Rock – Page 19 – Rock Salted

The Beach Boys – M.I.U. Album

The Beach Boys – M.I.U. Album Brother Records MSK 2268 (1978)

M.I.U. Album is not quite as bad as its reputation suggests. That isn’t to say it’s a particularly good record. The first two songs and even “Pitter Patter” have some good energy, but this is slight at best, and typically quite nondescript. The band sounds rather disinterested and unmotivated most of the time. The vocals can be downright lazy. There is nothing memorable here — except maybe the so-weird-it’s-funny “Hey Little Tomboy”. But slight or not some of the songs are good fun, and the production is serviceable. This doesn’t induce quite as many cringes as say, The Beach Boys seven years later. Make no mistake, though, there definitely are still cringe-worthy moments here, particularly at the end (“My Diane,” “Match Point of Our Love,” “Winds of Change”). Truthfully, if the Boys had taken the best material from this album and their next one L.A. (Light Album) and made just one album from it, they would have had something decent, or at least better than either one individually.

The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys Caribou FZ 39946 (1985)

Where to begin? For better or worse, but usually for worse, this sounds like a mainstream lite pop record from the mid-1980s, heavy on synths and drum machines. The problem is that it sounds extremely dated now, and much of the material is exceptionally poor. The first two songs aren’t bad really, with “Getcha Back” echoing the group’s old sound recast with 80s textures and “It’s Gettin’ Late” being a convincing take on contemporary — if average — pop. From there, it’s just varying degrees of embarrassment, including a song aping Stevie Wonder‘s then-current sound.

Pere Ubu – The Modern Dance

Pere Ubu – The Modern Dance Blank Records 001 (1978)

Pere Ubu made music in bold, sweeping motions. Their full-length debut The Modern Dance is a freewheeling album. It puts Allen Ravenstine‘s tape manipulation precariously in front of the rather isolated guitars. This album is much easier to decipher than its follow-up Dub Housing. The Modern Dance is quite open about its motivations. It looks for something new. The dang thing holds up because it found something new. But also because it makes a sincere effort to preserve the group’s own identity.

The Modern Dance still has a lot in common with the group that spawned them, Rocket from the Tombs. The Rocket song “Life Stinks” by Peter Laughner keeps the old energy alive — for the most part. Refined as it is, “Life Stinks” is still one of those songs that can rile even the most hardened listener.

I respect any band that refuses to fabricate straight answers. Sometimes there are none. Sometimes there are only mangled lies showing the appearance of truth. Take “Humor Me” for example. It takes aim at the biggest joke in human history: western “civilization”. And with no apologies! While these continuous attacks on the social bell curve kept Pere Ubu an underground act, they also elevated the group to a level worthy of their namesake (the name Pere Ubu was drawn from Alfred Jarry‘s play Ubu Roi).

There are many levels of understanding the world. Some people just “get it” in a way others don’t. That’s what “The Modern Dance” is all about. Many things happen on levels that some march right past. Pere Ubu wasn’t just some band that heads for easy results-oriented nonsense. They came from Cleveland. So of course despair, isolation and suffering are the most familiar themes. More surprising though is how fatalistic The Modern Dance is. References to concrete destiny are everywhere.

The album’s best songs are full of many intricate layers. “Chinese Radiation” bleeds with sentimental washes from an acoustic guitar, running over the electronic background. A carefully deployed piano resonates with slowly pounded chords.

“Non-Alignment Pact” is genius as an album opener. It starts with a looping, screeching blast like a siren. Only after the noise has its time out front do the guitars and the rest of the band join in. “Non-Alignment Pact” is a great twisted take on a love song. Actually, I’m not sure it’s supposed to be a love song, but I hear it as one. Other love songs speak in the positive. This one is about not making other allegiances. What matters is what is excluded. A punk love song would almost have to be that way.

Pere Ubu’s next two albums (Dub Housing and New Picnic Time) improved on some of the stranger experiments of this debut. But The Modern Dance has its own kind of tightly channeled manic energy, and, frankly, somewhat more consistently catchy songs as such. Experiencing it is consistently refreshing.

