Author Archive

For You Right Here It’s Awesome

Johnny Boy “Fifteen Minutes” – The wall-of-joycore sound of “You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve” was no fluke. Almost every song on Johnny Boy’s debut album reaches a similar sort of ecstatic peak, and most of them reach those dizzying heights and never quite come back down to earth. Taken one song at a time, it’s a magical thing, but listening to one after the other is overwhelming and can numb a person to the brilliance of the material. (Click here for the official Johnny Boy site.)

Aziz Ansari – Excerpt from “Invite Them Up” – Comedy Central’s cd compilation documenting material performed at Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale’s weekly Invite Them Up showcase on the Lower East Side is usually quite funny. The album’s three discs generally tip in favor of strong material from the likes of Mirman, Jon Glaser, Andy Blitz, David Cross and Jon Benjamin, and Jessi Klein, with only a few brief detours into lameness and unnecessary musical interludes. The highlight of the set comes from fellow blogger and comedy newcomer Aziz Ansari, who offers up a solid nine minutes of stand-up on the topics of turtle-fucking, Kayne West’s work ethic, hitting on M.I.A., and beating a cop with a brick. (Click here to buy it from Comedy Central.)

No One Will Dance With Us In This Zany Town

Stephen Malkmus @ Knitting Factory Tap Room 1/10/2006
Shoot The Singer / Church On White / We Dance / Box Elder / Ramp Of Death / Frontwards / Witch Mountain Bridge / Freeze The Saints / Major Leagues / Vanessa From Queens / Gold Soundz

Pavement “Shoot The Singer (Live @ St. Louis 1999) – I now live in eternal debt to the Brooklyn Vegan, who kindly hooked me up with a ticket to this show at the last minute and pretty much made my year. As you can see, this was a very special set, especially for a longtime hardcore Pavement fan such as myself. Malkmus performed the entire set alone with an acoustic guitar and without a setlist – everything played was an audience request. I was lucky enough to get two of the songs that I shouted for – “Shoot The Singer” and “We Dance” – and the One Louder dudes were treated to a lovely version of “Box Elder” that was played on strummed chords rather than the arpreggiated notes as per usual.

As you can imagine, the performance was a bit ragged as he attempted to play several songs that he clearly hasn’t practiced in a while – “Frontwards” was especially shambling, and the audience had to help him remember the words of “Gold Soundz,” even the “we’re coming to the chorus now” bit! Either way, he carried it off with his typical charm and no one in the room was about to complain, since he hasn’t publically performed Pavement songs in NYC since 1999. “Ramp of Death,” “We Dance,” and “Major Leagues” were especially well suited to solo performance, though I’m sorta mystified as to why anyone would call out for “Major Leagues” (much less “Freeze The Saints”) at an all-request Malkmus show. Songs that were called out but rejected for one reason or another: “Grave Architecture,” “Shady Lane,” “Old Jerry,” “Jo Jo’s Jacket,” “Father To A Sister Of Thought,” “Summer Babe,” “Ell Ess Two,” “Here,” “Range Life,” “Harness Your Hopes,” “No More Kings,” “Civilized Satanist,” and “Candylad,” the last three being particularly ambitious and obscure.

I can’t emphasize enough how big of a deal it is to me that I finally got to see the guy play “Shoot The Singer.” I’ve been wanting this for about twelve years now, and it’s easily among the highest percentile of my favorite songs in the world. I was convinced that I would only ever get to see it live if Pavement were to go on a reunion tour, and even then if I was very lucky. So yeah, yesterday was a very lucky day for me. (Click here to buy the studio recording from Amazon.)

Lashio Thein Aung “You Got What You Want” – More so than any other record that I’ve heard from the label, Guitars of the Golden Triangle: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar Vol. 2 lives up the name Sublime Frequencies. The album collects a string of uniformly great Burmese psychedelic pop songs from the early 70s that were previously hopelessly obscure and almost entirely unheard outside of Burma. This gorgeous duet credited to Lashio Thein Aung is a major highlight from the compilation, and fairly representative of the set’s relentless catchiness and beautiful reverb. (Click here to buy it from Sublime Frequencies.)

