Finn’s Motel Working On New Stuff..
From my hometown comes word that Joe Thebeau is busy recording a follow-up disc to the record that I think is still the single best CD to have come out in 2006, the remarkable Escape Velocity by Finn’s Motel. Thebeau, the singer/guitarist/songwriter of note in the band has once again enlisted the ace assistance of 3/4ths of Prisonshake–Robert Griffin, Steve Scariano, and Patrick Hawley (one of America’s sexiest husbands, allegedly; we knew him when…)–and they’ve done at least one gig where they played quite a few of the new songs, or so I’m told.
At any rate, Thebeau recently did a radio show on KDHX where he performed acoustic versions of a couple of new tunes, and you can hear that right here:
http://www.kdhx.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9577&Itemid=352
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Don’t Let This One Get Away
With all the hype around other records due out this week, I’d like to at least call a little attention to an absolute gem of an album I’ve been listening to for the last month, a record that should get official release tomorrow.
The album is called Out Of The Rain, The Thunder, & The Lightning, and it is the 6-years-in the making product of a California-by-way of Boston band called The Faraway Places. To read the band’s own promo materials, they’d have you believe that krautrock pioneers like Can and Neu were a huge influence on their sound. I…guess I hear it. More than that–in fact much more than that, I hear what sounds like a great fat slab of brilliant American rock and roll, a sound that puts me very much in mind of the music that came flowing like a torrent out of the southeastern United States back in the early-to-mid 1980’s. I hear echoes of Pylon and early B-52’s (Chris Colthart and Donna Coppola can’t help but sound a wee bit like the early days of Schneider and Pierson on the bouncy “The Sun Goes West”), traces of Windbreakers and Primitons…and a production sensibility that sounds right out of the good ol’ Drive In Studio.
To be more clear: the guitars on Rain/Thunder/Lightning sound totally fuzzy and totally kick-ass. The hooks on the album go deep and pull you in, even when they’re buried (“F-F-F-F-Fall Down” is the best example; you know that the song title just *has* to be part of a totally kick ass chorus, but they actually ratchet up the tension in the song and make you wait for the coda for the sing-along payoff–but what a payoff it is!)
Maybe the best song on the disc is the incredible and memorable “You Can Cry”. The song is a slow-building stunner that uncorks an awesome George Harrison guitar figure in the chorus, and it just pushes the song into the upper realm of the best songs of the year so far.
The Faraway Places really want you to hear their record for free, so do yourself a favor and head here and give it a bunch of listens:
Forest For The Trees, etc.
Still blown away by 21st Century Breakdown, I’m happy to report.
I’ve read a number of reviews from blogs, magazines, newspapers, etc. on the record over the last few days. Many of the reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Far too many, however, seem to have assigned the review to a writer clearly in over his or her head and not up to the task.
I’m talking most specifically about the number of writers (especially in the UK press) who seem to be hung up on the relevance of Green Day’s lyrics of social/political angst in light of the band being millionaire Grammy winners. Then there’s the clueless jackhole from SPIN, who seems to be mortally offended that Billie Joe & Co. might still express feelings of anger and disillusionment in the post-Bush rainbows and unicorns era of St. Obama.
Here’s a memo for those folks, and any of y’all falling into the same trap, then. What I want you to do is think of the most galvanizing, memorable, impactful rock and roll records of your formative years. Nevermind? Sure, absolutely. Doolittle or Surfer Rosa? Hellsyeah. Slanted And Enchanted? Definitely. Now then. What song, specifically on whatever album you chose (if you chose Bruce Cockburn or Billy Bragg you’re disqualified for hating music already, so get off the bus now) really *spoke* to you as an adolescent or post-adolescent? “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? “Debaser”? “Gigantic”? “In The Mouth A Desert”? Now then: tell me what those songs are actually about.
