Tag: Rock

Smog – Knock Knock

Knock Knock

Smog – Knock Knock Drag City DC161CD (1999)

In some ways this album is the culmination of what the 1990s alt-rock era promised and sometimes delivered — following on what PJ Harvey‘s To Bring You My Love was a few years earlier.  The music is bleak, in a way, but just as much determined to not let that kind of mood dominate.  Bill Callahan‘s resonant but monotone and melancholy voice is set against a childrens chorus (“No Dancing,” “Hit the Ground Running”), grinding and grooving guitar riffs, and even strings and a few eccentric instruments.  There is seemingly no cause for the melancholy other than a pure choice of free will.  And yet, Knock Knock renders such a choice of subjective mood one that is not made lightly or without difficulty.  Quite simply, the choice gives itself meaning through its inability to trivialize the mundane.  There are a lot of little hang-ups in here.  The post-rock/math-rock repetitions underscore the challenge of desire and willpower.  How, then, to carry the burden of responsibility for them?  So on the opener “Let’s Move to the Country,” the song’s protagonist goes to the country, “just you and me / a goat and a monkey / a mule and a flea.”  Callahan’s lyrics try to grasp the foibles of masculinity and relationships with due seriousness, but — and this is really Callahan’s greatest talent — he struggles not the slip into a feigned approximation of seriousness.  And his satirical black humor always comes through.  So he sings, “Let’s start a … / Let’s have a …,” never completing either line.  Start a band?  Have a party?  No.  The song stops short of saying “Let’s start a family / Let’s have a baby / My travels are over.”

This might well be equally credited to both Callahan (AKA Smog) and producer Jim O’Rourke.  The arrangements and production style will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with O’Rourke’s pop-oriented work of the era.  Callahan’s voice is great, like a velvet-lined box able to carry any sort of fragile thing in discrete luxury.  There is a much broader palette in use here than Smog’s sparser predecessor album Red Apple Falls.

O’Rourke really builds up tension well, with Callahan’s melodic and catchy riffs repeated again and again, with a slow crescendo or modulation that seems to take forever to resolve.  But the catchy riffs amuse in the meantime.  The harder rocking songs with the biggest, groovingest guitar riffs are some of the highlights.  Mostly they recall stuff like The Velvet Underground‘s “Foggy Notion.”  A later example of Knock Knock‘s basic approach would be Bonnie “Prince” Billy‘s one-off rock album The Letting Go.

Just like a Leninist reading of the musical La La Land, if the story line of Knock Knock is about moving to someplace in the country for a relationship that falls apart, then the way the breakup is due to a commitment to something bigger than a relationship (that is a mere “bonus”) is something kind of intriguing.

Lou Reed & Metallica – Lulu

Lulu

Lou Reed & Metallica – Lulu Warner Bros. 529084-2 (2011)

Here’s my recollection of a conversation with my wife listening to this.

Wife: “No, this is all wrong.  It’s like they stitched together two things that don’t belong together at all.”

Me: “I think it’s alright.”

Wife: “You don’t know metal at all.”

Me: “Who said this was supposed to be metal?”

Wife: “He [Lou Reed] can’t sing at all!  They should have told him they were recording, but, you know, not recorded him and then put in different [Hetfield] vocals.”

Etc.

So, if you approach this as a Metallica fan, knowing little or nothing about what Lou Reed albums tend to sound like, chances are you will hate this.  If you like Lou Reed, then you might find this not exactly his best, but a fairly typical middling offering.  The pairing with Metallica works for me.  They play pretty generic thrash-lite riffing, but it’s a change of pace for a Reed album.  Pretty okay.

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band – Lick My Decals Off, Baby

Lick My Decals Off, Baby

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band – Lick My Decals Off, Baby Straight STS 1063 (1970)

It seems entirely reasonable to look at the career of Captain Beefheart as a microcosm of the entire counter-cultural movement of the 1960s and 70s.  His earliest stuff was warped blues rock, sometimes a little psychedelic and sometimes loose and jammy.  There seemed to be a genuine belief that the music was commercial enough without overtly trying to be.  In other words, it presupposed a market for rock music that openly drew from Afro-American blues without being a part of that tradition.  This was right after the formal, legal end of the Jim Crow era.  By the end of the 60s, though, The Captain released Trout Mask Replica, which was probably the furthest “out” version of what the entire hippie counterculture was about, moving from blues rock into free jazz and abstract non-sequitur.  Into the early 1970s, the abstraction was scaled back, or at least positioned alongside more radio-friendly material.  The Spotlight Kid made overt attempts to hold the weirdness in check and slow everything down.  Clear Spot went so far as to include a soul ballad “Too Much Time” along with stuff that still recalled the late 60s weirdness.  Whether all this was a naive assumption that the counterculture could survive in that rarefied environment, or just a calculated attempt to make some accommodations (with or without sacrificing integrity), is for the listener to decide.  Nonetheless, the early 70s still found The Captain succeeding artistically, even as by the mid-70s he seemed adrift — just like the counterculture that rolled back against the backlash of the business class.  But unlike many of his contemporaries, who never returned to any kind of relevance, Captain Beefheart made some interesting turns in the late 1970s.  Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) was a surprising triumph, blending a kind of postmodern panoply of styles that was professionally slick and in touch with contemporary tastes while still remaining inimitably, unwaveringly weird.  It was goofy without sacrificing real wit.  From there, Doc at the Radar Station accentuated the cerebral, more abstract elements of the music.  It accepted a more limited role for this music (even if The Captain was still appearing on national TV to promote the album).  His final album, Ice Cream for Crow, confirmed a role of elder statesman of a kind of music that was obviously losing ground and no longer economically viable even at the fringes.  But there was still some small space to make the music and Captain Beefheart went ahead and did just that.  It was no surprise that the last few albums came along roughly during the punk era.  The Captain was fueled by the same independent ethos, even if his music bore little or no direct sonic resemblance to punk.

