LIST: 20 Best Albums of 2004

You had to guess it was coming - an end-of-the-year ranking of the year's best albums! It was a good year for music with a tough race for the #1 slot and a relatively late entry taking the prize by a clear margin. So, in the spirit of eating your dessert first...

1. The Arcade Fire Funeral A funeral should sound so good - all the catharsis with very little grief. Give it time, it may be your new favorite album too. 
2. Secret Machines Now Here Is Nowhere Breaking the sound barrier and redefining space-rock. 
3. Franz Ferdinand s/t “…feel the word and melt upon it…”. Ohhh yeaah. 
4. Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans This guy can write one beautiful song after another, and with his ambitions set on scoring an album for each of the 50 states (last year's "Greetings from Michigan" = 1 down, 49 to go) it's a good thing. 
5. Iron & Wine Our Endless Numbered Days Sam Beam puts a new beard on southern ballads with higher production quality and deeper instrumentation than his debut “Creek Drank the Cradle." 
6. Interpol Antics Turn on the Bright Lights” is pretty hard to beat. They wisely opt not to reinvent themselves but plunge deeper into what they do best. And it works. 
7. Greg Davis Curling Pond Woods Atmosphere is everything on this fluid and sonicly rich laptop-folk (folk-top?) disc. Plus there's mention of obscure Canadian ice sports in the title, c'mon! 
8. Modest Mouse Good News For People Who Love Bad News Ohmygod did Isaac Brock really just eat Tom Waits’ copy of “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”? No, it just sounds that way. 
9. Wilco A Ghost Is Born It must be hard living up to such high expectations, especially when you make exceeding them look so easy. Besides, there are poems to write and books to publish… 
10. The Album Leaf In A Safe Place Dreamy sound-scaping blurs the use of traditional instruments and twiddling with knobs. Good music for flying on airplanes and other thin-air activities. 
11. Mission of Burma OnOffOn They're back and have picked up right where they left off. It's almost as if they have been stored in an influence-tight plexiglass case for fourteen years. Given some of the crap that's gone on in that time this proves to be a good thing. Rock! 
12. Of Montreal Satanic Panic In The Attic Don’t let the title fool ya, there’s no need to panic. More wiggly weirdness than evil prevails here. 
13. various artists Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster Performances of standards you didn't know you knew so well by folksy artists you wish you knew better. 
14. Liars They Were Wrong So We Drowned How can you not love a post-punk, no-dance, no-pop noise-noise album about English witch trials? How? 
15. Steve Earle The Revolution Starts… Now Timely though hardly timeless, Steve Earle is the closest thing our generation gets to Bob Dylan now that the latter has committed himself for permanent display at the Smithsonian. 
16. Comets on Fire Blue Cathedral You thought Santa Cruz was all surfing and drum circles and poser kids scammin’ quarters downtown but it is soooo much weirder… and louder! Actually the Comets are based in San Francisco now but it doesn't matter, they're louder, more chaotic and further out there than anyone in that town too. Next time you need to freak out you need the Comets. 
17. Dizzee Rascal Boy In Da Corner Hearing this is like discovering porn for the first time. It's startling, intriquing, confusing, and leaves you feeling guilty for having enjoyed it. Again. And again... 
18. The Fiery Furnaces Blueberry Boat Forget whatever you thought you knew about them from "Gallowbird's Bark" and imagine Flannery O'Connor writing a rock opera. No? Agreed, it's a little weird, but not bad. 
19. Jay-Z + DJ Danger Mouse The Grey Album How would you piggy back onto the biggest hip-hop money train in town? Skip the $75 million lawsuit and remix Jay's "Black Album" vocals over the Beatles' "White Album" score. If only all the gutsy genius it took to make it happen came through the speakers. Still... and of course the totally illegal download of the album. 
20. Castanets Cathedral After hearing a toy piano in the opening track I am reminded of The Simpsons episode #272 "Homer the Moe" wherein Moe explain's his bar's new decor as weird for the sake of being weird (paraphrased). This is fractured, backwater-tinged ear art not for those afraid to experiment. And also not too bad.

LIST: Kyle's Totally Shameless Twelve Days of Music Wish List, 2004

In keeping with the Christmas tradition of asking for things you don't need and the equally important American tradition of crass and offensive behavior around the holidays (or any day) I offer you this - my Twelve Days of Music Wish List, 2004.  Because Christmas comes just once a year and greed knows no age.

1. Whiskeytown “Strangers Almanac”
2. Physics “1”
3. Rachels “Systems/Layers”
4. Pine Valley Cosmonauts “The Executioner’s Last Song Vol. 2-3”
5. The Books “Thought For Food”
6. Billy Schuh and the Foundry “Fathers As Robots”
7. Greg Davis “Arbor”
8. Charlemagne "Charlemagne"
9. Wilco “The Wilco Book” (book and cd)
10. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band “Will The Circle Be Unbroken – The Trilogy” box set
11. various artists “Kentucky Mountain Music” box set
12. Sufjan Stevens “Seven Swans”

REVIEW: Arcade Fire "Funeral"

Rating: 10

Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.
- John Armstrong, Composer (Canada)

Nearly three years ago my grandfather died. His name was Norbert. I saw him that summer then again at Christmas. The myloma had returned sometime in between the two visits.

In hospice I held him by his arms so a nurse could bathe him. I walked him to the toilet that way, marveling that someone with so little flesh could move himself at all - guessing that he once helped me walk like that as an infant.

My wife and I came back for the funeral a few months later. I wanted to help but everything except the eulogy seemed to be taken care of, so I volunteered. I combined the notes my Mom made with a few of my own and I wrote a little speech. It made me feel useful, like maybe I could help.

As soon as I approached the podium, and for the years since, I knew I was wrong. No matter what I would say it would have little to do with helping other people. If it did then that was luck. Hearing the right words can make you feel better I suppose, but speaking them heals. That and time.

Fortunately I haven’t had to attend many funerals. When I have I’ve managed to pick up some extra guilt beyond the normal amount we seem obligated to feel. I think it comes from realizing that someone literally had to die to get me to speak to my relatives, and failing to take advantage of that opportunity compounds it. Instead we make small talk about our jobs, vacations, even the weather. Still, we go because it’s important and we mingle because we have to, and we get it mostly wrong every time.

The Arcade Fire got it right. In terms of the whole idea of a funeral, which warrants mention given the album’s title, and just in terms of the music.

I knew I liked it as soon as I heard it. Actually I knew I would like it after I’d had a chance to hear it a few more times. It’s not something that has to grow on you. That implies it might be annoying or somehow unpleasant in another way, which it isn’t. It’s more like something that needs time to grow in you, time to plant itself and find its way.

The Arcade Fire is sort of a family themselves. Win and Regine are married and Win’s brother Will is in the band. Regine’s grandmother died shortly before she and Win married, and they were married shortly before recording began. Win and Will's grandfather died during recording. So did Richard’s aunt Bessie (Richard is in the band). They all live in Montreal, Quebec. Those are the basics, though I did leave out a member or two whose families are presumably intact. You won’t find out a lot from the band’s promo information which seems artfully simple and elusive by design. Elusive but not deceptive, like their sound.

It is hard to pin down, which makes them infinitely more interesting and difficult to write about. I’m resisting the very amateur-feeling urge to tell you to trust me and buy the album, assuring you that you’ll love it or at least see why I think it’s so good. After all, it made the top spot on my best of 2004 list, and I’m in good company recommending it (pitchforkmedia.com). But it’s one of those things that’s hard to talk about. Like why someone likes chocolate. Or doesn’t.

It feels important and unexpected. It is beautiful and artistic without feeling over dressed. It is earnest, urgent and full but not sappy, hurried or indulgent. It is revealing but not embarrassing; cathartic but not weepy. It feels very much alive, and like all living things capable of growth and change.

With that last bit I realize I am doing what this album mercifully avoids; slipping into schmaltz. The Arcade Fire tread a fine line stretched taught over deep, dark pits full of lesser bands babbling streams of platitude. A step too far in any direction and one is likely to join them, remembered immortally as a stoic, cynic, crybaby or cheese-ball. Where others might have sounded trite or melodramatic The Arcade Fire taps into its own combined heartache and strikes a balance between life, love and loss by owning their experiences, good and bad, and finding ways to put them into perspective. They remember what sound like specific events and people with names, and sing of them in alternately stark and glowing light. And in these memories they find a broader truth - flooding raw emotion elegantly channeled through the simplest of all intellectual filters - music.