See, those songs are lyrical gobbledygook. 99% of all pop and rock and soul music is lyrical garbage. Take the music and the singer’s delivery away from the lyrics and you’ve usually got some pretty awful doggerel going on. The thing of it is, it doesn’t matter what the specific message is; what’s important is that the song itself is the message. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” isn’t great because it has great lyrics; the song is great because it sounds like it is about something, and that something is teenage rebellion. Who the hell knows what it’s actually about, but it sounds totally kick-ass, and that’s good enough.
Which brings us to Green Day and 21st Century Breakdown. For all I know, the lyrics are utter tripe, the specifics vapid and empty. I don’t care, because it all sounds like a great statement of post-adolescent rage and anger and disillusionment and even hope…and whether it actually is or isn’t any of those things isn’t the point. It sounds like it could be those things, and that’s enough for rock and roll. Don’t be the jerkoff egghead in the mosh pit trying to tell us that Green Day is already set for life off royalties for the godawful “Time Of Your Life” song, because we don’t wanna hear it when we’re pogo-ing to the amazing riff from “Horseshoes And Hand Grenades”.
One of the best rock shows I ever attended was in the cold drizzle in Louisville, Kentucky on Derby Eve, 1994. Pavement was playing a set at an outdoor stage called Cliffhangers, and I just remember being in the pit while they did “Conduit For Sale” and all of us drunk twentysomethings, full of piss and vinegar, screaming along with Bob Nastanovich “I’m TRYIN’ I’m TRYIN’ I’m TRYIN’ I’ll TRY…” as if those words were some sort of national anthem. They meant nothing, but they felt as if they meant something, and so they did have meaning for us, after a sort. When you finally get to spend some quality time with 21st Century Breakdown–and if you like rock and roll at all, you really should do that–don’t get hung up on the McGuffin; just let your goosebumps tell you how good it is.
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Two spins in…
…and the big musical elephant in the room for 2009 has turned one hell of a trick.
I’m talking about Green Day’s over-anticipated, over-hyped, over-everything forthcoming release, 21st Century Breakdown. The trick this disc has managed?
Record of the year.
Ok, maybe. I’m not gonna call it until I spend a bunch more time with it, but I’ll throw this out: it is every bit as great as any hype has projected it to be.
Both MTV.com and Rhapsody are currently streaming it. Enjoy!
Rock Is Dead, Long Live Rock.
Although I’ve not been updating as often as I should or could, I did want to spend a moment saying a fond farewell to two bands that meant a great deal to me over the last few years. First off, anyone who had Myspace connections to The Stabilisers got a rather stark message on Sunday afternoon: “The Stabilisers have split up.” No news beyond that, but I do remember the band saying in some previous updates that they were thinking of a hiatus for family stuff for various members, and I guess a full-on breakup was the best way to resolve things eventually. Hopefully we’ll hear from the various members down the line.
Next up, shortly after they released their long overdue lp Walk Talk Rhythm Roam, Chicago’s The Living Blue surprised few by announcing a split up. I gather that most of the original band was gone, other than singer/songwriter/guitarist Steven Ucherek, so that makes some sense. The good news here is that Ucherek already has a new music project going, a band called Village. No, I’m not sold on the name yet, but the music? The music is awesome. It sounds not very much at all like what The Living Blue (or even The Blackouts) were doing musically–no one’s gonna call this “garage rock”. Instead, the Village tracks Ucherek has made available have a sort of loose-limbed spontaneity that induce an almost psychedelic vibe, but without resorting to gimmicks like delay pedals and backwards loops and whatnot. Again, connecting the Myspace dots, Ucherek blogged that he’d be going to Portland to record a full-length Village disc in March, and just updated his status there with “New Record Is In The Can”. Awesome. I’m not sure whether the Village tracks available on their Myspace site are the finished songs, or if they’re versions of those songs Ucherek pretty much self-recorded in Chicago while TLB was in it’s death throes….but either way these are some terrific tunes and I can’t wait to hear the album that results.
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Popnarcotic 