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Don’t Hope For Too Much

If you have an interest in hearing U2 completely butcher one of the finest songs of their career, you may want to download the new Mike Hedges remix of “Numb” that was recorded to inexplicably replace the original on the upcoming Best of 1990-2000 record. I’m listening to it right now for the fourth time in a row, and I’m just stunned by how much they’ve botched the job, and I’m trying to work it out in my mind why on earth any sane person would think that this is an improvement over the album version of the song. This recording is entirely lacking in grace, it’s just stumbling around, it’s a fucking mess. The pacing of the song has been made extremely awkward, all of the lush harmonies and sounds of the original either excised from the mix or awkardly jumbled together all at once. Bono recorded a new vocal for the middle of the track, and it sounds okay, and would be a perfectly acceptable adlib during a live performance, but his new vocal pales in comparison to the rather inspired original vocal take. The absolute worst thing about this version is that Hedges has decided to re-record Larry Mullen Jr.’s “I feel numb” refrain so that he’s speaking it in a monotone rather than singing it in falsetto, and to make matters worse, it’s placed so high in the mix that it nearly drowns out the Edge and Bono. There’s no subtlety to this whatsoever, and it makes little to no musical sense – the original sounded smooth, natural, and clever. The original “Numb” is one of U2’s best songs precisely because it’s so well arranged – why replace it with a cluttered wreck like this? This is depressing to me, because it just confirms my suspicions that U2 really have no concept of how great the Zooropa album is. After all, these are people from Europe who feel the need to apologize for how “European” the album sounds, in spite of the record getting some of the best reviews of their career and selling a very healthy number of copies worldwide. I wish they’d wake up and realize that they are at their best when they are “arty” (as Bono would put it), and that it would be in their best interests to age gracefully making records more along the lines of Achtung Baby/Zooropa/Passengers than by shamelessly tossing off tired power ballads like “Walk On”.

Things That Are Great About Slow Century

– There’s video of “Black Walls”, and it opens the documentary.

– You can hear a snippet of Spiral and SM performing “Home” on KDVS.

– You get to hear a snippet of SM hosting his radio show at the U of VA

– They included a full performance of the original version of “The Hexx”, and it’s the really great one from the Bizarre Festival in 97, from German television.

– The version of “Forklift” in the outtakes section is very inspired and fun.

– You can watch SM struggling to remember the lyrics to “Frontwards” backstage before a performance.

– There’s footage of the band practicing “Flux = Rad” at Doug Easley’s studio, as well as giving an early version of “Discretion Grove” a try during rehearsals for the Terror Twilight sessions.

– An incredibly sloppy performance of “Box Elder” with Gary Young at a Philadelphia record store circa 1991

– An even sloppier version of “Shoot The Singer” a few minutes later.

– If you click on the “P” in Pavement on the documentary menu, there’s more extra footage including SM’s infamous handcuffs comment at the final show, and performances of “Unseen Power of the Picket Fence”, “Camera” and “Conduit For Sale!” in Athens in 1994.

– Bob telling the story of Gary Young’s departure from the band.

– Performances of “Silent Kid” and “Range Life” with a very enthusiastic and animated guy with a backwards red cap in the audience, circa 1994.

– A full live performance of an early version of “Fight This Generation”, with the “I’m an animal” chant at the end.

– The story of Pavement’s experience at the West Virginia stop on the Lollapalooza tour.

– Footage of the second half of “Half A Canyon” on the Lollapalooza tour.

– Footage of SM performing “Expressway To Yr Skull” with Sonic Youth.

– SM talking to the weird German guy at the Bizarre festival, who asks them if they will save rock and roll. SM: “It’s a hard burden, but we’ll save it.”

– Footage from the Lesson In Songwriting on VPRO – “For Sale – The Preston School of Industry”!

– SM kicking Scott Baio out the band.

– Bob on why “Farewell Horizontal” is a terrible name for an album.

– A very strong live version of “Cut Your Hair” on the Terror Twilight tour, easily one of the best performances on either disc.

– Bob talking about why he’s no longer the tour manager.

– A teenager proclaiming that the Pavement show he just saw was “so much better than the Deftones concert!”

– A live version of “She Believes” with Gary Young.

– The final three songs they ever played live (“Stop Breathin'”, “Conduit For Sale!”, and “Here”), which makes me misty-eyed. The version of “Here” is more similar to the album version than the typical heavy live version, by the way.

– The very funny, very bitter computer-read comments from Tom Surgal for the “Rattled By La Rush” video.

– Dan Koretsky and Rian Murphy’s wry commentaries for the “Cut Your Hair” and “Painted Soldiers” videos.

– The hilarious “K-Rock” guy footage at the El Ray. Can someone please let me know who that guy is?

– “Trigger Cut” performed on the very first Pavement tour at Coney Island High

– A snippet of Malkmus playing R.E.M.’s “7 Chinese Bros.”

– The inclusion of Bob and Westy’s cute little “Cymbal Stand” song.