Send Me Someone Else To Love

Lee Rogers “I Want You To Have Everything” – Simultaneously jubilant and down to earth, this song captures the exhilirating rush of new love better than most any other song that I’ve ever heard, though I must say that my memory is getting hazier on the subject every day. If I’m way off the mark, please let me know and feel free to gush about your good fortune. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Smiley Lewis “That Certain Door” – Poor bitter Smiley – burned by “that one-sided love affair” but still somehow ready to tumble right back into love, even if he’s still picking himself up from the previous disappointment. His voice is warm, optimistic, and big hearted, but it is his words and most especially his chilly guitar solo that speak for his doubts and apprehension. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

My Zine Was Called “The Gift”

John Cale “Outta The Bag” – At this point, it’s a bit of a cliche for respected middle-aged actors to go on a talk show and explain that part of their motivation for being in a superhero movie or lending their voice to an animated feature was so that they could be in something that their kids could watch and enjoy rather than the same old grim Oscar bait. I like to think that John Cale made Black Acetate for similar reasons, although he is far less likely to achieve commercial success with this album than if he had, say, composed and performed a score for Pixar. And this is funny, because the album is almost frighteningly commercial, ranging from not-quite-there-but-close homages to The Neptunes, Outkast, and the Scissor Sisters to full-on late period alt-rock tunes that (musically if not vocally) resemble the work of rock radio staples such as Switchfoot and the Foo Fighters. In the context of his career, it seems almost as though Cale has followed a similar arc to that of Scharpling & Wurster’s “The Music Scholar,” pushing at the margins of art rock and the avant garde for decades before finding a new inspiration in contemporary Top 40. In the case of “The Music Scholar,” it’s sort of grotesque, but for Cale, it’s inspiring to see the guy try his hand at modern pop style. Even when the songs are duds, it’s not for a lack of craft and enthusiasm. (Click here to buy John Cale’s Black Acetate from Amazon and here to buy Scharpling & Wurster’s Chain Fights, Beer Blasts, and Service With A Grin from Stereolaffs.)

Can’t Tear Yourself Away, Can You?

There won’t be a new post today, but rather than bring in a fill-in writer or skip the day entirely, I’m rerunning one of my favorite entries from the archives. This nostalgia-fest was originally posted on April 22, 2004.

Letters To Cleo “Rimshak” – What this song reminds me of:

1) Being 15/16, mostly. This band hit around 1995 or so, they were all over Alternative Nation and 120 Minutes and their single “Here And Now” was on the Melrose Place soundtrack. I don’t think anyone took them very seriously, mostly because of silly ideas about “indie cred,” but also because they only had two or three really good songs (this being one of them, though it was never a single.)

2) When I was a teenager, I was very involved with my (tiny) high school’s literary magazine, and they used to send us to these writing conferences two or three times every school year. By far, these conferences are the best memories from my adolescence. Oh man, I loved these things – it was good for my ego, because I could show off in writing seminars, but the best thing was getting to be around kids from other schools. Meeting new people in general was a huge novelty for me at this point in my life, since my school district was so small and peculiar that I had basically been stuck with the same 50 or so people in my age group from Kindergarten up through senior graduation. I had to assume that since I wasn’t completely happy there, it was probably because I wasn’t around enough people like myself, and these conferences (as well as some classes which I took on the weekends at Pratt in my junior and senior years) gave me the feeling that I was correct. There was a whole world of smart, cool kids just outside of where I lived – in neighboring towns, across the river, in lower Westchester, in Long Island, in New York City. Of course, I was always too shy to actually make friends with anyone at these conferences, but just chatting a bit for an hour or having any exposure at all was enough for me.

3) Now let’s be very honest about this: I’m talking about how great it was to be around new cool people, but what I really mean is that it was great to be around new cool girls. I’m thinking about it right now, and I can’t even remember what the guys were like at these things. I’m sure there were others, because I would certainly remember the discomfort of being the only male at something like this. What I do recall are the girls – I still remember what a lot of these girls looked like, even though I only saw them for an hour or two nearly a decade ago. It’s funny what sticks in your memory, because I’m having trouble getting a solid mental picture of people that I saw every day as a teenager. Anyway, this was my first contact with actual indie girls, and it kinda blew my young mind. These young women set the template for what I thought I wanted from a girlfriend for the next three or four years. I’m a bit embarassed by this, because it certainly was not mature or healthy to fixate on appearances like this, much less to assume that I could understand the personality of someone based solely on their style and tastes. Of course, I’ve never actually dated anyone like the cute indie girls from my memories, not then and not now. (Though I’m open to it!) More than anything, thinking about these girls as a teenager was a comfortable fantasy. It was just a design for a life I wanted at the time – I didn’t have any specific interest in any of these people (in fact, I was probably more terrified of them than anything else), but they gave me an idea of the kind of people I wanted to be with.

