Robert Christgau's Music Criticism Blog - Expert Witness - MSN Music

Odds and Ends 002

Notes for a Revised Paleontology

By Xgau Nov 15, 2011 6:11AM

 

Wilco: The Whole Love (Anti-)

Full-on Radiohead electronica Americanized with aw-shucks diffidence, red-blooded guitar, sharp tunes, and exceptionally dull poetry ("Standing O," "One Sunday Morning") ***

 

The Mountain Goats: All Eternals Deck (Merge)

Four great songs, all of which address mortality directly instead of implying it the way the nine merely ambitious ones do ("Estate Sale Sign," "For Charles Bronson," "Sourdoire Valley Song," "Beautiful Gas Mask") ***

 

Radiohead: The King of Limbs (XL/TBD)

So much more fun than Eno these days ("Little by Little," "Bloom") **

 

Comet Gain: Howl of the Lonely Crowd (What's Your Rupture?)

Desperate times catch up with desperate punk love poetry ("Clang of the Concrete Swans," "Ballad of Frankie Machine") **

 

 

Giant Sand: Blurry Blue Mountain (Fire)

With nothing much at stake but the shape of his life, Howe Gelb keeps his slow hand in ("Fields of Green," "Better Man Than Me") **


Faust: Something Dirty (Bureau B)

Synth-free after lo these many decades, their experiments have more oomph, especially the Hawkwind homages ("Tell the Bitch to Go Home," "Dampfauslass 2") **

 

Wire: Red Barked Tree (Pink Flag)

Even formalists get the grays--well, especially formalists ("Bad Worn Thing," "Please Take") **

New York Dolls: Dancing Backwards in High Heels (429)

Weary blues from trying ("Talk to Me Baby," "End of the Summer") *

 

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248Comments
Cyclops703
Nov 15, 2011 6:40AM
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 This is a terrific "odds and ends" and- maybe because I know this type of music and these groups better- more immediately informative than the (also enjoyable) earlier one.
John DMDC (John_DMDC)
Nov 15, 2011 7:00AM
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Joe Y:  My copy of Day By Day, by E. T. Mensah, has orange-colored paperwork.  The CD is green.  The booklet gives a London, UK address (26 Gassiot Road, SW 17) for RetroAfric.  This UK address is also on the CD, but the CD also says "Made in Germany" - I presume the physical CD was manufactured in Germany. 

 

The horn players are sitting in a picture on the cover of the CD booklet.  There are 15 tracks.  This is also identified as "RETRO3CD", released in 1991.

 

(It would be nice if Xgau also provided this much info about what he reviews.  (Just kidding!!!  JUST KIDDING!!!)) 

 

Hope this helps.  I took the occasion to reaquaint myself with E. T. Mensah, and I'm currently listening to it.  My initial thought is that it's a Latin / Calypso sound similar (and influential) to Ochestra Baobab.

Cam Patterson
Nov 15, 2011 7:45AM
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Hawkwind reference? Faust? Crazy upside-down world. Love it.
JeffC77
Nov 15, 2011 8:01AM
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Bob: That first Wilco song is called, "Standing O."
CHRIS DRUMM (cdrummbks)
Nov 15, 2011 8:10AM
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As is my wont I whipped up a MOG playlist [http://goo.gl/6gYgb​] based on the song picks here. I like to work up from the bottom, like Casey Kasum, with the more favored songs last. But I think Xgau mentioned that Odds and Ends 001 is not in order of preference, but sequenced. This caused me to reverse the playing order in that playlist. I see the asterisks decreasing on this one, though, so I did the work-up from the bottom again, keeping Xgau’s song-order within albums. Instead of listening to the playlist, though, I’ll probably just stream all the albums in their entirety, even going with the “Deluxe” versions on a couple (The Dolls and Wilco). Thank goodness for that capability. Looking like a great Tuesday!
Robert Christgau (Xgau)
Nov 15, 2011 8:15AM
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Cam: Feel constrained to report that the Faust/Hawkwind thing was written well before the relevant discussion here.
Chris: Order of preference pertains in both O&E entries and will continue to do so. Would probably prefer to lay it out with one pick and top and two centered side-by-side halfway down, but can't figure out how.



Christopher Monsen (Chris Monsen)
Nov 15, 2011 8:21AM
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trapped in snow for ten months of the year
See, this is why we (i.e. Norway) should never host the winter olympics again. Postcard to the world, my buttocks *

Contrary to the albums covered in Odds & Ends 001, I've heard all of these save the Faust record (I will now). They've pretty much landed in the HM bracket for me, too. That said, I'm such a sucker for Cline's guitar work and Kotche's drum patterns that I don't mind Tweedy's dull poetry. It may even make my A-list (lower half, mind you, but still.)

