The Oh’s: Top Whatever Pt 4: A Ghost is Born

I’ve had an on and off relationship with Wilco over the decade, but they have won in the end: I think they’re brilliant – on record and on stage. But the best moment for this band, I think, during their 8 album career, was the Jim O’Rourke produced A Ghost Is Born, the follow up to the very famous Yankee Hotel Foxtrot record. It’s easily towards the top of my favourite Oh’s records, and is one of my picks that migh possibly match up with other people’s.

According to the renewed and healthy (off the drug habit and way less of a dick) leader Jeff Tweedy, that was his personal nadir, and life was sucking hard for him. But the music on Ghost is incredible, boundary-pushing and powerful; we’ll say nothing of how one might influence the other.

From the 2 covers on in, I dig this album. CD’s were fronted with a pristene egg on white; vinyl copies, an empty nest. Both were back-covered with a vacated shell.  The title comes from the climax of “Theologians,” a song that shows off Tweedy’s considerable abilities as a poet (” No one’s ever gonna take my life from me / I lay it down, a ghost is born”).

The album starts with “At Least That’s What You Said,” the best recounting of a lover’s fight I’ve heard since Raymond Carver’s Will You Please Be Quiet Please? It starts in a whisper, the narrator desperately trying to restart communication without restarting the bedroom war, and erupts into an incredible guitar solo that put the situation into clearer focus that any words ever could: wave after wave of strife, the kind of fury that can only happen in a marriage or a civil war. All the more interesting is the fact that this is Tweedy’s debut as a lead guitarist, and both Neil Young and Richard Lloyd would be impressed. Hear it for yourself:

At Least That’s What You Said

The album is full of excellence: “Handshake Drugs”, “Company In My Back”, “Hummingbird” are all immediate additions to the Wilco canon; “Less Than You Think” is a short, sweet, sad song that morphs into a tastefully challenging 15 minute noise experiment; “I’m A Wheel” is a welcome bit of straight-up rock and roll with a nice lyric (“I’m a wheel: I will turn on you”).

It was the first track (above) and the homage to 70’s Krautrock that really captured me and converted me back into a hardcore fan of the band: “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is an eleven minute bass-trance that erupts gorgeously into a power-chord wordless chorus that just kills me. Hear it:

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

I don’t want to put these Top Whatever’s into some “order” – it would be forced, because these favourite songs of the decades are a bundle, too different to be ranked. But that being said, if I had to keep only one of them for my desert island or my three year flight to Mars … this might be it. I love this record.

The Oh’s: Top Whatever (Pt 3): Permission to Land

I can’t believe it, but I can’t deny it: one of my favourite records of the entire decade was the Spinal Tap-py, refreshing heavy rock throwback first record by The Darkness. I loved it from the first hearing, and loved it proudly, but didn’t expect that of all the records that I dug during the Oh’s, this would stay fresh for me.

I like trying to figure out how taste works, especially how early musical experiences influence later preferences – and Permission To Land was a case study in those ideas. Melodic heavy rock was my preference during my early teens, and that style can still hit me right in the guts. I was big into Sammy Hagar when I was 13, 14 – and April Wine, Journey, and Styx were quite formative, for better or worse. I got bored and left the whole thing behind when it became the shrillish hair metal of the mid to late 80’s, but I’m still captured by those old sounds. Matthew Sweet dug it back up – Sick of Myself etc – and Nirvana, the Weakerthans, the Soft Boys, all harken back to that for me. It’s comfort food for my ears.

Nevermind that the Darkness were high-larious. The first exposure I had was the video for I Believe In a Thing Called Love, which was set in a UFO. I was shocked by the yummy riff, pulled in by the arch, almost ridiculous falsetto vocals, and sold when the solo was intro’d by a yelped “Gee-Tah!” I bought the record the next day and then played it for weeks. Get Your Hands Off Of My Woman (“mothafuckah!”) made me howl. The Buffyish scary story of a giant devil-dog called Black Shuck (“that dog don’t give a fuck!”), the boasting and revelling heroin anthem Givin’ Up (“giving a fuck”), and the title alone of Love On the Rocks (With No Ice), all killed me. The early 80s radio song Friday Night is a great formalist experiment in pop writing – the chorus “Dancing on a Friday night” wouldn’t work if it wasn’t a punchline to a list of lame afterschool activities for unpopular kids.