4) I bought a copy of the Letters To Cleo tape a few days before going to a conference at Westchester Community College. I’m not clear on the specifics of what happened on that particular day, but I remember bits and pieces (mostly images), and it was obviously a pretty good day for me. On the bus ride home, I must have listened to “Rimshak” a dozen times over. When I got home, I listened to it some more in my room, while looking out of my window in a general southern direction. This became a weird habit for me. Whenever I’d want to just think about how great things could be, I’d just stare south (which was really just down the street, looking at a bunch of trees) while listening to something which reminded me of either the conferences or NYC – “Rimshak,” Sonic Youth, “Old To Begin” by Pavement (which I listened to on the subway whenever I was in NYC in 1997 for reasons I still do not understand), the Lynn Samuels radio show on WABC. It was a pretty weird thing to do, but I was a pretty weird kid.

5) This song also reminds me of this one strong visual image of a street someplace in lower Westchester (possibly in Mamaroneck?) that is burned in my memory for no apparent reason, but is closely associated with these memories. If I hear the “Rimshak” chord progression, I immediately envision a semi-urban street with brownstones, trees, and newspapers on the street to be recycled. I have no idea how this image ever got in my head, or why it seems to have any significance.

6) I remember seeing the band interviewed on 120 Minutes, and the guitarist explained that this song was called “Rimshak” because it reminded them of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” so they just reversed the title. Well, almost. They transposed the h and the s. But still.

(Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

We’ll Watch Our Heroes Trip And Fall

Archers of Loaf “Nevermind The Enemy” – No, I’m not posting this to complete the 90s indie trifecta along with Malkmus and Pollard, but it doesn’t hurt. I’m mostly featuring this track out of the realization that in the four years that I’ve been doing this site, I’ve never written anything about this song even though it’s a pretty big deal to me. For one thing, there’s a strong nostalgia factor – I bought this when I was 15, and I have a lot of vivid teenage memories tied in with it, almost all of them quite positive. On a lyrical level, this song and pretty much the rest of the Vee Vee album holds a strong appeal to me for its unabashedly competitive sentiment, even if it’s laced with cynicism and pessimism. Virtually all Archers of Loaf songs were about scrappy underdogs fighting for their fair share, and in retrospect, the 90s was the perfect time for them, at least much more so than the Goliath-favoring decades bracketing their era. More than any of that, my enduring love of this song is rooted in that it’s like a sort of Platonic ideal of indie rock guitar for me. With its casual artiness, raw exuberance and impressionistic effects, “Nevermind The Enemy,” illuminates exactly what I dislike about the drab, uncreative style and guitar tone of the overwhelming majority of contemporary rock bands. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Vivien Goldman “Launderette” – Unfortunately for the world, this brilliant a-side from 1981 accounts for a massive chunk of music writer Vivien Goldman‘s discography as a performer. It’s a shame given Goldman’s charismatic vocals and sharp lyrics about a love that begins, ends, and lingers on in an uncomfortable sort of afterlife at a tiny launderette. The bassline is particularly great, evoking both the churning of a nervous stomach and the gentle rumbling of a washing machine. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

On The Playground We Learn So Much

The Gossip “Listen Up!” – From the first time I saw The Gossip open up for Sleater-Kinney early in their career, it was obvious that they were a band intent on getting their audiences to move. Up until recently, they were working with a fairly limited musical palette, drawing mainly on rockabilly, blues, and punk moves. On their new album, they’ve opened up considerably, drawing heavily on elements from disco, funk, and soul (and punk variations on all three…), resulting in the most effective and impressive music in their discography to date. Make no mistake – they are treading on familiar ground covered by several bands new and old, but they make it work by avoiding the strangely oppressive sexlessness of most contempory punk-funkery and emphasizing the vocals of Beth Ditto, who sings with a confidence and authority owing more to Diana Ross or Kim Weston than most anyone in the indie rock universe. (Click here to pre-order it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: The aborted Britney Spears/DFA track has finally surfaced. If you’re interested, The Prettiest Pony has it, at least for a little while. Get on it. (Predictably, they had to take it down, but you really ought to go to that site anyway, they have a lot of quality tracks over there.)