* I get that you weren't being serious.
Ioannis Sotirchos
Nov 15, 2011 8:45AM
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bah! still no mekons. (iz joking, mon!)
Greg Morton (GMort)
Nov 15, 2011 8:56AM
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still no mekons . . .
. . . and today would have been the perfect day. (Scratches head. Plays Black Stars. Forgets Mekons.)
JeffC77
Nov 15, 2011 9:02AM
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Suddenly many memoirs about the 70s Manhattan music scene: first Patti, then Wolcott, now Will Hermes. When can we look forward to yours, Xgau? (I'd front you the advance money if I had it.)
Cyclops703
Nov 15, 2011 9:20AM
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 (from the last thread)  Michael, I also worked in a library when I was in HS.  There was an ex-NYCer in her late 30s who used to live in the same building as Johnny Thunders and claimed to have met Dylan.  (She was the right age and certainly good looking enough that Bob might be interested in meeting her.)  My immediate supervisor was 
28-30 and hip enough that she loaned me a pre-Black Rock album by James Blood Ulmer.
Cyclops703
Nov 15, 2011 9:29AM
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 Bob's mention of the Dolls leads me to ask if there's any another group whose first three official studio albums received (or would have received) "A+"s across the board.  I would think various Black artists are out on a consistency basis, while early Stones and Dylan's first are so heavy on covers that they would also presumably be eliminated.  He liked the Velvets but clearly not to that extent, so that would seem to leave The Beatles as the only possibility.  The U.S./UK differences in albums would have to be sorted out but based on his CG comments they may well have done it, too.
Allen B.
Nov 15, 2011 9:37AM
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It's most probably projection, but the Dolls review above seems to contain some sadness...some part of him kept trying, not wanting to have to give less than an A- (that one was painful enough) to one of their studio releases...
Not. Milo. Miles.
Nov 15, 2011 9:41AM
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First, the world suggested by the NY Dolls never came about and now an outright dull album has appeared under their name (well, that live rebirth wasn't all that wonderful, true). David Jo always deserved to earn more coin from said name than he had, and that's been somewhat rectified, but I have nothing else good to say.

Without Johnny and Jerry, a compleat comeback wasn't possible, but they deserved some kind of curtain call. Now it's over. Only honest title available for the future: Too Little, Too Late.

JeffC77
Nov 15, 2011 10:03AM
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Also: Make that "Estate Sale Sign" on The Mountain Goats review.
RobT-2
Nov 15, 2011 10:05AM
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early Stones and Dylan's first are so heavy on covers that they would also presumably be eliminated

Keep in mind that the Dolls' second album is also "heavy on covers", though the Dolls' versions are probably better known by now than most of the originals.

Cyclops703
Nov 15, 2011 10:10AM
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 That last quip is a good one, Milo!  But how do you think a Johnny/Jerry reformed Dolls would have sounded?  As a tubthumper, I figure Jerry would have been as good as ever.  Johnny, though, started his post-Dolls career with two excellent studio albums and has live sets- some very good, most not- that are better the older they are.  Let's say he'd lived and cleaned up at least ten years before they reformed.  How many guitarists who put in, say, 25 years as a smack addict or raging alcoholic have much left when they finally get their act together at an advanced age?  To use an earlier example, nothing about the intact Velvets who toured in '93 suggested that they would have approached the level of the first four albums.

 I actually like the reformed but too short Dolls set Live at the Fillmore East pretty well.  I guess it reminds me a bit of Rock N Roll Animal.
Cam Patterson
Nov 15, 2011 10:17AM
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the Faust/Hawkwind thing was written well before the relevant discussion here.
Even better. It was foreshadowing the future.
Semi Mike (ShadyShack)
Nov 15, 2011 10:26AM
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Mm Hmm. Let me try to say this in an appropriate manner.
Ich habe viel über Krautrock in diesem Jahr gelernt haben. Vielen Dank! Ich liebe die Neu und Kraftwerk sind besonders ausgezeichnet! Aber jetzt brauche ich zu prüfen, diese mythischen Faust.

Also, I'm really enjoying the O&E poasts. They are quite fun and informative. I side with Chris M  on the Wilco (Cline especially so) because I'm a fanatic of theirs and no poetry expert. They're more a band of sonics and sound than lyrics. But occasionally they capture lightning in a bottle with both. Goes to show a great band can cover up a lot but not everything.
Not. Milo. Miles.
Nov 15, 2011 10:28AM
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 But how do you think a Johnny/Jerry reformed Dolls would have sounded?

Since every answer to this is as worthwhile/worthless​ as every other, I don't think it's an interesting type of question.


However, it does give me yet another chance to plug one of the finest forgotten rock-and-roll books, Mark Shipper's Paperback Writer (1978 -- likely washed away in the wake of John Lennon's assassination). Says all that can be said about the yearning for band reunions and the (at best) ambiguous real-world results. Time's arrow can hit you in the heart.

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about the blogger

Robert Christgau

Starting in 1967, Robert Christgau has covered popular music for The Village Voice, Esquire, Blender, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He teaches in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, maintains a comprehensive website at robertchristgau.com, and has published five books based on his journalism. He has written for MSN Music since 2006.

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