Monday cycling, Tuesday gymnastics,
Dancing on a Friday night
I got Bridge Club on Wednesday, Archery on Thursday
Dancing on a Friday night

And the music around these fine and funny song ideas is a really, really great tribute to a sound I rarely hear anymore. It sends me back to Billy Squire, to ACDC, to 38 Special; to the little receiver my parents gave me when I was 10 or 11 and the local AM station it picked up. It’s ridiculous but earnest music that could only be played by people in leather pants, standing shirtless in an arena pose, devil signs in the air above them like skinny Ozzy fans. I love it.

The second record by The Darkness was a sort of ode to Queen, well carried out – but I didn’t care. This one was all the Darkness I needed this decade. And of course, they couldn’t maintain the thing: after two records and some real success, the singer went down in a rehab blaze out, the band continued with the bass player singing, and while I haven’t bothered to check, I’m sure they’re over. That’s part of the story – a requirement of the Secret Devil Sign fraternity.

Heavy Metal has always been its own parody (the secret to the brilliance of Spinal Tap and the success of its unacknowledged pomo sequel The Osbournes). The only way to do it is to really do it. Done well, it keeps its tongue in its cheek and a cucumber down its pants. It never winks, because it never stops winking.

Here’s a couple of the reasons this record is near the top of this list. First, the video that slayed me:

and its sequel:

And because I want you to hear it, and found this remarkable video, here’s Givin’ Up:

The Oh’s: Top Whatever (Pt 2): Monkey Power Trio

The Monkey Power Trio’s story has been told here several times, including on the one and only (and infamous) podcast version of Bad MonkeyX – but here it is again in a nutshell.

Monkey Power Trio sent me a record to review waay back at the start of the Oh’s, no doubt because we both had simian names. I was quickly smitten by them, because the record was nuts, and it had balls, and because the MPT had a vow. Any band with a vow is okay by me. Their vow was (is) to get together once a year and record some spontaneous music and release it on a record – for the rest of their lives.

In between records, they aren’t a band. They don’t play, they don’t write, and I think they all live in different parts of the country. But when they do get together each year, and pull four or five songs out of their butts, they’re remarkable. Never slick, usually funny, generally cacophanous, and always flavoured with whatever madness made them agree to their vow in the first place.

For a while they sent me their records for free – which was, incidentally, the scheme behind starting an online reviews thing – but that stopped when they heard the podcast. Because they found out that I was listening to (some of) their records at the wrong speed. (Because they didn’t put the recommended speed on their records, and some of it was mental enough that I couldn’t tell. Hear the podcast for my side of the story.) At least some of the five man trio were mad; I thought it was really awesome and funny. Now I have to buy their records, but I made my mark on rock history, because they put the speed on their records now.

The Monkey Power Trio are on their 13th year now and going strong. I plan to follow their career for the rest of my life (or for the rest of theirs, whichever ends first). Below find several reasons you should get some MPT for yourself. I recommend Year Number 5: Chasing Monsters With Our Love.

I Run From Fights

Butt Science

Fatty Rocks

Gallon of Gin

The Oh’s: Top Whatever (Pt 1): Heartbreaker

That would be a good band name, The Ohs. I’m sure it’s been done.

But I am referring to this decade we are wrapping up, which still doesn’t have a real title even as it ends. (The closest we get to an agreed upon title for decade is “the 2000s” – which is too broad in meaning and takes too long to say and so will never last.) My pal Kro calls it “the naughties” but I think that’s too cute – plus, nobody knows the word “naught” on this side of the ocean. I’m trusting him that they know it elsewhere.

So this decade will be named, I suppose, in retrospect. And I vote for the Oh’s. I’d also settle for the Os or the Ohs or the O’s.