Hot Ham Water

Talking Heads “Right Start” – Even if the Talking Heads had never gone ahead and finished this early version of “Once In A Lifetime,” they would have ended up with a brilliant song. Though the completed version is unquestionably superior and arguably the highest peak of their career, “Right Start” is a fine showcase for David Byrne’s gifts as a guitarist, as his parts are foregrounded rather than obscured by bass and keyboards as in the post-Eno arrangement. It’s also quite interesting to observe the shift in tone from this demo to the album recording – though the song ends up feeling epic and anxious, it began as a rather light-hearted and casual affair. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Zalatnay Sarolta “Rogos Uton” – I don’t understand a word of Hungarian, but it hardly matters with a singer like Zalatnay Sarolta. She’s overflowing with power, soul, and authority, whether it be on pure funk tracks or ragged classic rock tunes like this selection. This track is taken from a cd-r compilation made by APT‘ s Alec D, who apparently met and befriended the woman ten years ago and is distributing it in the hope that it will lead to finding her again. (Buying a copy of this cdr compilation will be tricky. Other Music in NYC has it for sale, but it is nowhere to be found on their mailorder website. You can try emailing the address on the inside sleeve: alec @ aptwebsite.com )

Oh hey, look – Bloggie nominations are open. I’m rather baffled as to why they have abandoned the music category at a time when music blogs are booming, but you can feel free to nominate this site in the following categories: Best American Weblog, Best Entertainment Blog (this site was nominated for this award last year, but Defamer won by a large margin in a rather strange apples vs. oranges vs. pomegranates competition brought about by the ridiculously broad category), Best Writing of a Weblog, and Weblog of the Year. It’d be awfully nice if the lot of you voted heavily for music sites in these categories (it doesn’t have to be this site), if just to send a message to these people re: the popularity and vitality of music blogs. After all, people like Eppy, Sean, Tom, Abby, Tyler, Jessica, Nick and Carl are much better candidates for the Best Writing category than whatever group of chumps who are likely to be nominated, and Tom Ewing has certainly had a far greater influence on the world of blogging via his recently-defunct NYLPM than most any tech/design geek who is going to be a shoo-in for the Lifetime Achievement award this year.

A Future Uncertain, Where Anything Can Happen

Stephen Malkmus “Malediction” – There were many songs from 2005 that I related to on a lyrical level for one reason or another, but none of them quite as much as “Malediction,” which touches on the major themes from my personal life over the course of the year with a rather startling degree of specificity. It’s funny, who would have ever pegged Stephen Malkmus to be such an effective life coach? Face The Truth was full of lots of good advice on dealing with the mundane details of life with maturity and grace, like an indie pop self-help album without ever being remotely lame or trite. At this point, he’s been my favorite songwriter for so long that it’s easy for me to take his new work for granted, but it’s songs like this that serve as a reminder that he’s never lost the ability to make wonderful music that seems as much like the soundtrack to my inner life as he did when I was fourteen. (Click here to buy it from Matador.)

Charlotte Hatherley “Stop” – This is a song about the future, and the thrill and terror that comes from not knowing what’s just ahead of you. In print, the lyrics seem obtuse and vaguely negative, but set to this enormous wall of post-grunge riffery and delivered in a dry, matter of fact tone of voice, there’s an overall effect of serenity in the midst of chaos. There are plenty of good reasons to be worried about the future, but that should never be an excuse to retreat from it. The best thing about the future is that we have some degree of control over it, which is only true of the past if you’re capable of changing other people’s understanding of it. I have a good feeling about 2006, not just for me, but for everyone. I’m not a religious or mystical person at all, but nevertheless, this song is my little prayer for you in the coming year. (Click here to buy it from Double Dragon.)

Lee Moore “Boweavil” – If anyone should ask you who it was who gave you these songs, tell ’em it was the Fluxblog – 2005’s done been here and gone! I’m no longer looking for a home, but I’m still looking for a home. (Click here to buy it from Dust-to-Digital.)

You Could Surely Try To Be More Alive

White Circle Crime Club “I’m Going To Expose You” – Aside from the bits of incoherant punky shouting, this is almost a dead ringer for Sonic Youth circa 1987, approaching the same sort of blown-out black and white sci-fi cityscape that Thurston et al evoked on Sister (aka my favorite SY album.) There’s one patch in particular (from about 4:21 through 4:50 or so) that I think might actually be directly lifted from an Sonic Youth record, though I can’t quite place it. (Click here to buy it from Conspiracy Records.)

Mates of State “Fraud in the ’80s” – Poor Mates of State – they’d be crazy for the duo to not to perform this song live since it’s probably the best song they’ve ever written, but if they do so, there’s just no way they could pull it off without a) some major cheats with pre-recorded parts (ie, most of the arrangement) b) additional players onstage c) totally overhauling the arrangement and potentially sacrificing much of the song’s appeal. But either way, there’s a lot to love in this studio version, from the specific tone of the overdriven keyboards to the gorgeous self-harmonization to the verses, which sound a bit like a perky version of Mary Timony. (Click here to pre-order it from Barsuk.)