Green Day – ¡Uno!

Green Day – ¡Uno! Reprise 531973-2 (2012)

This is an unexpectedly good album. Sure, it’s Green Day, so don’t come for poetic lyrics, but do look for lots of derivative songwriting. “Carpe Diem” borrows heavily from David Bowie & Queen‘s “Under Pressure,” and aside from the usual Clash influences (“Kill the DJ” is like Sandinista!-era Clash or Destiny Street-era Voidoids) there are influences from The Platters to The Guess Who. Yet, it delivers one catchy, melodic pop punk song after the next. Superficial teen angst is what these guys know and do best. I’ll take this over American Idiot any day.

Grateful Dead – Crimson, White & Indigo

Grateful Dead – Crimson, White & Indigo: July 7 1989, JFK Stadium, Philadelphia Rhino GRA2-6015 (2010)

The 1980s were not kind to the Dead. It was a time of one terrible album after another. This live set recorded in 1989 does something to improve the era’s reputation. First off, we get piano instead of synthesizer, and it it makes all the difference. Plus, selections from the 80s albums sound better than the studio counterparts generally. And although Bob Weir had long ago given up trying to sing well, he’s less annoying here than usual. This probably won’t win over a lot of new deadheads, but it’s a surprisingly decent offering for the era.

Shawn Phillips – Collaboration

Shawn Phillips – Collaboration A&M SP 4324 (1971)

A bit too hippie-dippy at times, there is an over-abundance of gimmicks in the vocals, and the lyrics often fall flat or provoke half a cringe, but there is a lot to admire in the musical innovations here. Phillips takes folk and throws it together with prog rock, with touches of jazz and classical. This album is titled Collaboration and the jacket describes it as a collaboration by Shawn Phillips with Paul Buckmaster and Peter Robinson. Buckmaster does some amazing things. The song “Us We Are” includes orchestration, but it is so subtle and organic that the string and horn orchestrations are already well underway before they are noticeable! Songs like “Moonshine” have some nice keyboards from Robinson too, with a dexterity and morose ease that works very well. The side one closer “Armed” brings all the instrumentalists’ talents together best. So, while Collaboration has its appeal, it is perhaps a step down from Second Contribution, which is much more consistent even if somewhat less daring or innovative. It might have been better with an additional collaborator to handle lyrics and vocals.

Tom Zé – Fabrication Defect: Com defeito de fabricação

Tom Zé – Fabrication Defect: Com defeito de fabricação Luaka Bop 9362-46953-2 (1998)

When it comes to the work of Tom Zé, the most common comparisons from the English-speaking rock/pop music realm are Tom Waits (from the 1980s) or Captain Beefheart. But the premise of Fabrication Defect, a concept album about the people of the Third World as “androids” having the “defects” and effrontery to “think, dance and dream,” takes its philosophy straight from the likes of the French writer Jean Genet, a lifelong thief who celebrated that role precisely because it was seen as a perversion by an immoral and corrupt social order. Zé is part prankster, part eccentric visionary, part musical historian. You won’t find a whole lot of popular music albums from people in their 60s this sharply caustic and irreverent. But Zé is one of those beautiful oddities who makes his own precedent. Fabrication Defect has the same wit and blend of high theory and fun gags (with a bit more in the gags department) as his great mid-1970s albums.

Funkadelic – Standing on the Verge of Getting It On

Funkadelic – Standing on the Verge of Getting It On Westbound WB 1001 (1974)

As Funkadelic and Parliament started to diverge, Standing on the Verge of Getting It On is kind of a return to form for guitarist Eddie Hazell. He dominates some of the best parts of this album, especially the lengthy closer “Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts” — kind of a sequel to “Maggot Brain.” “I’ll Stay” is another good one. Hell, this whole album rocks like only Funkadelic could. There are heavy grooves, and a heavy commitment to “free love” and whatever remained of the 1960s freak scene. Of course it all sounds like a psychedelic trip too. No other band managed the precarious balancing act of holding forth all the black and white musical elements that came so naturally to this group. As Parliament gained popularity, there would be a lot less chaotic weirdness and more focused grooves, making this something of a last gasp for the offhand, working band qualities that carry much of the album so well.