This blog started (as a website called Bad MonkeyX) in January 2000, which makes us the same age as the Oh’s. So I thought it would be an interesting thing to look back and figure out a Top Whatever list of records and songs that blew my mind over these ten years. As I do in the blog, I’ll only be considering my own feelings and tastes here, so I don’t imagine this will line up with popular opinion or anything. Despite that, I am as sure as I ever am that I am right: all of these are fine artists and righteous records, all worth checking out if you haven’t. Presented in an order that will be made up as I go and named in retrospect, here’s my list.

Heartbreaker - Ryan Adams (2000)

I don’t like to write negative reviews – I kind of hate that tendency in music writers – but how can I look back on a decade like this last one and not complain a bit? There’s no way of discussing what I dug about Ryan Adams without mentioning how he panned out as an artist. I’m including Heartbreaker in the Top Whatever list for the decade, so the bad comes with the good.

Ryan Adams could be the posterboy for a number of rock and roll archetypes: the early-promise buster; the solo-album bluster; the too-soon bloomer; the ruined-by-reputation wreck. His start in Whiskeytown, who I thought were among the best of the alt-country flock, was delicious.That band’s sudden but apparently fated break-up led to a knock-out first record, with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, called Heartbreaker.

It started small, got a lot of hip attention but no massive success. And then mainstream critics did what they always do when they miss a good moment: they celebrate the next album, regardless of quality, so they can be seen as on top of things. That follow-up, Gold, was a boring, predictable, sparkling piece of shit, and got accolades. And Adams himself did a sort of lite Courtney Love makeover, sung songs with Elton John, and became another archetype: the drunk, snotty kid genius who was too conflicted to maintain the mainstream success he courted. Every album now is supposed to be the one that brings it all back together, but I can’t give a shit anymore. I’m sure they’re fine, but…

However, we must give credit where it is due, and this album honestly feels as fresh and powerful to me as it did ten years ago: Heartbreaker is among the best records in my collection. From the joyous and rowdy – “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)” and “Shakedown on 9th Street” – to the sublime “Amy,” “Call Me On Your Way Back Home” this is a fine, fine moment in an odd career, luckily timed and fortunately captured. Listen:

To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)

Amy

To Be Continued.

Ohhh, that’s why everybody likes Joel Plaskett

After years of hearing about him and considering buying a record, I finally picked up (the New Scotland vinyl edition of) Three after hearing “Through and Through and Through” on the CBC. It’s great, and I’m in my usual spot – kicking myself for all the fun I could have had if I’d paid attention sooner, and relishing the idea of another fullish discography to sift through.

Three is a triple album – an admirable endeavour on its own – that really is worth 3 records; all of it’s solidly crafted and tastefully put together. Plaskett’s voice and tone remind me of Tom Petty, if Petty was a little happier and lived in the Maritimes. The backing vocals on a lot of the record put the cherry on the top – a perfect touch. Three’s a great record, and I see myself consuming it slowly over time. And then digging backwards into Joel Plaskett’s catalogue.

Here’s a video, since I don’t have an MP3 to put up:*

Two thoughts about buying records on vinyl: I’ve resolved to only buy vinyl records, as of about a year ago (I download what isn’t available on vinyl). And a lot of the records I’ve been buying have been on these tasty 180 mg vinyl editions, the quality of which forces the band to spread a single LP over two discs. I’m not complaining, just observing, that this means double the amount of flipping. If this record had been put out that way, it’d be six records long. Maybe this trend will bring back the old cardboard collection-holding envelope books or boxes – I love those things.

Thought number 2: A lot of the brand new records I’m buying have nicks and scratches and jagged edges on them. A friend told me there is a shortage of talented record cutters (or whatever they’re called) because the industry was disappearing before it revved back up. I’m trying to be cool about this, acknowledging that ticks and pops are fine, really – back in the day they’d become part of the song, eventually. But I like the newness of things as much as I love the eventual degradation, and I wouldn’t mind if they started off crisp and clean.

*Oh – a last minute thought number 3: Labels, please notice the “free download with purchase” trend (or the free flat-cased CD-inside alternative). If I’m considering 2 records of comparable goodness, I’m buying the one that gives me the files for my iPod. For the rest I go online and get a torrent to steal. You could save me the time.