The Things You Said, Forgotten

The M’s “Trucker Speed” – The first few minutes of “Trucker Speed” is impressive enough with its bustling rhythms and scorched guitar tones, but it’s all just a prelude to an inspired outro in which the “winter heat” of the psychedelic fuzz duels with the “summer snow” of a melodramatic string section. I’m pretty sure that the strings win in the end. (Click here for The M’s official site. Click here to buy tickets to see The M’s on a bill with Rogue Wave and The New Pornographers on New Year’s Eve in Chicago.)

Ms. John Soda “Nº One” – I propose an alternate title: “Can’t Get ‘Bull in the Heather’ Out Of My Head.” Well, the “Bull in the Heather” bit is a stretch, but it’s a little like being in a car with a person who hasn’t heard the song since it was on 120 Minutes in 1994 trying to remember how it goes while Kylie plays in the background. (Click here for the official Ms. John Soda site.)

Expose The Part Of It All

Robert Pollard “The Right Thing” – The first minute or so of “The Right Thing” is the ultimate Pollard demo castoff – a promising snippet of melody lost in a poorly recorded mess of unsure guitar playing and awful singing. If you’re familiar with Pollard’s extended catalog, you’ve most certainly come across a few of these and wanted to shout at him “FINISH THE SONG! YOU CAN SING AND PLAY BETTER THAN THIS!” And for once, he actually does, shifting into a proper full band arrangement after a solid minute of flailing for notes that aren’t necessarily out of his reach. It’s not the first time he’s juxtaposed a raw demo and a full studio recording in the same track, but as far as I can remember, it’s the most successful he’s ever been at being meta about his process while also providing an interesting dynamic that suited a song. (Click here to buy it from Merge Records.)

Also: Would anyone be willing to hook me up with the Doctor Who Christmas special? I simply do not have enough space on my laptop to get it via bittorrent, and I’m very eager to see David Tennant in the role.

Is This The Yule Tide?

Pledge Drive (featuring One Of Each) “Christmas Rhapsody” – It wouldn’t be Christmastime on Fluxblog without breaking out this old chestnut! This Christmas themed adaptation of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” goes a step beyond parody – it’s amazingly faithful to the original recording, and performed with a straight faced earnestness and professionalism that is both admirable and totally bonkers. (Click here for the official Pledge Drive site.)

Ed Shepp “Scenes From A Life: A Lonely Christmas” – Christmas may be a lovely time for many people, but being forced to bask in the glow of other’s joy and togetherness can drag less fortunate people down into the darkest depths of despair. In this clip, WMFU radio personality Ed Shepp tells the story of the most miserable Christmas of his life. (Click here for Ed Shepp’s blog and here for the Ed Shepp Radio Experiment archives.)

It Makes You Forget What It Means To Be Free

Patton Oswalt “My Christmas Memory” – The best Comedian of Comedy shares a Christmas memory from his youth involving Alvin and the Chipmunks. There’s really not a lot more I can say without wrecking the bit for you. However, you might want to avoid the “mash-up” version made by a fan that has recently been posted on Oswalt’s site – it’s overly literal and omits the funniest part of the routine, and that’s all before the beats come in. Yikes. (Click here to buy it from Patton Oswalt.)

Islands “Swans (Life After Death)” – At nearly ten minutes, this song feels like it’s stuck in some sort of eternal homestretch. It’s restless and eager, but never quite where it wants to be as it pushes onward towards some vague horizon. Unsurprisingly, the lyrics seem to be a meditation on mortality. (Click here for the Rough Trade site.)

Born In A Manger, Humble And Low

Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers “Christ Was Born On Christmas Morn” – I try not to revisit the same record too frequently, but how can I resist putting up another track from Dust To Digital’s wonderful Where Will You Be Christmas Day compilation? It’s a goldmine of vintage Christmas music, plain and simple. This jaunty singalong dates back to 1929, and features a charismatic lead vocal performance from Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon, a lovely cooing backing vocal, and an inspired instrumental section played on the cornet. (Click here to buy it from Dust To Digital.)

Richard Reagh “No One Really Wants To” – This isn’t Christmas music, but it’s most certainly music for the winter, which officially begins today in spite of the weather being pretty damn cold for the past several weeks. Reagh captures a very specific gradation of melancholy on this track, lingering aimlessly in a zone where doubt, resignation, blankness, lethargy, and lovesickness mingle to create a general seasonal malaise. It’s not a fun track, but it’s very pretty. (Click here for the official Richard Reagh site.)