For those in need of reference points you’ll hear early U2 guitars; Pixies rhythms via Modest Mouse; the cinematic bombast of Neutral Milk Hotel; and an occasional jazz-tinged female vocal performance from Regine who, when given her moment to shine, sounds a little like Bjork. Songs move from one to the next with purpose like chapters in a book while the rich instrumentation and production expand to fill the imagination’s largest, most filigreed hollow halls.

Better yet, in 1964 Diana Ross and The Supremes released “You Can’t Hurry Love,” then 1966 saw the release of “Pet Sounds.” Somewhere in between (and I don’t think I mean 1965) is the foundation of this album’s sound. Tracks #6 and #7, “Crown of Love” and “Wake Up,” draw refreshingly on Motown doo-wop and dreamy bedroom balladry for a mood at once reminiscent, innocent and completely original. Though the album is best heard cover to cover check out the third track “Une Annee Sans Lumiere” for a glimpse at why it is so moving as a whole, with a slow-drawing build of emotion up to the 2:45 mark where all is liberated, released into joy and not despair. Twinkling spots of light from major chords pierce thrombing pipe organ clouds and a drum kicks down heavy wooden doors.

Again, I have stepped in it. I am no match for the wrenching poignancy of lines like “When daddy comes home you always start a fight; So the neighbors can dance in the police disco lights;” or the universality in “They say a watched pot won’t ever boil; You can’t raise a baby on motor oil; Just like a seed down in the soil you gotta give it time."

Hearing the right words might make you feel better, but speaking them heals. That and time. No one should have to deliver more than one eulogy but everyone should write at least one, though few are likely to be as stirring, hopeful and healing as Funeral. I hope it doesn’t take someone dieing to rouse The Arcade Fire to further genius - maybe Win and Regine will have a baby and start writing lullabies.

LIST: 40 Best Albums of 2003

Sure, to those in the know I wasn't publishing this site way back in ought three, but that doesn't mean I wasn't keeping track. So here's a little revisionist list-posting for ya...

1. The Shins Chutes Too Narrow

2. A Frames 2
3. The Books The Lemon Of Pink

4. Sujfan Stevens Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State

5. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy Master And Everyone
6. My Morning Jacket It Still Moves

7. The Microphones Mount Eerie

8. New Pornographers Electric Version

9. Jay-Z The Black Album

10. Jayhawks Rainy Day Music

11. Pretty Girls Make Graves The New Romance

12. various artists Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove...

13. The Fiery Furnaces Gallowbird’s Bark

14. Holopaw s/t

15. The White Stripes Elephant

16. Black Keys thickfreakness

17. Grandaddy Sumday

18. Wilco Australian EP

19. Super Furry Animals Phantom Power

20. Outkast Speakerboxxx / The Love Below

21. Jay Farrar / various artists The Slaughter Rule Soundtrack

22. Rufus Wainwright Want One

23. Manitoba Up In Flames

24. Death Cab For Cutie Transatlanticism

25. The Postal Service Give Up

26. Gillian Welch Soul Journey

27. Kills Keep On Your Mean Side

28. Radiohead Hail To The Thief

29. Steve Burns Songs For Dustmites

30. Jay Farrar Terroir Blues

31. The Strokes Room On Fire

32. Mouse on Mars Rost Pocks: The EP Collection

33. Iron & Wine The Sea & The Rhythm EP

34. Clearlake Cedars

35. Blur Think Tank

36. Earlimart Everyone Down Here

37. Ryan Adams Love Is Hell Pt. 1 / Pt. 2

38. Flaming Lips Fight Test EP
39. The Swords Project Entertainment Is Over If You Want It

40. The Autumn Defense Circles

REVIEW: Steve Earle "The Revolution Starts... Now"

Rating: 6

There is a fundamental problem critiquing art with overt political content.  Can you separate the message from the means of delivery in order to maintain objectivity when forming opinions about the end result?  Of course you can, as long as you’re willing to reduce your subject to a birdbath – possibly pretty but not very deep.  There is never content without form and there is never form without content, the two are simply arranged differently on occasion to accentuate one over the other.  So the question becomes should you separate an artist’s politics, when used to inform his or her content, from the form of presentation for review?  Generally I think not, but on this, the eve of Election Day 2004, I must emphatically say “hell no.”

Ultimately, systematized attempts to beat around the political bush (oh, pun intended) have failed the public, leaving readers with little more than elaborate descriptions of how a thing looks or sounds with references to similar offerings from the recent past intended to uphold a critic’s opinion.  Maybe this comes from a relativist view that an artist’s content is wholly their own and therefore somehow holy – after all, who are any of us to judge the motives, thoughts or intentions of someone just because they have chosen to make those motives, thoughts or intentions public.  If you don’t want people taking shots you shouldn’t paint the targets.  I think Mr. Earle would agree to those terms.

However, it’s easy and a little embarrassing for me to pretend to make a stink about a person’s politics in this review since I have long admired Steve Earle’s vocal participation in public affairs and share his “of the people, by the people, for the people” views in opposition to the federal death penalty, the election sham of 2000 (not to mention the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), and support his defense of the civil liberties promised by the Bill of Rights in a more transparent, inclusive democracy.  Sure, it’s easy to say you’re going to take a guy’s politics into account along with the music when you already know you agree with him on one and are a fan of the other.  Isn’t it hard to objectively criticize someone while you’re helping the banner unfurl!?  I write these reviews as a hobby in the time I can spare on my lunch break and after my daughter falls asleep.  I write about what I like or what pushes my buttons.  If I’m not a fan of the act in question then they’ve done something that caught my ear for better or worse and I feel inclined to comment.  I make no claim of objectivity when false claims to the same by market media outlets have fostered complacency in an armchair public which has been convinced by that same industry’s endless panel of “expert analysts” that it, as a public, is somehow under-qualified to think for itself.  I’m a fan of Steve Earle’s music and I support his activism.  Besides, the guy doesn’t give you much to talk about outside of current politics on this one.  So, that said:

Unlike some folks who are happy to leave their politics at the studio door Steve Earle has consistently and plainly used his art to speak his mind on issues relevant, lingering and contemporary to his audience (more on that later).  You can usually find a gem or two on each album, but with 2002’s “Jerusalem” Earle brought his politics to center stage with the divisive “John Walker’s Blues,” a poet’s telling of the young man’s doomed search for identity and god.  The themes were hardly new territory but the CNN style up-to-the-minute naming of names seemed to mark a breaking point.  Steve Earle had seen enough and was prepared to lay it out the best way he knew how.  “Revolution” is then a natural progression of the pendulum’s swing from form-rich to content-heavy material.  From lamenting Vietnam on “Copperhead Road” to the peerless musical accomplishment of “The Mountain” and now back again, Earle’s message is clear and unmistakable.  It is time for change.

No time is wasted getting to the point.  “The Revolution Starts…” is the first track and a call to grassroots activism.  Listeners are heartened to remember that politics start at home in small towns where the decision to save money by shopping at Wal-mart is a political one with ramifications for your neighbors and friends.  There’s nothing revolutionary in the song’s sound or message, as fans who have seen him live will tell you.  The crunchy, up close production is consistent with his post-incarceration offerings from the twangtrust of Earle and Ray Kennedy – a Tennessee wall of sound from three or four mostly wooden instruments and some really loud amps.

But revolution is such a big word to bandy about.  It carries with it images of toppling statues and blood in the streets, the kind of things we’re better at foisting on others than wishing for ourselves.  We already had our revolution, tea party and all, and it seems like healthy countries only get one.  Every successful revolution we’ve had since then has been social – Industrial, Sexual, Technological.  What I’m getting at is that, even for the most disenfranchised and radically left or right winged among us, a full-fledged, all-out, no-turning-back Revolution is a pretty big pill to swallow.  I think what he really wants, specifically right now, is for everyone to vote Democrat.  Generally, holding our elected officials accountable for their actions, taking corporate influence out of public policy, and acting as responsible, good neighbors in the world would be nice too.  There are so few good anthems out there so it’s not surprising he should try his hand here, but Earle is at his best when he’s telling a story, confessing a sin or simply sticking it to someone.  The song represents a ground swell with a slow build and chugging pulse just right for the Farm Aid crowd he’s played so long; a consciousness raiser and solid offering but nothing to galvanize the masses, even when heard the second time around at the end of the album.