A sweet musical season

I won’t bother discussing the months in which I have not posted… Just wanted to write and say that this autumn is starting off with musical promise and I’m excited. Last night the Info Pusher and I went for the first time to the Trash Palace (an amazing and friendly spot near King and Bathurst, Toronto) to see Catl play, and my mind was very happily blown. I’ve enjoyed the band at each show I’ve seen over the last couple of years, and enjoyed watching them develop, but last night I felt like I was watching something important.

They’ve had organ player/singer Sarah Kirkpatrick for a while, but her integration into the sound and show seems to be complete now. Last time I saw them, she seemed to be accompanying a duo; this time Catl were a full and powerful trio. Her playing is fucking fantastic, and adds an element to their sound that seems (to me) to really complete it. I called it “a little new wave” to some scorn at the show, but I think I’m right: there’s some early dirty, gritty B52’s in there.

Catl played an unbelievable tight and blasting set that included a bunch of new tunes that have in spades what appealed to me most about the Adonde vas record. Grooves are huge and served by the whole band religiously, and singer/guitar player catl is IN the thing so thoroughly as to astonish. I’m sure I’m expressing it stupidly, but the practice, experience and commitment of the band is bearing some sweet sweaty fruit. I really dug it, and look forward to the new album.

And this is just the start of the season! Yo La Tengo have a new record, Popular Songs, which we are listening to with coffee this morning. It’s the best thing I’ve heard by them since …And then nothing… early this decade (I quite enjoyed Sounds of the Sounds of Science too, but it was an instrumental soundtrack). The record’s pretty evenly divided between their pop sweetness and their noisy jams, and all of it is great. We’re going to see them at the Opera House in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait. Their Phoenix show on the I Am Not Afraid of You tour was one of the best shows I’ve seen. Go here to see a really funny video explaining the true origins of the band’s name.

Two weeks after that, Wilco at Massey Hall. I’d been avoiding their tours for several years because of Tweedy’s tendency to be a twat, but decided last year that I need to see them again, because they have really reached a height as a band. He’s locally famous for tantruming about the lack of dancing at Massey Hall (which is locally famous for discouraging movement of all kinds), so I’m not sure why Wilco keep playing that venue. But I’m going to tune out the negative shit and just listen hard to what has become one of my favourite bands of the decade. Check this out: Bull Black Nova – from Wilco the Album

AND there are TWO Vic Chesnutt records arriving this fall – one, At The Cut, due out next week on Constellation featuring the Montreal crew who made North Star Deserter such a fine (and career refreshing) record, and another – Skitter on Take Off – recorded by Vic pals Jonathan Richman and Tommy Larkins. We’ll see Vic with the Montreal band at Lee’s on November 7th. Mister Billy Bragg’s playing a week later, and we may hit that too, because that old commie still has it.

Add all of that great and potentially great music to the fact that my principal’s given us a little budget to build our school’s rocking capacity (in the form of some amps and guitars for the kids), and that my new Friday night fucking-around band the Jimmy Rabbits is proving to be fully enjoyable and positive, and it looks like the dry season of sadness that followed the passing of our great and musical friend Derek last Easter is breaking. I will be thinking of him at each of these shows, and wishing I could be making him CDs with my favourite bits on, but I think I’m happy. And it started yesterday evening: thanks to Catl and whoever runs the lovely Trash Palace.

Mormon time!

Ha! Yay!

I noticed something interesting today

This observation is completely based on the fact that I picked up the 33 1/3 books about Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark at the same time – but it holds water.

The singing in tongues style of Jeff Mangum, that full, deep connection with his songs is quite a bit like Joni’s full immersion in her own songs. Compare these musical kin. If you’ve heard one and not the other, you’re in for a treat. They’re both amazing*.