Vibrant But Somehow Virulent

Cadence Weapon “Vicarious” – Fluxblog kicked off 2005 with a cut from Cadence Weapon’s first self-distributed mixtape, and now as the year is winding down, I’ve got a song from his first proper LP on the Upper Class label. Rollie’s flow is as strong as ever, but the main attraction here is his broken game console production aesthetic, heavy with synths that are like the musical equivalent of bright neon lights burning holes in your retinas. (Click here to buy it from Upper Class.)

Spinvis “Ik Wil Alleen Maar Zwemmen” – This was going to get the “Video Treatment Day” treatment, but then I realized it would just be easier to leave the instructions “splice together random footage from Wes Anderson’s last three movies” to get the proper result. Maybe if there was a way to scramble it all together, like have Max Fischer riding around in Eli Cash’s car wearing a Team Zissou uniform or something. That’d be neat. (Click here to buy it from the Spinvis official site.)

It Feels Almost Like A Holiday

Wir Sind Helden “Nur Ein Wort” –

my problem with German pop
is that I can’t sing along
the words melt into formless sounds
and no concepts emerge

to help me to enjoy this pretty song
even more than I already do
I have written these new words
as a rough phonetic guide

it is somewhat ridiculous, I know
I’ve already botched the meter
but it’s okay, it keeps the pace
I’m allowed some poetic license

these new lyrics to the song
they help me to sing along
my silly English lyrics for a
German catchy indie pop song

this sounds like Sleeper and Nena
“99 Luftballons,” kinda
it’s good for dancing, a new wave beat
it makes you sway from side to side

and in the second verse
she sounds so smitten but I read
the English translation and
and it seems that she’s desperate and heartbroken

this bridge feels so familiar, I can’t help but like it
Wir Sind Helden is big in Austria and Germany
not hard to understand why

with English lyrics to the song
Americans could sing along
the more I hear it, the more I love
this catchy German indie pop song

(Click here for the official Wir Sind Helden site and here to buy it from Amazon Germany.)

Morane “Living On A Traffic Island” – The summer is long gone at this point, but there is no reason to shun a perfect summery pop tune, especially when its central theme – finding tranquility in the midst of frantic movement – is particularly relevant at this time of the year. The music is perfectly suited to the lyrics, evoking easy going Brazillian pop while communicating the jittery restlessness of someone who is throughly rattled by the rush of the city. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Real Unprofessional, Like Them Eskimos

If you were wondering, I was in Missouri. If you’re now wondering why I was in Missouri, here’s at least 75% of the reason:

Kanye West @ Savvis Center, St. Louis, MO 12/14/2005
Diamonds of Sierra Leone / The New Workout Plan / Touch The Sky / Heard ‘Em Say / Get ‘Em High / All Falls Down / Slow Jamz / Through The Wire / Jesus Walks / Gold Digger

Kanye West “Late” – As you can see, this song was not in the setlist, but I can’t imagine that any of you haven’t heard the songs that were, even if you never bought the albums or listened to them intentionally.

A proper Kanye West/U2 bill surely would have drawn an interesting mix of fans, but this was a regular support slot for Kanye, announced long after tickets were sold out and as such, the audience was entirely comprised of U2 fans. Lucky for him, the people close to the stage in the ellipse area went wild for him, but the reception around the arena ran hot and cold, with many rockist jackasses booing him while he was onstage and later on, when Bono expressed how happy he was to share a stage with the guy.

The performance itself was an awkward mix of expert showmanship and good ideas not quite gelling as they should. He was backed by a DJ and a full string section, but the mix was horrible throughout the set, mainly resulting in the bass drowning out West’s vocals and the more nuanced parts of the string arrangements. With only a few exceptions, the songs were played in abrupt bits and pieces, rarely with any sort of graceful ending. However, many of the songs did come off well – the string interpolation of the musical hook in “Heard ‘Em Say” was gorgeous, “All Falls Down” seemed particularly well rehearsed, and “Jesus Walks” came across as the sort of arena anthem it ought to be.