Gilberto Gil – Gilberto Gil [Cérebro eletrônico]

Gilberto Gil – Gilberto Gil [Cérebro eletrônico] Philips R 765.087 L (1969)

With vocals recorded while Gil was under house arrest by the Brazilian military junta (using a metronome — audible in places), and later orchestrated by Rogério Duprat, Gilberto Gil’s second self-titled album (sometimes referred to by the first song “Cérebro eletrônico” to distinguish it) is more intensely rocking and more overtly filled with electronic effects and musings than its immediate predecessor. Duprat may have had a freer hand here given Gil’s jailing, which is fine — Duprat was a genius, so who is to complain? The music also veers more toward private musings and existential concerns. Eclecticism remains, but the album also somehow manages to feel more cohesive that its predecessor, with sustained emphasis on rock and experimental composition. This remains one of the best offerings from a very fertile time in the Brazilian music counterculture.

Television – Marquee Moon

Television – Marquee Moon Elektra 7E-1098 (1977)

Marquee Moon is Television’s greatest studio album (The album cover is a color photocopy of a Robert Mapplethorpe photo framed in black), and edges out the live The Blow-Up as their best release. Even though more pop-ish versions (like R.E.M.) have grabbed most public attention, Television remains a definitive rock band.

Television helped make raw performance — without regard to traditional rock skill — an asset. The sound is an alternative to the blues. They are never aggressive. Tom Verlaine sings with a decidedly untrained voice, yet helped define a new style. Punk’s do-it-yourself feeling is probably its greatest contribution to twentieth-century music. The natural sound is an urban equivalent of the country-western yodel. These are unique cultural treasures.

Below the surface Television is intellectual and cerebral. The result on Marquee Moon is something new but more accomplished than similar works. The band’s “city” attitude suggests the arrival at a final destination (an interesting side note to punk is how few artists were born or raised in the city, which isn’t obvious given the music’s urban values).

This album captures the turmoil of urban life perfectly. “See No Evil” and “Venus” start the album off right. Every other track is sensational, and minor borrowings (“Guiding Light” takes a riff from John Cale’s “Graham Greene”) are actually stokes of genius. In a world of disillusionment, fragments of life only gain meaning through reassembly. Each moment of Marquee Moon is a glorious attempt to unsettle destiny.

Television has a surprisingly clean sound, never using the distortion of their ancestors or offspring. A bass player will make-or-break a punk band, and replacement bassist Fred Smith handles the job of guiding the band well. Original bassist Richard Hell, who is credited with originating the mussed hair, safety pinned clothing, and visual nihilism of punk, had left the group to form The Heartbreakers (and then The Voidoids) before this album. Guitarist Tom Verlaine had played with Patti Smith but refined his brash style by Marquee Moon. Richard Lloyd burns on guitar as well. While Verlaine was an improviser who didn’t repeat himself, Lloyd could meticulously recreate his riffs, allowing him to overdub and double-track his guitar parts to give Marquee Moon a unique layered guitar sound. Even with those studio effects, the dual guitars launch into frequent bouts of madness. Crashing guitar rhythms pulse, and shake the band. Drummer Billy Ficca, especially on the magnificent title track, gives the music a loose, almost jazzy beat.

These guys came along at precisely the right time and place. Malcolm McLaren pleaded to be Television’s manager, but when they declined he headed back to England and adopted the Sex Pistols (who tend to distance themselves from Television out of fear it might ruin their dubious claim as punk’s sole originators). Television released another good studio album, Adventure, before breaking up, only to re-form sporadically. Marquee Moon still sounds great today and will remain a classic indefinitely.