Ghost – Neutral Milk Hotel

Down to You – Joni Mitchell

*PS: the same cannot be said for the 33 1/3 books. It’s a notoriously uneven series, and the two examples I read this week show that off well. The NMH book is good, a worthwhile read for those, like me, who have no idea what wonders happened in the Elephant 6 collective, nor any idea of the legend of Jeff Mangum’s rejection of the star maker machinery. The Court and Spark book does exactly what the other author refuses to do, and focuses in irritating detail on line readings of the lyrics. It’s also just not great writing. Give it a miss

United Airlines Breaks Guy’s Guitar

This is pretty funny: a guy gets revenge on a corporation by making a youtube video that goes viral (if it gets to me, it’s viral). Sent to me by a friend.

The story: Dave Carroll’s guitar gets broken on United Airlines plane, and United Airlines won’t take responsibility. They pass the blame around for a year, and he can’t get it fixed. He and his band makes the video about it – pretty funny. A little funnier for being delivered deadpan, still funnier for being by what appear to be a really average, normal band, and funnier still for mentioning the person they’re pissed off with by name. In typeface, on screen. If this gets big enough, she could get a book deal.

What’s a little too funny is that this video – as explained on the band’s website – is but the first of three video responses. From the same website:

“I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.”

Who threatens that? In the heat of an argument have you ever vowed to get even three times? I had somebody once yell “Damn you a thousand times!” at me, but it was unusual. Think about it. I’m not suggesting that the story isn’t true. But I’m cynical enough to imagine that, one night during some discussion about the broken-guitar situation, he and his friends made up a funny song about it, dug it, and then figured out how to best use it for marketing the band. And somebody suggests making it a triptych. A trilogy. Dave calls the airline the next day and threatens to “write and produce three songs about my experience” and the rest is, well, this.

I’m also not saying they’ve done anything wrong. It’s a good idea. But it’s worth noticing that the band has successfully manipulated the viral vid phenomenon. It makes me think that the great ads of the near future will be the ones that we choose to pass around. Nike and Coke will shortly figure this out, and they’ll spend crazy amounts of money trying to make viral videos. It’ll be annoying.

But there might be real money in it for whoever can tap that mythical internet advertising dollar, and this may be what it’ll look like. In the meantime, there’s notoriety for the pioneers. This guy and his band, a pretty small time Nova Scotia New Country act, just improved their standards of living, I’m sure. Whatever kind of gigs they were getting, they just got more of them.

Plus, they got their message out, and I am down with that: I hereby boycott United, those guitar wrecking motherfuckers! United sucks! Boo!

(Condolences to Ms Irlweg. Try and make some money off all of this.)

And It Continues…

PS:

You can have a cell phone that’s ok but not me

I didn’t manage to say much nice about the Jonathan Richman show last post, I was so piqued. But his part of the show was swell. I had been about to walk out at the end of Chesutt’s set, and might have if I hadn’t been with others; a few songs into Richman’s show I was feeling pretty happy. That’s what he’s like. And I’m not easy to calm down. Jonathan Richman i’s completely distracting, and knows what he wants a show to be like so clearly that it’s not easy to resist becoming part of that show. At one point Kro told the Info Pusher, “He’s like a monkey!” and we all smiled and nodded. He IS like a monkey. A lovely singing monkey. And that Tommy Larkin, he’s an amazing drummer, a perfect foil.

Richman sang too many songs in French, perhaps under the misapprehension that because we are a bilingual country, we speak two languages. You can see how you’d make that mistake. But he also sang a fair bit in Spanish, so maybe he just doesn’t give a shit if you understand all the words. Aside from that, his set was bitchin.

I’m into one of the new songs – called You can have a cell phone that’s ok but not me. It’s on a 45 that comes with the LP Because Her Beauty is Raw and Wild, which record doesn’t blow my mind at all. I think Jonathan Richman’s a bit like Prince: he doesn’t really give a shit if you like it or not, it’s what he’s doing. But this song harkens back to something a little earlier, and is tougher than Her Beauty aurally, and seems like something he might have written for the Modern Lovers, had they been happening now and not back then.

Plus, I like any song that has the courtesy to make it’s point and leave. This clocks in at under 2 minutes.

you can have a cell phone that’s okay but not me