Lick My Decals Off, Baby had obvious parallels with Trout Mask Replica, but it also was more streamlined and decisive.  This was music made by a band that knew precisely what it was doing.  The fact that wide swaths of the general population wanted no part of it was beside the point.  The album was the band’s highest charting album in the UK.  While, from a certain perspective, this might be seen as the pinnacle of Beefheart’s Magic Band, and the counterculture as a whole, it also wasn’t enough.  John “Drumbo” French‘s memoir Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic later indicated that the band was surviving on welfare and allowances from parents.  Hardly a recipe for the lasting victory of the counter-culture.  Nearly fifty years later, this album sounds remarkable for what it saw as possible — the way the album could demand so much concentration from listeners, the way it could afford to revisit a style that was so commercially unpopular on the last album, the obvious aspirations and ambition directed in such a freaky and non-corporate direction, the role of horns and guitars, and the range of material that could cohesively exist on a single album.  Looking back, it is quite a shame that everything this album represented failed to carry the day.  But this music survives, and there is still time.

Yoko Ono – Yes, I’m a Witch

Yes, I'm a Witch

Yoko Ono – Yes, I’m a Witch Astralwerks ASW 79287 (2007)

Sure, these guest-driven remix albums are always uneven.  Yes, I’m a Witch is no exception.  But Yoko kind of deserved a record like this.  Anyway, the best of what is here — with input from the likes of Cat Power, The Flaming Lips, The Brother Brothers, and Shitake Monkey — is really good.  Outside of Yoko, Tom Zé, and Scott Walker, there are frankly few artists over 70 years old (!) who so convincingly deliver pop/rock music this relevant and up-to-date.  Yoko offered a few more of these remix albums, plus a new version of the Plastic Ono band released some surprisingly good new recordings in the years that followed.

Yoko Ono – Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band

Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band

Yoko Ono – Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band Apple SAPCOR 17 (1970)

The Plastic Ono Band led by Yoko Ono made some startling music that never confined itself to any conventional rock structures. The album is a conceptual work that stays true to Ono’s roots in the visual arts (this is a Fluxus album!). Her piercing wails rarely take the form of words, which would only lessen the creativity.

Ono’s most notable song leads off the album, “Why.” Next she replies with “Why Not.” Ono cuts right to the fundamental question of existence: why? Her answer is as flippant as it is brilliant. Despite her aggressive attack she was always positive. Yoko is like a sunshine day in an urban ghost town. For all the hipster ambitions of the Plastic Ono Band, the bizarre interdependence on R&B grooves make it all the more complex. Yet, the album remains delicate throughout. Call it pretentious, but Plastic Ono Band is among the most provocative albums of its time.

Ono maneuvers through deep psychological recesses, as primal scream therapy prompted both this and John Lennon’s John Lenon / Plastic Ono Band record (recorded at the same time with the same musicians). Yoko’s album as bandleader is far more abstract musically than Lennon’s. She stays away from the intricacies of writing extended lyrics, but instead focuses more on improvisational tactics and pure concept. This is seen on “AOS,” recorded backstage rehearsing with The Ornette Coleman Quartet.  Ono made some more music somewhat like this (Fly, etc.), but always with a little more emphasis on song structure.

It wasn’t a simple thing for a woman to break into the male-dominated avant-garde music scene, but Yoko Ono did it. Back in her Fluxus days she did perform with The Theater of Eternal Music (a/k/a LaMonte Young’s Dream Syndicate), which is a credential no Beatle had. Her unique vocal style (only comparable to Patty Waters, Linda Sharrock or maybe Mongolian throat singing) is the boldest aspect of the album. Not just some academic theory, Yoko screams out the entire album. This wasn’t music of widespread appeal, but it was important nonetheless (the bass line to “Why” crops up many places, like on Stereolab‘s “Emperor Tomato Ketchup”).

Significant to Plastic Ono Band are John Lennon and Ringo Starr‘s performances. Hardly before had Lennon played guitar so passionately. He proves that as a pure instrumental stylist he can hold his own with anybody. Ringo Starr lays down a thick R&B backbeat here that funkifies this avant-noise powder keg.