Fortunately things ring true with songs number two and three, where Earle is back on track creating sympathetic characters caught doing what was right at the start but it has now gone wrong.  “Home to Houston” is a Texas road-rocker spotlighting one man’s stubborn regret for enlisting after 9/11 and his desperate resolve to build a better life if he makes it back.  Mention of Basra could easily have been Kabul, Managua or Danang without changing the song’s impact or central theme – in times of crisis a man is needed most at home.  “Rich Man’s War” addresses the persistence of an economic draft in our country, and comes complete with a lip curling twist in the final verse intended to shrink the listener’s perception of the world.  These songs work because they chisel away at fundamental inconsistencies and injustice upon which crucial decisions were made to go to war - you’ll always have a ready fighting force if enlisting is all that’s left when you can’t provide decent jobs at home, and the public will always support it’s troops when the troops come from the public, even it they don’t support the war.  The songs are alternately hard-driven and soberly direct with stories inseparable from both their form, themes and times.

I’m not really sure what could have precipitated “Condi, Condi,” which has Earle pitching woo to a less than receptive Condaleeza Rice.  I imagine it had something to do with a few margaritas and too much CSPAN.  The song itself is a fairly sweet tex-mex romance with a touch of island spice, but Earle’s two-packs-a-day growl renders it more drunken come-on than sly put-on, a ploy which might have seemed more needling and effective.  He dulls his own barbs with a heavy nudge to wink ratio, sweating all over his guitar beneath the wrong window.  I’m not sure how sexualizing the straight-arrow Rice moves any agenda forward, or really makes sense at all.  Maybe he wants to mildly embarrass her or, as the song implies, coax out her hidden, passionate side.  It would still come across just as drunk and/or glib were it about anybody BUT Condaleeza Rice, and maybe then it would just be fun.  Earle takes his politics so seriously everywhere else that it’s hard to think of this as a joke, and if it is I’m still not sure I’m laughing.

But all of this amounts to a prelude for what you really came to hear, the reason you bought the disc in the first place and the reason you’ll be wearing that guilty smile the next time some talking head mentions news of a leak at the CIA.  “F the CC,” as song titles go, is a cop out for someone who asks us, in the chorus, to fuck not only the FCC, but the FBI and CIA with a final reminder that we are living in the “mutherfuckin’ USA”.

Earle has played with clever letters-only titling before, disguising the illicit content of “Cckmb” (short for “cocaine cannot kill my brain”) on his outstanding 1996 resurrection album “I Feel Alright.”  It was awkward then and it is pointless, even cowardly, now.  How, Steve, are we going to have our revolution if you can’t put the word fuck in the title of a song that uses it no less than 20 times in 3 minutes 12 seconds - that's a "fuck" every 9.5 seconds?  How?

It’s safe to say that until now “fuck” has never been tagged to so many federal acronyms (in song) so many times in such a short span of time.  While that in itself is an accomplishment the real victory is situating what your more stiff collared fascists might call treason in an irresistible stomp which, politics aside, will power-drill itself into your head and come pounding back to you as you walk on sidewalks or drive in cars.  By protesting via a balls-out rock song instead of a dense, preachy one (see “Warrior”) the listener’s hand is forced: you absolutely MUST decide if you are someone who can sing along without blushing or not.  Admittedly, this may be based more on an aversion to saying “fuck” in mixed company than on your politics, but you still have to think about it or risk blurting things out just because it’s got a good beat and you can shout to it.

All here is not true patriotism and fearless protest, however. Earle’s banner waving for the ole’ USA, given the context, is less likely a declaration of national pride Lee Greenwood style than a reminder to detractors that since this IS the "mutherfuckin' USA" his right to tell the FCC, FBI, and CIA to go fuck themselves is protected by the First Fucking Amendment to the Mutherfucking Constitution.  Woody Guthrie by way of The Sex Pistols.

Oh yea, there are four other songs that have nothing to do with war, politics or government, and they aren’t bad.

Here’s the thing:  It would be easy and at times forgivable to dismiss an artist’s politics or personal choices when the finished work passes muster.  How else could Michael Jackson still sell records?  In his apparent rush to get this album out in time to make a difference at the polls tomorrow some of the songs came out half-baked instead of piping hot.  Besides which Earle is largely preaching to the choir since his core audience started shifting from union halls and furrowed fields to lecture halls and soccer fields when his politics kept left while Middle America veered right.

So can I recommend a merely passable album based on the strength of the artist’s convictions and my alignment with his political message?  Am I so swayed by the importance of this moment in national politics as to pretend that the album, though timely and stirring, will ever stack up against “Guitar Town” and “Transcendental Blues?”  Not quite.  But the right songs aren’t always the best songs and, in this case, something good (not great) is better than nothing at all.

I’m not saying you have to be for it or against it or that pop albums and the crap people write about them amount to much.  I will say that if you see or hear something out there – rhetoric, bullshit, bigotry, hypocrisy, whatever – then you, the critically minded participant in society, are responsible for acknowledging, evaluating and acting on it for yourself.  Steve Earle knows this and made an album to remind the rest of us, venting a little steam along the way.  Even if you don’t find yourself on his side I hope you can speak up when the opportunity presents itself.

NEWS: EDITORIAL: Guilty Pleasures

Do you sing along to it in the car, but only if the windows are up (and you turn it down at stoplights, pretending to stare straight ahead)? Do you put it on and dance around the house, but only when nobody's home? If it came up in conversation with, say, a friend who thinks he knows everything about music would you conveniently omit your love for it at the risk of having to endure his scorn?

We all indulge a few guilty pleasures; things we know are wrong but can't quite bring ourselves to give up, like Little Debbie snack cakes or reality tv. Lest you think I go about these things all willy-nilly here are a few things that qualify an album for Guilty Pleasure status in my book:

Good Band, Bad Album
The Rolling Stones have “Bridges to Babylon.” REM has “Monster.” The best of them put out a stinker now and then, but like the sickening sweetness of spoiling fruit, these albums pull you in even as they push you, revolting, away.

Say Cheese
Even the worst cynic has a bit of cheese in his heart.  We should occasionally embrace our inner corndogs, let the hokey out of the pokey, free the cheese-ball within… even if it’s just to purge those latent tendencies.

Identity & Sexual Politics 101
Society expects us to listen to music made by people with whom we share race, gender and sexuality. White kids who listen to hip-hop are wannabees, girls into heavy metal are sluts, and guys who listen to Madonna dance remixes are gay... or so we've been told. Reaching beyond this box in any direction is healthy, but it still tends to occur where other people can't see you Vogue.

Genre Hopping
We can say we like all kinds of music and be telling the truth, but when it comes to laying money down most tastes run about as wide as Brian Setzer’s necktie. At some point we naturally discover our genres of choice – mine are bombastic pseudo-intellectual nasal white male indie-pop, mid-tempo urban provincial alt-country, and more recently hairy weirdo math punk. It feels refreshing and a little naughty to step outside the norm once in a while - call it headphone tourism.

Everybody Hates You
Consensus rules, even for free thinkers. If the world agrees that an album sucks but you still like it, it is automatically a guilty pleasure whether you perceive the shame heaped upon you or not. The reverse also applies; albums which receive critical acclaim may not qualify for guilty pleasure status. Terrible albums that everyone still seems to love can go either way.

To Remember
The nostalgia factor runs high in most guilty pleasures, from old B-movies to comfort foods the way mom used to make. There is no better way to revisit the good old days, and the bad ones too, than reveling in the music we associate with them - even when that music hasn't aged as well as we have.

To Forget
Music as a form of escapism, an oasis away from the tedious, artless world. Like liquid Drano for your mind, it doesn't taste so good but it erases whatever was there before so you can start over.


You had to see this coming... don't miss a deeply revealing brand new list 22 Guilty Pleasures now available for your ridicule.

LIST: The Rules of Buying Music

The holiday shopping season is here and if you’re like me you end up spending a little on family and friends and a little on yourself too.  Charity starts at home after all.  Before you hit the record shops and box stores check out the guidelines below.  Most of these should go without saying, and if you take any of them seriously (except #11) you need more help than I can offer. Still...

