? No need to feel guiilty about that one>And as for Cat Stevens? , not a big fan, but hey I like Jackson Browne way more than Xgau. Maybe it's a coastal thing? As for Bruce, most of the Dean's grades are about a half a grade too low, Born in the USA excepted, unless there's such a grade as A++. Still quibbling between A/A- or A-/B+ seems trivial

Peterike: Solidarity time! Cat Stevens (& [early] Todd Rundgren, but don't tell anybody) is (are) my guiltiest pleasure(s). "Father and Son" still makes my eyes all misty, and that's hardly the only good song he's got. & "Angelsea", a poorly-lyric'ed (natch) throwaway from Catch Bull at Four (which also has the great "Sitting" and "Ruins"), makes the groovecenters of my body (mostly my a[s]s & shoulders) very happy.

Ask a simple question!...

So I drop a question, get buried in work for a few days, come back and find 200+ posts to plow through. Anyway, thanks to all for their interesting thoughts on Xgau's "misses," such as they be.

I would add to the mix Queen -- yeah, ok, so sue me -- The Smiths and The Cure. I think there is a certain youth sensibility that Xgau just doesn't get. Sure, Morrissey is a mopey sod, but oh my god when he sings "So for once in my life let me get what I want, Lord knows it would be the first time, Lord knows it would be the first time," it's an emotional A-bomb. Repeating the "Lord knows" line is a bit of emotional song writing genius, a dagger to the heart of disaffected youth everywhere. I would give almost every Smiths album an A or A+ on the basis of sheer emotional simpatico. The Cure a bit less so, but still on the same wavelength.

Ryan yesterday: agree on Springsteen and Darkness. I think that Springsteen was another artist Xgau never quite understood the way others did (no... not "understood." He doesn't feel him the way others do). Born in the USA as an A+?  It's a disappointment. The Wild, The Innocent to me was a total A+, one of the greatest and most unique albums ever crafted, a Top 100 rock album. There was nothing like it before or since, and even though it was followed by another masterwork in Born to Run, I always regretted that Springsteen didn't put out a few more albums in the crazy, discursive story telling mode of Wild. Songs without choruses.  ("Bishop Danced" and "Santa Ana" from Tracks sound like outtakes from it, both terrific.)

Finally, total odd ball pick. Any Trouble. Probably a lot of you younguns never heard it, and even you old timers might have missed it in the 80s. Xgau gave it a C+, but it's a perky pack of killer hooks, crisply produced. A great pop album.

Oh, and whoever mentioned Horse Lips (can't go back and look right now), yes! I loved that record.  That's probably more than Horse Lips has been mentioned anywhere in twenty years.

Awfully quiet here today. I'll just discreetly put in a recommendation for Raphael Saadiq's superb new album, Stone Rollin'. Starts off like The Way I See It Pt 2, but with harsher grooves and more guitar, and then shifts into something spacier, as if Raphael's been listening to late-60s--early-70s Beach Boys. Gorgeous both ways. Trust me: one of the albums of the year.

Oh and happy birthday to Fraptron and Joey.

Richard: Glad your son is getting better. Here's some healing thoughts from this side of the Bay.