This is an amazing album. Years later, after bands like PiL and Flipper, Yoko was proven a visionary. Like the album jacket suggests, listen to it in the dark.

Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies

Billion Dollar Babies

Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies Warner Bros. BS 2685 (1973)

I wanted this to be better than it really is.  On side one, in particular, the band seems a bit sluggish, even as the songs have much potential.  Side two picks things up some.  It opens with the hit “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” then goes on to include the admirably out-of-character piano ballad “Mary Ann” and concludes with one of the best songs, “I Love the Dead.”  On the whole, this is solid hard rock for the era, but it does seem like it could have been better.

Reagan Youth – A Collection of Pop Classics

A Collection of Pop Classics

Reagan Youth – A Collection of Pop Classics New Red Archives NRA13CD (1994)

Reagan Youth formed in the early 1980s as part of the hardcore punk scene in New York.  They were named “Reagan Youth” to criticize President Ronald Reagan (then just a candidate) by associating him with the Nazi Party organization the Hitler Youth.  The band satirically appeared in concert in KKK hoods — bear in mind that they also played “Rock Against Racism” concerts and were staunchly anti-racist.  The imagery was invoked for the purpose of critique.  Their first album was an EP entitled Youth Anthems for the New Order, originally on R Radical Records (founded by MDC).  That EP was later released in expanded form as Vol. 1 (AKA Come Now Jim, It Could Never Happen Here) — the added songs “No Class” and “In Dog We Trust” are better than most on the original EP.  All of the original songs are classic hardcore.  In 1990 they released a second album, Volume Two (AKA For God….and Country).  Both of the albums are collected on A Collection of Pop Classics (and also Punk Rock New York, minus “Degenerate” for some reason).

The band’s first album is a nice slab of satirical DIY hardcore, in the vein of early Black Flag (Jealous Again).  What really makes it nice is the songwriting.  I sing the line ” ‘scuse me I’m not a category” from “No Class” to tease my wife all the time.  I really like that song.  Other songs like “(You’re A) Gonowhere” and “In Dog We Trust” are well written and performed too.

As for Volume Two, call me crazy, but some of this sounds a lot like later period Royal Trux mixed with early Rollins Band, and maybe even some Iron Maiden-type metal leanings.  It was an album that could (and did) alienate fans of Reagan Youth’s pure DIY sounds on their debut, but it is just about as good as their debut.  The stylistic shift in some ways mirrored one made by Black Flag in their later years.  Most of the songs for Volume Two were actually old ones that the band had played around the time of the first album, but they didn’t feel were developed enough to record back then.  In an e-mail, guitarist Paul Cripple (Paul Bakija) said, “it alienated a lot of the punx that only liked Volume I . . . .”  He adds, “A lot of people don’t grow, especially musically and to think Reagan Youth was going to release an album, practically eight years later, that sounds just like their first…..well, those people are pieces of shit.”

The MDC song “Born to Die” was revived by Green Day at the 2016 American Music Awards, following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with the lyrics changed to: “No Trump! / No KKK! / No fascist USA!”  Reagan Youth re-formed in 2006, after the tragic death of lead singer Dave Insurgent (David Rubenstein), and seem to still be active.  Will they now change their name to “Trump Youth”?

Buffy Sainte-Marie – Illuminations

Illuminations

Buffy Sainte-Marie – Illuminations Vanguard VSD-79300 (1969)

Here is a forward-thinking recording that combines three semi-disparate styles.  There is protest folk, akin to Joan Baez.  There is also psychedelic rock, like Jefferson Airplane.  Lastly, and most unusually, there are experimental electronics, comparable to The United States of America, some efforts by The Grateful Dead, or maybe even Silver Apples.  The songwriting talents are undeniable — Sainte-Marie’s versatility is demonstrated by how she later co-wrote the mega-hit “Up Where We Belong” for the film An Officer and a Gentleman.  The musicianship here is a bit raw much of the time.  But this music places more emphasis on innovation than finesse.  Buffy goes so far as to modulate her voice with electronic equipment.  Not surprisingly, this was a commercial flop upon release, but it has nonetheless held on to a doggedly devoted cult following.  It is unmistakably an album of the late-1960s, and perhaps one representative of the fundamentally new possibilities opened up in that era, even if only at the fringes.  Worthwhile for adventurers in modern music.

Ryley Walker – Primrose Green

Primrose Green

Ryley Walker – Primrose Green Dead Oceans DOC 101CD (2015)

The influences are apparent: John Martyn, The Pentagle (Jansch and Renbourn especially), Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, even The Grateful Dead and The Incredible String Band.  This is definitely music made “in the tradition” (to adopt Anthony Braxton‘s restrucuralists/stylists/traditionalists taxonomy).  But this is quite impressive in that it takes so many different elements from the late 1960s/early 1970s folk-rock milieu and deploys them all so convincingly.  Really likable and surprisingly durable.