1. Don’t buy an album for that one song.
That’s what illegal file sharing is for.  If you really must have "Who Let the Dogs Out?" for Pete's sake steal it or buy it on iTunes  - buying the whole album will only encourage them to make more.

2. Avoid “classic” or “hard” rock produced after 1990.
ie. Van Halen post “OU812," Aerosmith post “Pump," etc.  These guys went from being Monsters of Rock to dinosaurs the minute you graduated from high school.  (I am being extreeeemely lenient with dates due to my own fondness for the genre.  Purists would set a cut-off date in the mid-eighties.)  See also, Rule #7.

3. Avoid celebrity cross-overs.
If a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square then Shaquille O'Neil can still play basketball and Bruce Willis can still make movies without either of them recording another album, right?  Unfortunately this doesn't help J-Lo either way.

4. Avoid the Sophomore Slump.
Second albums often disappoint.  Average acts usually get one shot and the momentum of early success, especially on MTV or Top 40 radio, is seldom enough to carry a second album.  It’s an easily rationalized but hard to explain phenomenon.  Give second efforts time to mature before rushing out to be the first one to get the second disc by a band that will likely never make a third.

5. Avoid (a) live recordings, (b) B-sides and (c) Greatest Hits compilations.
These are catalog fillers hoping to cash in on new record sales without the expense of producing a new record.

(a) Seeing a band play live over and over can expose nuanced performances and enrich one's understanding of the music.  Hearing the exact same live performance over and over at home can do just the opposite.  Live recordings showcase bad acoustics and drunk fans as often as they highlight the ineffable vibe of being there.  This includes “unplugged” style acoustic performance discs.

(b) B-sides usually didn’t make the album cut for a reason so unless you’re a big fan you won’t find your money’s worth.

(c) Greatest Hits albums are tricky.  There are perfectly representative Greatest Hits discs available for artists like James Taylor, The Eagles and The Doors.  However, some hits comps lure you in with one or two all-time favorites surrounded by crap you've never heard and probably won't like - often new songs too shabby to merit an album of their own.  Others include edited or live versions instead of the original recording.

6. Avoid so-called Super Groups, spin-offs or unlikely pairings / duets.
Adding Neil Young to Crosby, Stills & Nash is one thing - putting Ted Nugent together with members of Styx and Night Ranger is wholly another.  From the Traveling Wilburys to Ugly Casanova, the pieces never quite add up.  And while all duet pairings aren’t as surreal as Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing “Little Drummer Boy” (Bing Crosby’s 42nd Annual Christmas Special, 1977) most are a little awkward.  (This rule may be bent to accommodate the incestuous track-hopping that goes on among hip-hop artists.)

7. Avoid aging icons.
Rock'n'roll used to be a kid's game, but fossils like Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan seem to have stretched the genre's age limit indefinitely.  While exceptions can be made for cultural fixtures the cult of youth is still running the show, and let’s face it, that’s not such a bad thing.  It keeps things fresh and forces the, ahem, more established acts to stay on their game or risk playing to ballrooms full of fat bald old men.  Neil Young and Sonic Youth serve as shining examples of how to beat this rule by staying relevant and challenging without sacrificing quality.  Apparently it’s harder to do than it sounds, so watch out.

8. Avoid the flavor of the month.
Nowhere is our fickle, whiplash attention span on better display than in the music we promote and listen to.  Stop twitching and let that new slab from The Killers cool before you rush out to buy it.  You’ll know soon enough if there are more than two songs worth listening to.  Otherwise you’ll end up with a closet full of next year’s Hoobastank sound-alikes, and no one wants that.

9. Avoid collecting in reverse / stagnant collecting
So it's 2004, you’re 14 years old and you just heard the new REM.  Amazingly you think it’s the best thing that happened to you since you got your braces off so you go out to gather their back catalog.  Imagine your surprise, horror even, at hearing “Murmur” or “Reckoning.”  Bands change, sometimes for the better (Radiohead), sometimes for the worse (Guns-n-Roses) and sometimes just for the different (REM).  Keep listening but don’t feel like you need the whole opus, old or new, to enjoy or even get to know the artist.

10. If it’s been in the bargain bin for a month or more it should probably stay there.
Price tags aren’t always telling.  $1.99 may mean “worst album ever” or “best album that’s so beat up it only plays on one cd player in the known universe and it’s probably not yours ever.”  The way to shop the bins is to check in regularly and keep mental notes on repeat offenders and discs serving life without parole.  Most pop albums have a short shelf life and will get turned around sooner or later, but beware of anything still floating around past its decade of origin.

11. Buy what you like.
If Barry Manilow or Bon Jovi are what blow up your skirt then tell me to go to hell.  Take the T-tops off your I-ROC Z and push your Optimus speakers to the limit!  Enduring ridicule builds character.

REVIEW: Wilco "A Ghost Is Born"

Rating: 8

Lexington, KY
1991
Dave and I were driving down Broadway away from campus.  He was prematurely bald, and, at six-five, neatly folded behind the wheel of his Honda.  I was a freshman so I admired him for being one year older than me, plus he was funny.  He asked if I had heard of Uncle Tupelo.  They’re a punk-rock bluegrass band he said.  They’re loud and really good he said.  Some people might mistake them for country, but they’re not.  Not really he said.  He plugged in “Still Feel Gone” and we went wherever we were going.

I picked up “March 16-20, 1992” a few months after it came out, then quickly gathered the other two discs.  My roommate, a devoted country music fan, was into it so he offered me the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and some Dukes era Steve Earle. Yer Tupelo Whatever is good, he said, but THIS is country music.  I was glad he left Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw out of the conversation

1995
I was driving alone one afternoon feeling both free and responsible.  I had a decent summer job and was on my way to pick up a friend at a place I wasn’t sure how to find.  I would be 22 soon, an adult by some accounts and a college graduate to boot, so I felt qualified to drive around until I found it.  The brand new Wilco “AM” was playing in the car and I was determined to learn the words to “Box Full of Letters” by the end of the day.  It was the first time I anticipated the release of an album and picked up my copy the day it became available.  I was not disappointed.

I knew all about Uncle Tupelo’s break-up.  I even thought I had heard the rift begin on “Anodyne.”  I had read about the new projects too.  Both seemed like stupid names but I had decided to hear them out.  I would see Wilco and the Jayhawks at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington and I would pick up copies of Golden Smog discs as they appeared.  I would catch Son Volt on the H.O.R.D.E. tour’s small stage.  Yup, I was a bona fide, ground-floor level fan of the new alternative country music scene.

San Francisco, CA
1996
My room on Hyde Street seemed too big with the lights on so I rarely used them.  I didn’t know my roommates.  I set my second-hand stereo on a wooden vegetable crate.  I suppose it goes without saying that my mattress was on the floor.  On foggy Sunday afternoons I could walk to the corner for Korean bbq and a six-pack of Budweiser, bring it home, don headphones and wrap myself in  “Being There.”  I could leave my studio at the Art Institute late, wear myself out walking up Clay Street and fall asleep to “What’s the World Got in Store.”

I would meet a girl named Amy who had never heard of Jeff Tweedy but she loved the Pixies and drove an old Volvo just like my first car only brick red instead of pickle green.  Soon we’d be sitting in her room on Sunday afternoons listening to Hank Williams.

1999
Things had been going pretty well. I moved in with Amy. Her friends were becoming my friends. Everything seemed new and yet familiar, and very bright. It was a different life than the one I imagined, but it was a life of my own choosing and it suited me.

We liked to drive down to her family’s cabin in Santa Cruz on weekends. We’d sit on the porch with the doors open and “Summerteeth” playing inside. Soon we’d move out of the city to save money and get a fresh start. We’d get married the next summer. In lieu of cutting a cake Amy opened a piñata with a broom handle while Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” played over the PA.

Davis, CA
2002
Three years can bring a lot of change.  Amy and I were expecting a child.  We bought a station wagon in anticipation of the happy day.  We knew we couldn’t afford all the extras but made sure to spring for the premium sound package.  “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was the disc I took to test the speakers, and it was what we listened to on the ride home, car-loan approved and a little ashamed of how nice it felt to drive a brand new car.

I had seen the album criticized as dad-rock, but as a dad-to-be and someone doing his best to embrace the introspective moments and predictable comfort suburban life has to offer I couldn’t see that particular label as the evil it was meant to be.  Besides, there was nothing predictable about “Ashes of American Flags.”