The most exciting and memorable thing about this set was Kanye himself, and the sheer magnitude of his charisma. Unlike other U2 opening acts, West took full advantage of their ellipse stage design, jogging along the runway and working it just as well, if not better than Bono himself. The guy is a total natural, and definitely needs to tour more often. If he starts headlining stadiums himself, he really ought to consider stealing that ellipse concept. Really, anyone playing a room that size should. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

U2 @ Savvis Center, St. Louis, MO 12/14/2005
City of Blinding Lights / Vertigo / Elevation / Gloria / I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For – In A Little While / Beautiful Day / Original of the Species / Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own / Love and Peace Or Else / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Bullet the Blue Sky / Miss Sarajevo / Pride (In the Name of Love) / Where The Streets Have No Name / One // Until the End of the World / Mysterious Ways / With Or Without You /// Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of / Instant Karma / Yahweh / 40

U2 “Love and Peace Or Else (Live in Chicago 5/9/2005)” – Oh yeah, U2 played as well. This was my seventh U2 show (though two of them were not full concerts – Tibetan Freedom Concert 1997, and that show in Brooklyn from last year), and I’m pretty sure that in terms of performance, this was the best that I’ve seen them. Bono’s voice was very on, and he took full advantage of this by going for every vocal flourish that might not be within his reach on a regular night. I was pleased to see a show with a somewhat different running order from the one I caught at Madison Square Garden back in October. I was particularly pleased to see them play “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (which I haven’t witnessed since Popmart) and “Mysterious Ways,” which I’ve seen four times before, but this was easily the best of the five.

“Love and Peace Or Else” was far better in St. Louis than in the 10/8/2005 MSG set, as was the rest of the so-called ‘heart of darkness’ mini-set that also includes “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Bullet The Blue Sky.” Though I quite enjoy “Love and Peace,” this is by far the weakest part of the Vertigo tour – for one thing, these three songs in a row feels more than a little redundant on a musical level, but more than that, there are very troubling political implications in the repurposing of the latter two songs that Chris Conroy discussed in his incomplete review of the tour:

But every night, when “Sunday Bloody Sunday” begins, I check out of the concert completely…It all comes down to a lack of meaning. I feel very strongly that any and all political and social impact that the righteous idealism of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” represents has been leeched out of the song by decades of overexposure. It’s been cast and recast to stand in for so many conflicts that it’s just not saying anything specific about anything that matters…Shouting “This is your song now!” is even more of an insult; it’s giving the audience free rein to wear the cloak of righteousness for five minutes, to pretend that they Really Care and that Violence Is Wrong, before they return to the world where it’s OK to say things like “I think we should just bomb the hell out of all of ’em” and be greeted by serious nods and murmured assent. When R.E.M. say “This is your song now!” before singing “Losing My Religion,” it’s a different scenario; both songs are overplayed popular hits, but one is, at heart, a pop song about personal emotions, and the other is much more outward-looking and focused on something that is obviously not universal: disgust at armed conflict.

“Bullet The Blue Sky” suffers from pretty much the exact same identity crisis. It’s been played on every tour since it was written, largely because the band don’t have any other songs in their catalogue that will allow them to show off bruising hard-rock chops. It, too, is a profoundly anti-violent song — it was written in disgust at how the American military was used to subjugate dissent in Central America — but every time it gets trotted out, Bono desperately tries to make it new and relevant by pointing it at some other conflict. On the Elevation tour, he came the closest he’s come to successfully making it matter again, turning it into a sharp attack on gun violence with a hammy-but-haunting riff on the murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman. Seeing that song shoved down America’s throat when it was played on the first leg of Elevation was remarkable: here was a band that actually did have the balls to say something that large segments of the audience might not like; here was a band who wrote songs that represented their ideals, and performed them with conviction. But after September 11th, the band dropped that level of interpretation from the song, and hearing it played in New York City became a disturbing experience: inside the arena, it felt like the audience was taking the song up as a battle cry, as a “we want revenge” violence fantasy, losing themselves in the brutality of the music and not in its lyrics of
condemnation for the exercise of force.

On the Vertigo tour, “Bullet The Blue Sky” has become spectacularly muddled. It’s obviously impossible to sing a song about the American military abroad in this climate without having that song be about the Iraq war, and Bono knows it; he’s been incorporating “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” into the lyric, and suddenly the song becomes bizarrely, schizophrenically, pro-soldier — at last night’s show, Bono quite literally dedicated the song to “the brave men and women of the United States Military.” How are we supposed to take that? Obviously conflicts like the Iraq war can produce a difficult line to straddle — it’s virtually impossible to respect what the soldiers are being required to do, but it’s impossible not to respect the impulse to serve one’s country in the name of idealism. A song about hating the sin but loving the sinner could definitely be a rich gold mine for the band to explore, but “Bullet The Blue Sky” is not that song. “Bullet The Blue Sky” is a song of condemnation, of outrage. How the hell are we to take this confused, empty version?