2004
Dylan greeted me from behind the counter with a sly smile, saying “Gee, I wonder what you’re here for?” and produced a sealed copy of “A Ghost is Born” like he was laying down a winning hand. I’m pretty sure he was wearing a blue Uncle Tupelo t-shirt. I was flattered and a little embarrassed. I’d been coming into Armadillo Records almost weekly for five years so I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I had downloaded the "Australian EP" and picked up the Loose Fur record while anticipating "Ghost" and whatever changes it might soundtrack in my life. I’d kept up with line-up shifts and tracklist changes on-line and heard a few of the new songs on Soundstage with Sonic Youth. They played "Hummingbird" on Letterman, just days after Tweedy finished rehab. He bobbed at the waste and sounded like Paul Westerberg.

It would be easy to feel disappointed upon discovering something languid and reminiscent in the new songs, especially since I had already come to enjoy the version of “Handshake Drugs” on the EP, which does out shuffle and shine the same number on the LP. Then again, there can be genuine happiness in finding something familiar and a little soft, something that doesn’t feel the need to overly impress or experiment. In art these same qualities are often deemed lazy, as if any effort which fails to challenge an artist’s range or audience’s understanding is inherently devoid of value. Filler. Noise. But sometimes, if things are going all right or, more often, if things aren’t going that well after all, it can be good to revisit old themes and stick to whatever groove suits you just then. If Tweedy and company feel cozy with Jim O’Rourke and the stoned fuzziness he brought to the Loose Fur project then maybe they should roll with it. Maybe now isn’t the time to step yet again into uncharted territory. Is non-experimentation always resting on your laurels or could it be enjoying the moment, celebrating it quietly once having recognized it for what it is. What is “it”, you ask? Is it a feeling? A sense? A brief encounter? A ghost - ?

Okay, I started this knowing full well it would be a total cop out of a review, non-committal and probably uninteresting.  The fact is, I guessed this album wouldn’t measure up to the exponentially mounting expectations established by the almost universally acknowledged critical leaps made on  "Summerteeth” and “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.”  Our daughter is a year old and we’ve all settled into a pretty nice rhythm together.  Some things are new, some things are just like before, and some things are, well, just things.  After almost 15 years with the core members of Wilco playing in my car or bedroom or front porch it’s hard for me to imagine a new album not figuring into my life somehow.  Sometimes there’s just not as much going on as others.  Today that is a welcome treat.

LIST: Buyer Beware! 30 Albums to Avoid

I am assuming at this point that you feel remorse for having bought that Vanilla Ice cassette when it first came out and that your interest in Britney, Ricky, Justin or Shakira is purely sexual.  Still, there are some popular music pot-holes out there and a powerful media machine driving people like you and me into them every day.

I wouldn’t be a very good friend or arbiter of taste if I didn’t warn you about a few things - and I do so with only the slightest hint of snobbery since this, like my other lists, is compiled from music in my own collection.  That's right, these are things I actually bought at some point only to regret today.

The Thorns s/t Matthew Sweet, Edwin McCain, and Pete Droge do their best Crosby, Stills & Nash impression, but all the folksy harmonies in the world can't save this one.  If that's the sound you're after check out The Jayhawks "Rainy Day Music."

Rooney s/t "Blue Side" seemed like harmless, sunshiny fun when I heard it.  Of course now I realize what silly, repetitive schlock-passed-off-as-indie-pop it really is.  Shame on me.

Jet "Get Born" Did those iPod commercials get you too?  "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" is a lot of fun and could have been the Kinks long lost #1 hit.

Beastie Boys "To The 5 Boroughs" The Beasties are officially old and they sound it here.  For die-hard fans and deep collectors only.

Ataris "So Long, Astoria" This band was better in 1995 when it was Green Day.  In fact Green Day is still making better records than this.

Jimmy Eat World s/t As reassuring as the chorus to "The Middle" may be, everything will not be just fine if this is what you're listening to - needlessly stern and vapid all at once.  Amazing.

U2 "Pop" I owned this cd for the 24 hours it took me to get it home, listen to it, eat, sleep, go to work and return it on my way home.

Luna "Puptent" This band was supposed to be good, and occassionally was.  This album never was.

Radiohead "Pablo Honey" Anyone who knows Radiohead for their avant-atmospheric pop opus spanning "Ok Computer" to "Hail to the Thief" be warned... this is all jangly, unsophisticated 90s guitar noise which they didn't get right until their sophomore disc "The Bends."  Skip this and go straight to "Kid A."

Polyphonic Spree "The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree" Drugs!

Mooney Suzuki "Electric Sweat" This album single handedly pushed the NY garage scene from vitally relevant to passe.  Ironic since they'd been doing it longer than most, just not better.

Ryan Adams "Rock-n-Roll" For irony to work it has to be either intentional or funny.  There is no evidence of either here.  This confirms my fear that he is a drunken poser with ADD masquerading as an Americana Prodigy rather than the reverse.

The Vines "Highly Evolved" Pretentious snarling youth playing upbeat Nirvana toss-offs as if it were the most important thing in the whole fucking world but they still don't care.  You can't have it both ways, boys.

Weezer s/t (green album) I still want to like this, but I just can't.  If you must support the Weez, as I must, "Maladroit" is the better of their new offerings.

Dinosaur, Jr. "Without a Sound" "Feel the Pain" was an anthem of its time, unfortunately the rest of the album is just plain painful.

Jewel "Pieces of You" Between the junior high diary entries she calls lyrics, the yodeling and her six-year-old-but-sexy intonation this is a difficult listen made all the worse since she decided to become a sex-pot.

Filter "Short Bus" "Hey Man, Nice Shot" is a good song to start a fist fight to, but there's only so much pointless synth-guitar crunch a person can take.  Nine Inch Nails for frat guys, the worst of both worlds.

Republica “Ready To Go” The title track is a sporting promoter / ad agent’s wet dream – all adrenaline and optimism with Spice Grrrl vocals to punch up the sex appeal.  I guess it worked on me, I was Ready To Go, but the rest of the disc wasn’t.

Lo-Fidelity Allstars “How To Operate With a Blown Mind” “…tell me, is it time to get down; on your mutherfuckin’ knees…” They stuttered out the “M.F.” on FM for the only clean version made to sound better than the original.  Another electro-dance hit you’ve heard on every car commercial not featuring Moby.

The Hives “Veni Vidi Vicious” Another victim of the quick burning 2002 garage-glam scene.  They keep yelling and yelling but I just don’t care anymore.

Def Leppard “Adrenalize” “Hysteria” may have been the soundtrack to my junior year of high school but a lot changes in two years.  Def Leppard didn’t change.

Six Pence None the Richer s/t I bought this for their version of “There She Goes” to use on our wedding video.  Turns out the videographer had a copy.  Now I can never get rid of it or I’ll jinx my marriage. 

Lou Reed “Magic and Loss” Weird and dour, even for him.

The Verve Pipe s/t “Heroes” somehow bore its way into my favor, the rest is flat as the dissected frog on the cover.

Paul Westerberg “Eventually” This is what happens when good artists get lazy and/or abuse chemicals.  A very disappointing follow-up to “14 Songs” which is actually very good.

Meat Puppets “No Joke” Seriously, you’re gonna call it “No Joke?”  Lousy follow-up to the almost come-back album “Too High to Die.”  The drugs take their toll.



Veruca Salt “Eight Arms to Hold You”

Ben Folds Five “Naked Baby Photos”

Alice in Chains “Jar of Flies”

Elastica “The Menace”


For albums you might expect to see here but don't check out my Guilty Pleasures.

REVIEW: Secret Machines "Now Here Is Nowhere"

Rating: 9

When I think about rock trios whose sound exceeds the sum of their parts two groups spring to mind*: Nirvana – who blared their way deeper into the pop culture psyche than their flannel clad counterparts (or really anyone else) and who remain relevant today due to the band’s ability to plug directly into and amplify the mind of Kurt Cobain – and (wait for it) Rush, who left a permanent prog mark on the musical landscape with, by pop standards, complicated time signatures and a drum kit the size of Rhode Island.

I’m not necessarily talking about bands who played better than everyone else, I’m talking about three people who were able to make themselves sound like eight. This doesn’t always mean playing louder but playing bigger, creating sound best measured in cubic meters rather than decibels. With “Now Here is Nowhere” the Secret Machines join the ranks, providing an album that sounds big enough to fill a crater. And by crater I mean an actual crater. Like on the moon.

There is a spare, technical roominess to their sound that conjures near-future sci-fi imagery without relying on bleeps and whirbles to do so. It's like a movie about paramilitary space-hero fugitives toppling corrupt empires while wooing jaded hearts on some distant galactic outpost.  I'm not ashamed to tell you I am already looking forward to a sequel.

The cinematic reference, while poorly envisioned on my end, likely comes from the ambitious scope and construct of the album. Tracks build, fall, tease and release like the big-screen adaptation of a real page-turner (about paramilitary space-hero fugitives toppling corrupt empires while wooing jaded hearts on some distant galactic outpost). The action is driven by tense percussion which backs parallel banks of guitar and synth fuzz. The back-story is ably handled by tight vocal harmonies and propellant guitar, allowing the singer to inch forward revealing the story.

Everything is carefully timed and presented to build intrigue without seeming calculated or overly polished, no small feat especially for a debut. For example check out the first track “First Wave Intact,” clocking in at 9:00. No need for the quick fix or ready hook, these Machines build steady confidence and promise big things, allowing the music to build for the first 1:45 before you hear a voice. The rhythm moves forward at a brisk pace, but measured enough to allow the listener to keep up – held in check by pulsing guitars in perfect delay, keeping the whole thing from tumbling away. This barreling first scene is resolved in a dramatic single key change followed by a satisfying barrage of pop thunder, properly setting the stage for the rest of the picture. “Sad and Lonely” immediately ups the ante where swagger is concerned, pushing expectations higher and introducing greater depth to characters before offering listeners some breathing room in “Leaves are Gone.” The action picks back up with “Nowhere Again” and “Road Leads Where It’s Lead,” both full of headphone-shifting keyboard / guitar play and pulse-pushing swells that build to stadium filling dimensions, a concept finally revisited in the title track at the end of the album.

Yes, this was no accident. Secret Machines plotted, tested, rehearsed and refined their rock. And it is worth it. “Now Here Is Nowhere” delivers a well conceived, focused sound meant for extra-loud play and conspicuous windmill air guitar. Like a good movie, each twist and turn is met with satisfying resolution, each low shadowed by a lofty peak – plus there are enough noisy crashes to cover over any plot-gaps you might discover along the way. This is one I come back to often enough to make it tops in my list for this year. Sorry Mr. Ferdinand.

As a note not directly related to the music I would like to compliment the staff at Warner Bros. / Reprise and The Secret Machines website for their handling of my initial online order of the album’s advance issue late last winter. Call me a troglodyte, but my dial-up couldn’t handle the download – twice. Just two pleading emails later I had a pressing of the album in my actual USPS mailbox and a handwritten note from somebody at WB. I was all prepared to battle The Man to get my $10.00 worth of not-yet-released rock and roll, but the big bad record industry folks were accommodating and quick in their support of the band and this fan. Thanks again. If you need me I’ll be shopping for a new soul at Wal-mart.

LIST: Car Songs, Vol. 4 - 5

...and wrapping things up, a look at how we got where we are and what we lost along the way.  I hope you enjoyed the trip.

Vol. 4: En Route

1. “Drive” REM
2. "Snake Drive" RL Burnside
3. “Radar Love” Golden Earring
4. "Pass You By" Gillian Welch
5. "Free to Go" Folk Implosion
6. "Drive All Over Town" Elliott Smith
7. "Let Me Drive" Sue Foley
8. "Behind the Wheel" Depeche Mode
9. "The Last Ride" Richard Buckner
10. "Motor Away" Guided By Voices

Vol. 5: Spare Parts

1. "Satan is My Motor" Cake
2. "If I Only Had a Car" Golden Smog
3. "Car" Built to Spill
4. "Arthur's Car" Ides of Space
5. "Ride" Liz Phair
6. “Car Song” Elastica
7. "Out of Gas" Modest Mouse
8. "Passenger Side" Wilco
9. "Stolen Car" Beth Orton
10. "Take Me To the Backseat" The Donnas

REVIEW: Franz Ferdinand "Franz Ferdinand"

Rating: 9

… a dapper young man, thin and handsome in tweed … whiskey so dry it drifts over your tongue like smoke, disappearing before it reaches your throat, fucking you up … 10:30 PM, when the inescapable dampness of summer turns from smothering blanket to sweaty embrace and night things get started in earnest … pub doors swinging open, swallowing the sidewalk’s stink and puffing out warm reverberations – beer bottles, laughter, rock and roll … plunging necklines and tousled hair, serious full-lipped people sweaty from dancing … not caring who sees.  That’s right.  Scotland is sexy.  This is Franz Ferdinand.
 
What’s more, Franz Ferdinand doesn’t really care about you.  That too, as any girl with a bad-boy phase in her past can tell you, is sexy.  Actually I’m sure they do care, but it wouldn’t show until after they accidentally knocked you over on the sidewalk while strutting to beat Jagger, at which point they would stop politely to help you up and make sure you’re okay before pressing onward as if nothing had happened.  And who can blame them.  They’ve got places to go.  You didn’t recognize them at the time, but honestly you’re so lucky - can I touch you?

The appeal of this record is its bone fide rock’n’roll swagger, the kind most bands don’t find until a third or forth outing, assuming they’re lucky enough to last beyond the sophomore slump.  The songs, in their very least, blend earnest, straight-faced song writing, four-on-the-floor dance pop, and dueling guitar hooks.  At their best, as heard on “Take Me Out,” “The Dark of the Matinee,” and “This Fire,” they completely rock with pogo-inducing rhythms and sing-along chorus’ that keep one finger glued to the replay button for another instant spin.  What’s better is that while these instantly danceable hits keep you coming back their other songs wait there smoldering, ready to tug your ear and steam up your glasses when you need it most.

So what’s their secret?  Ask the last great saviors of rock, The Strokes, they might know.  Like last year’s favorite NYC mods, Franz Ferdinand specialize in driven, feverish playing and a vocal delivery wrapped in an of-the-moment urban blasé that should make Interpol, etc. sit a little straighter in their haute leather chairs. Unlike The Strokes, who seem to have found a bottomless if narrow well from which to quote in late 70s / early 80s proto-punk (The Velvet Underground, The Clash), Franz Ferdinand has picked up these bits as well as the best offerings of T.Rex-glam, the Pixies zealous guitar worship and their darkly danceable pop contemporaries Pulp.  The real weight of influence falls on well-dressed, stern faced 80s fare, but where The Talking Heads were gangly and political or The Pet Shop Boys longing and gay, Franz Ferdinand comes across as smart, serious, self assured and ever so sexy.

It’s as if these guys just paid better attention in rock-band school than the rest of us.  While we were busy trying to decide what to stencil on our leather jackets these guys were acing Ennui 101 and snaking our best girls.  This is an absolute must-hear, and the only thing to dethrone The Shins “Chutes Too Narrow” as the best new music playing at my house, and that’s saying something.

LIST: Car Songs, Vol. 3

Finally, a list of songs about cars with some actual cars in it!

Vol. 3: Mean Machines

1. "409" Beach Boys
2. "Pontiac" Lyle Lovett
3. "Piece of Crap" Neil Young
4. "Big Black Car" Big Star
5. "GTO" Ronny & The Daytonas
6. "Ford Mustang" Serge Gainsbourg
7. "Jeepster" T.Rex
8. "18 Wheels & a Crowbar" BR549
9. “Voodoo Cadillac” Southern Culture on the Skids
10. “El Caminos in the West” Grandaddy
11. "Red Chevrolet" Jimmie Dale Gilmore
12. "Five-0 Ford" Reverend Horton Heat
13. "Heaven is a Truck" Pavement
14. "$1000 Car" Bottlerockets
15. "18 Wheels & a Dozen Roses" Kathy Mattea
16. "Model T Ford" Rhythm Pigs
17. "My General Lee" The Untamed Youth
18. "My Impala '65" Red Aunts
19. "Delorean" Rocket From the Crypt
20. "67 Valient" The Brodys

REVIEW: Modest Mouse "Good News for People Who Love Bad News"

Rating: 7.5

The idea that something is wrong with everything all the time but there’s not much you can do about it is frustrating. I like to think the best sort of cynicism finds its teeth in this; that one would be more than willing to take responsibility for all of this if he or she thought it would make a difference, but since it clearly wouldn’t he or she is happy to share the burden with the rest of us. Call it egalitarian guilt.