I definitely agree with Chris on this score, and came into the show on Wednesday night with some strong bias against this segment, but at least this time around it didn’t feel as though the band was sleepwalking through “Bullet the Blue Sky” – it actually did have some power to it. This doesn’t change the fact that I’d very much like to never see the song played live again in my life. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

That Look That Says Exactly What You Think Of Me

Nellie McKay “Cupcake” – Nellie McKay has an obvious gift for melody and a lovely singing voice, but too often gets caught up in a sort of cringe-inducing preciousness that is on the outermost perimeter of what I can tolerate from an artist. The theatre camp cabaret affectation is fine with me because it’s clearly her gift as a musician, but her lyrics tend to be strangely long on forced wit and short on humor, making her political music come closer to that of The Capitol Steps than, say, Jon Stewart rocking out at the piano bar. “Cupcake” makes the most of her gifts and hems in her faults, presenting an elegantly crafted tune that’s one part old school AM radio ballad and two parts musical theatre as she stumps for gay marriage in the context of a traditional love song. (Click here for the official Nellie McKay site.)

Ladyfuzz “Monster” – Is there an aural equivalent of squinting? If there is, then do that with this song, and you can sort of get the feeling of an imaginary rocking Portishead song with beats jacked from that first UNKLE album. I love the keyboard spazz-out on the break – it’s like mayhem breaking out in a novelty shop. (Click here for the official Ladyfuzz site.)

Chow Nasty “Ungawa” – Chest-beating Tarzan party rock! This is some fun stuff, and that chant is a crazy earworm that will burrow through your skull if you don’t watch out. I’m glad that we have these guys, because God knows there’s a tiny little gap in the world ever since The Make-Up broke up a few years ago. (Click here for the official Chow Nasty site.)

Fiona Apple @ Nokia Theatre, 12/11/2005
Get Him Back / Better Version Of Me / Shadowboxer / To Your Love / I Know / Sleep To Dream / Limp / Paper Bag / Tymps / Oh Well / On The Bound / Red, Red, Red / Not About Love / O’ Sailor / Get Gone / Fast As You Can // Extraordinary Machine / Criminal / Parting Gift

Fiona Apple “Not About Love” – Fiona Apple didn’t speak very much during this show, but when she did, she mostly talked about being nervous and worried. If you know a thing or two about Apple from over the years, this shouldn’t be so surprising, but in the context of a performance so incredibly assured and compelling, it’s a very curious thing. If she never said a word, it would all seem entirely effortless. She throws herself into every moment of every song, investing every lyric with the fullest of emotion, be it nuanced as in “I Know” (a song which ranks in the highest percentile of my favorite songs ever; I was feeling chills the entire time), or ferocious and raw as with the “Sleep To Dream”/”Limp” bitterness twofer. “Not About Love” was a particular highlight, with its heavy vamp feeling like fists to the gut, and a manic outro that barely felt tame in spite of the band’s obvious control. It blows my mind that a person could be among the best vocalists and songwriters of their generation and on top of that be drop dead gorgeous and still deal with crippling pangs of doubt, but I suppose we’re all better off with some humility.

(For other very OTM reviews of this show, please visit Tom Breihan’s Status Ain’t Hood and SF/J.)

It’s so unfortunate that the critical reaction to Extraordinary Machine ended up getting so badly muddled by a debate over the relative merits of the Jon Brion and Mike Elizondo versions. I maintain that the final product is better by far, but in any case, the basic quality of these songs remains the same, and the best record of 2005 ends up getting screwed over by vote-splitting. I’m sure that in the future, this album will earn the reputation that it deserves, but it absolutely vexes me to see it get passed over by many of my peers in favor of flimsy hackwork in the meantime. I suspect part of it is due to Apple’s subject matter. Writing brilliantly on the topic of love is hardly a fashionable thing – lord knows Stephin Merritt has to wrap up his projects in novelty just to get any serious attention at all. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Destroyer “Sick Priest Learns To Last Forever” – A majority of the Destroyer catalog sounds best at night, but this track has the power to turn any moment of the day into the wee hours of the morning. It’s the perfect music for stumbling home in the cold, ready to fall over but still too far from your front door. It’s the sound of your stray thoughts echoing off the walls as you wait forever on the subway platform, barely keeping your eyes open, and the obscure lyrics start to make perfect sense if just because Dan Bejar is delivering them with such convinction. The sick priest learns to last forevah! Yeah, of course he does. Me too. (Click here for Merge’s Destroyer site.)