The spreading of responsibility seems to be a founding principle of Modest Mouse, and certainly part of their live shows where you are as likely to be verbally assaulted by the guy you just paid $22.50 to see as you are to get an earful of top-notch noise pop. In fact you can pretty much count on both. Songs swell and skitter until everyone is jumping up and down toward the brink while singer / indie-rock icon Isaac Brock gets progressively more and more pissed at you, or maybe himself, for something. Everything. Whatever. It may help to tell yourself that the taunts and expletives coming from onstage are meant for the jackass in the backward baseball cap standing in front of you shouting “Cowboy Dan! Play Cowboy Dan Mutherfucker!” while trying to start a mosh pit with some very unimpressed lesbians (Bimbo’s 365, San Francisco, February 28, 2002), but that would be naïve. It’s meant for all of us and we have it coming.

And that’s what’s always been so great about Modest Mouse.  They are not shy about voicing their frustrations with things internal and external to themselves, then sharing the blame, ire even, with you and me. Of course it’s easy to get excited about Brock’s oft celebrated though arguable musical genius and predilection for writing songs about cars. What has always attracted me to their music are primarily the voice and guitars, a reliable tandem perfectly tuned and pitched for a night of disgruntled drinking – but there is also the guilty pleasure of listening to a band which seems to perpetually hover on the edge of a mild psychotic episode, veering over from time to time for a better view of whatever lies beyond.

Like a celebrity car crash, you can hear the band’s collective mind ping and groan as it bends to understand our shortcomings in the face of God, death, and strip malls. While it may occasionally push the band’s sound to foreign, screechy places, such a perilous vantage point can provide valuable perspective, honed crystal clear by a fear of falling into oblivion.

There exists a latent promise of ugly emotional demonstration or even physical harm in the play between Brock’s addled romance with language and his melodic delivery which lilts from plaintive, self-defeatist monologue to a siren’s urgent wail. With a rhythm section that sounds alternately fueled by boiling kerosene and Quaaludes and guitars that rise, teeter and chaff one another into flaming anthems, Modest Mouse made their mark with “This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About” and “The Lonesome, Crowded West”, creating jagged pop/rock landscapes for cheated hearts at the beginning of the end of the world.

Then came “The Moon and Antarctica,” their fourth LP (first for new label Epic). Here they (the band, the label, both?) found a way to harness Brock’s smart, churlish edge and all the doomsday freak-out energy of their earlier albums and focus it into a solid opus of guitar driven rock complete with as many hooks as there are references to parking lots and dogs. It was pretty well received by critics and fans, myself included, for its more accessible tone and still toothy content. The label even deemed it important enough to reissue just two years after its initial release (wha?). Some die hard Mousers saw “Antarctica” as a watering-down of what put the band on the map, trading the keening din of guitars and danceable chaos for gentler harmonies and a more familiar pop groove. In this sense “Good News for People Who Love Bad News” picks up right where “Antarctica” left off.

“Good News” opens with a brief harbinger of things you’ll hear mid-disc, so file “Horn Intro” away and then consider the first notes of “The World at Large.” The song sounds as if it might have been plucked from material left on “Antarctica’s” cutting room floor, omitted because it seemed too optimistic. In fact, it’s hard to imagine not being drawn in by the reassuring, summery pop of “ The World…” and “Float On,” the albums opening tracks. The second of the two comes complete with a clap-and-shout along chorus which insists, in so many words, that we’ll all be okay “even if things get a bit too heavy… alright.” After just one listen I feel like I will be all right, I will float on with the bang-stomp beat in my heart and a crooked smile on my face. All right.

The sunny reassurance of “Float On” is balanced by the traditional nihilism we’ve come to expect from the band in numbers like “Dig Your Grave,” “Satin in a Coffin,” and “Bukowski,” which not only references the beat generation’s dirtiest old man by name but in growling, spluttering tones channeled through Tom Waits' coffee cup. This experimental growl accompanied by side-show horns and a banjo lend a bacon-fat greasiness to the lyrics where guitars and drums fade in importance. When called upon, the more staple instruments of rock-n-roll seem somehow gentler, bouncier and played as if to summon Siouxsie Sioux and Robert Smith to supper, or at least for a cocktail. The shift away from bombast and into Billboard’s top 40 seems to coincide with a more personal bent in Brock’s writing. Not that he wasn’t taking shit personally before, but maybe now he’s not being as hard on himself. Probably a healthy thing for the guy, and if it’s selling records, even better.

Sure, The Mouse can sizzle and spark, and here it does at times, but this album plays more like afternoon Lowenbrau than midnight crank. There is never a sense of things nearing critical mass.  Modest Mouse still paints a bleak picture of the future we’re doomed to create for ourselves, complete with peaks, valleys, used cars and wasted time. They are at their best playing the angry, infectious anthems of soon-to-be-curmudgeons and armchair prophets who still have the energy to kick and scream and shake their tiny fists to the beat. “Good News” softens some edges without pulling punches, and offers up the ray of hope that comes with age; knowing that if things aren’t the way you hoped at least it will all be over soon enough.

LIST: Car Songs, Vol. 2

Our continuing saga of songs about car culture takes to the highway...

Vol. 2: Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?

1. "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" Lucinda Williams
2. "Amarillo Highway" Robert Earle Keen
3. "Interstate Love Song" Stone Temple Pilots
4. "Road Leads Where It's Led" Secret Machines
5. "Main Road" Victoria Williams
6. "Highway 61" X
7. "Hillbilly Highway" Steve Earle
8. "Dirt Track Date" Southern Culture on the Skids
9. "Route" Son Volt
10. "Motorway to Roswell" Pixies
11. "Red Barn Road" Greg Davis
12. "The Long Winding Road" Beatles
13. “Indie 500” The Wrens
14. "Rocking Horse Road" Elvis Costello
15. "Lonesome Road" Junior Kimbrough
16. "The Hard Road" Smog
17. "Out on the Road" Jay Farrar
18. "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" Afghan Whigs
19. "Cross the Road, Molina" Songs: Ohia
20. "Big Road" Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

REVIEW: Dizzee Rascal "Boy in da Corner"

Rating: 7

Sometimes things from England scare me. I’m not talking about simple xenophobia.  I couldn’t care less about silly accents and bad dentistry.  I’m not even talking about the Spice Girls.  No, I’m talking about Dickens. The plague. “A Clockwork Orange” (Kubrick may have been from NYC but the film is definitely British). Maybe it’s a product of centuries of imperialism or all the creepy fog in London, but there is a certain credibility to things that go bump when they come from the UK, and the more foreboding and grim the scenario, the more likely I am to believe it. “Boy In Da Corner” plants Dizzee Rascal squarely atop one such bump, followed by a series of canned electronic whirs, and another bump-bump. Then the whole thing goes to splendid pieces.

Dizzee Rascal (Dylan Mills) is the so-called UK garage phenom from London hyped by NME and the likes as the street-to-studio artist of the year or decade or insert-accolade-here. There is the necessary talk of his tender years (18, though no one stays that way for long) and his accomplished rapping given the former. While his vocal skills and writing are superb for any age his production values show a general lack of balance and depth, which, like the better things in life, should improve with time and practice.

What makes this album notable is its blend of brutal, youthful honesty and the mature clarity with which he comments on the hardships around him. Like many successful artists, he is a keen witness to life’s events however mundane, nuanced or outrageous they seem. He presents himself as a plainspoken (if outspoken) man of the people trying to walk the straight line without getting caught up in preachy politics or overly defiant hip-hop attitude. Shit gets in his way, however, and you’re going to hear about it.

For me the disc doesn’t get started until the third track, “I Luv U.” It features a sampled female voice, buoyant with the false sincerity of anime, reciting the title lyric into meaningless repetition. The point / counterpoint chorus pits Rascal against guest vocalist Jeanine Jacques in a sexually charged sparring match full of puffed up jealousy over, what else, a rival lover. It is also just meaty enough to make up for the rehashed “laser” effects slashing through the foreground of each verse.

A push-pull of emotions threatening to boil over while being held at a distance seems to generate the defensive stance assumed in “I Luv U.” The same friction is palpable throughout most of the album, as is Dizzee’s apparent mistrust of women, culminating in the plainly chauvinistic “Jezebel” late in the record. (It seems like middle-aged milquetoast rappers are the only ones able to respect women in verse without completely sexualizing them. Sorry MCA). “Fix Up, Look Sharp” finds another high water mark and a leavening agent for Dizzee’s vocal edge by sampling the chorus of Billy Squire’s “The Big Beat.” The song’s stadium-sized drums create a rare “live” sound, the end result of which is a breath of fun amidst more challenging tracks, most of which feel as though they were recorded alone in a small dark room after a fight.

Dizzee’s rapid-fire, sometimes clipped delivery and a voice on the verge of breaking lends plausibility to lyrics like “There you go again talkin' like a star; Like I cant find out where you are; Kick off your door I ain't got a 4x4; I'll have to settle for a long metal bar” (from “Cut ‘Em Off”).

And this is why I’m afraid. There is something so obvious about a tattooed thug in a low-slung cap, 9mm sticking out of his waistband and thirty pounds of platinum around his neck, not to mention his similarly outfitted entourage. I can see them coming far enough away to avoid them altogether. But the skinny kid in the corner scowling beneath his hood, spitting incoherently at the floor – he’s seething, resourceful, desperate, and he’s just getting started. His is the emotional sound of things breaking, of things unraveling fast and people getting hurt. He seems willing to take responsibility for it too, though the line between premeditation and self-defense has been irrevocably blurred.

LIST: Car Songs, Vol. 1

Is there anything more American than rock and roll?  Okay, more American than apple pie, baseball, corporate greed and rock and roll?  Yes, the automobile, as evidenced by the insane culture we’ve built around it (says the very sane man who would sooner undergo elective surgery than sell his ‘88 Landcruiser).  We love our cars so much that sometimes we just have to sing about them and the world of back-roads and cup-holders we’ve built to keep them happy.

There is so much material on the subject, in fact, that I’ve had to break the list into sub-categories and omit numerous excellent songs by bands who have made the Car Song their bread and butter.  Thanks to Cake, Modest Mouse, Gearhead Records and the entire country music industry for devoting a disproportionate amount of time and energy to Cars and Driving.  This one's for you!

Vol. 1: Classic Models

1. "Panama" Van Halen
2. "Drive My Car" Beatles
3. "King of the Road" Roger Miller
4. "On the Road Again" Willie Nelson
5. "Low Rider" War
6. "Highway to Hell" AC-DC
7. "Cars" Gary Numan
8. "Little Deuce Coup" Beach Boys
9. "Get Your Kicks on Route 66" Bobby Troupe
10. "Red Barchetta" Rush
11. "Old '55" Tom Waits
12. "Highway Kind" Townes Van Zandt
13. “Thunder Road” Bruce Springsteen
14. "Drive" The Cars
15. "Truckin" Grateful Dead
16. "Down the Highway" Bob Dylan
17. "I Can't Drive 55" Sammy Hagar
18. "Take Me Home, Country Roads" John Denver
19. "Rockin' Down the Highway" Doobie Brothers
20. “Brand New Cadillac” The Clash

REVIEW: Polyphonic Spree "The Beginning Stages of..."

Rating: 1.5

The whole choir is on drugs.

I bought this album after I saw them play "Light & Day / Reach for The Sun" on NBC’s Scrubs.  I was drawn to the summery vibe and the sort of pedestrian weirdness the band seems to embrace what with the white robes and all.  My wife said she thought they seemed nice.  She’s an impeccable judge of character so when I saw it at Target for a ridiculously low (and telling) $6.99 I took the leap.  Plus it came with a bonus ep so who am I to resist.  This is what I have learned:

There are about a hundred people in The Polyphonic Spree, or at least enough to not bother counting actual members instead of just estimating, like with ants, or sheep in a field.  It’s easy to imagine the band traveling from town to town picking up new members as it goes like a cult.  They begin by plucking the most earnest noodlers from the crowd and allow them some space on stage to kinesthetically interpret a song or two.  Occasionally someone, someone special, shows real promise and is offered a tambourine while the rest are hugged warmly and handed down to the security guards waiting off stage.  After the last of the bootleggers and dose dealers have safely packed off, this someone special remains and is presented with a white robe smelling faintly of veggie burritos.  The band’s leader explains that the robe’s previous occupant, “Sandy,” had to rejoin his parents in Denver, leaving them one member shy of this many.  Imagine it, forcing the gossamer folds over your own white-kid afro, wide eyed and sweaty.  You’re in the band!

Then they give you drugs.

But not the kind of drugs that make you see pretty colors or flying things that shouldn’t be flying.  Not visionary far-flung awesome drugs.  Just drugs.  Nice drugs.  Forgettable-after-the-weekend drugs.  And that’s the thing.  It’s kinda fun for a bit and then it’s gone.

Sure, some moments linger.  There is a hanging resonance of jubilation at the end of "Light & Day / Reach for The Sun" that might just turn the funeral dirge you call Wednesday right around.  But the song comes late in the album by which point you’ve already tuned out because you can’t make sense of the ebb and flow of one semi-formed song into another, plus you’re pretty sure you’ve heard this sort of stuff before, only way better.  Maybe on Sgt. Pepper.

There is an inclusive grab-an-instrument-and-play-along spirit as evidenced both by the aforementioned quantity of band members and the occasionally chanty chorus, no verse, chorus song writing which easily invites outside participation without the strain of remembering too many words.  It is my sense that The Spree, through its unison playing, swaying sing-alongs and upbeat material, would have listeners believe that they are inspired to a near transcendental degree by some politically correct higher power.  What is so inspirational, you might ask?  Apparently it’s the sun.  And reaching for things… and being happy… and having a nice day.  Seriously.

While they do sound happy to be together and genuinely if not exuberantly stirred by the whatever, I don’t quite buy it.  For all the happy-happy love-love in these songs, both lyrically and texturally, there is an underlying sense of worldly acceptance.  If you’re a glass-is-half-full kind of person, which the band surely hopes you are, the tone created is casually sunny but not too pushy - inviting and celebratory.  For someone who hasn’t just swallowed a vicodin there might also exist a sort of resigned pragmatism or, worse, languor that weighs things down like muddy boots, keeping the whole thing from dirvishing off into a utopian glee so pink and heady there’s no point even trying to describe it beyond its being pink and heady.  And that’s exactly what disappoints me about this album.

Where is the super freakout?  Where’s the wheels-coming-off-the-bus-but-we’re-too-high-to-care?  The frenetic crescendo and the smile inducing I-thought-it-would-never-come-but-isn’t-it-awesome-now-that-it’s-here payoff?  If Wayne Coyne has taught us anything that doesn’t have to do with giant bunny suits it’s this:  if you’re going to be weird you have to be very weird and very very good.  It’s what separates The Wall from Mr. Roboto.  You have to commit.

I guess that’s what the white robes are supposed to do, make them weird.  According to legend the matching outfits are a second attempt at removing marketable visual distractions like cool retro t-shirts from the purity of the music.  The first idea was to cover the entire ensemble in a single enormous white sheet perforated with enough holes for the musicians’ heads to poke out; an uber-poncho of sorts.  I would like to have seen that.  However someone, probably the guy playing the flugelhorn, would have become hopelessly snared in the thing and suffocated to death on stage so it’s just as well.

In more ambitious hands this album could have been a wall of hysterical pop-edelic bliss with epic choral swells, a riot of brass and carnivals of percussion framing tender lulls in which the lead singer might provide the kind of sweet affirmations for which his voice is so clearly made.  After the first listen I was shocked, shocked to find that most of the songs clock in between just 2 and 4 minutes.  Modest little pop song playing times without the hook to get you in or the bombast to get you off.  There is never enough time for one track to distinguish itself from the last or enough structure to plug in and say “Ohhhhh, the SUN!”  I perked up when I saw the last cut, "A Long Day," chiming in at a marathon 36 1/2 minutes until I realized it was an empty, droning atmospheric toss-off about as out of place on this album as forks in soup.

Ultimately there is enough good intent and musicianship on the album to generate a tidal pleasure, and you are welcome to ride, but don’t expect big, ecstatic waves here.  I think you’ll find your time better spent with The Flaming Lips, The Beta Band, Of Montreal or maybe even going out and reaching for things and being happy and having a nice day of your very own.  Seriously.