Minor complaints:

* Why are there two versions of “Date With IKEA” on the second disc? Couldn’t we have had a different song, maybe “Kennel D” instead? You only hear “Kennel D” in passing in the documentary, which is a shame because it was a set staple for three tours, and Spiral’s most popular Pavement tune. “You Are A Light” would have been a nice addition too, since it was the best live song from the Terror Twilight era besides “The Hexx”.

* Though I can understand why it was glossed over, I feel that some of the reasons why Pavement ended should’ve been addressed in the documentary. In fact, they never actually say Pavement is over at any point – it’s as if they wanted to leave it open so if the band did eventually reform, the DVD wouldn’t look silly.

* Was there a good reason why the entire Manchester show wasn’t included? It seems like that was a better show than the Seattle concert which is presented in its entirety.

Ten Million Brilliant Thoughts Per Second

Here’s an excerpt of Joe’s remarks on Barbelith about Quentin Quire from the forthcoming New X-Men #135, which can be previewed here. I really like what Joe has to say about this…he’s right on the money, I think.

…I’d just like to rant a bit more about why Quentin’s outfit/’look’ rocks so much. Quite aside from the reference to obscure X-history, it’s subtly evocative of other things: as someone mentioned, it’s a bit straight-edge, a bit emo… but it’s also parodically geeky (which is arguably what being a mutant has always really stood for), and more than a little dykey, actually – almost transboi-ish (look at his hair!). These elements have to be deliberate, I think, especially when you consider how well his name suggests these sort of themes as well – ‘Quentin’ is real spod-who-gets-kicked-in-the-playground stuff, his surname is almost ‘queer’. QQ’s look also reminds me of Grant Morrison’s predictions for fashion around the time of the Invisibles – that everything was going to get tighter and more repressed… It’s just perfect, really.

I like the suggestion that Xavier may be a bit out of touch with mutant youth culture: it stands to reason that there are kids into thinkers/artists who he’s never even heard of, kids who probably think Magneto is an irrevelant (not to mention dead) old fart as well. Also good is the way that Quentin’s class aren’t all that impressed with his weirdo theories and confrontational grand-standing distracting them from, specifically, more red-blooded pursuits. I wonder what he makes of Beast’s experiments with language, species and gender?

Strung Out On Heaven’s High

The commentary for the songs on David Bowie’s new greatest hits package that are up on David Bowie.com are kind of charming in how incredibly audacious and contentious they’re willing to be. I especially love the commentary for “Ashes To Ashes”:

Arguably the most perfect pop record ever released (though a devil to nail live), this catchy, haunting, and beautiful song, with its peculiar beat, boasts the finest video ever made, with Bowie as Pierrot, madman and the astronaut, three potent symbols of alienation, the queasiness of the music and the song’s singalong denouement making for nursery-rhyme pop music, New Romantic-style.

(They went a little crazy with the commas in there – don’t they have anyone proofreading this stuff? Run-on sentences are one of the easier grammatical errors to catch, I’d imagine.)

I’m also fond of the commentary for “I’m Afraid Of Americans”, which wistfully notes that the song should be an anthem for all anti-globalization protestors. But it’s not. Maybe they’re all too busy singing along to “Changes”, which they declare “the greatest pop anthem ever recorded”.

What I Learned This Weekend:

That I’m never going anywhere for an extended period of time without a book or two ever again.

Download These Songs (If You Can)

Sonic Youth “I Know There’s An Answer”. Unreleased Beach Boys cover, Lee Ranaldo on lead vocals, very enjoyable. [WRONG! Vic Funk corrects me: It’s not unreleased; it’s from the “Smiles, Vibes and Harmonies: A Tribute to the Beach Boys” LP.] This song was recorded at some point in between the Goo and Dirty sessions, and may appear on the upcoming Dirty reissue.

Pavement “Nothing Ever Happens”. From the new Pavement Slanted And Enchanted Luxe + Redux set. The credits say that this song was recorded during the S+E sessions and remixed in 2002, but it sounds suspiciously new to my ears, like a Preston School Of Industry song built on the “Wounded Kite” riff, with Malkmus on backing vocals. If nothing, I suspect that perhaps part of mixing the song involved Spiral recording a new vocal take. Nevertheless, a good song and worth checking out if you’re not planning on buying the reissue.

Bono and the Million Dollar Hotel Band “Jump Start My Heart” – One of the most pleasant and charmingly off-center songs I’ve ever heard Bono sing. The vocals are faux-soul Bono (think: the majority of Rattle And Hum, “In A Little While”, “The Sweetest Thing”), the music is muted and minimal (think: The Passengers LP, the production on some of Achtung Baby, especially “Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World”). It works very well, I can’t even begin to understand why it was never released since virtually everything on the Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack album is bloodless and awful. Are we to believe that “Stateless” or songs with Milla Jonavich on vocals are better than this? Please.

Scarce “All Sideways” – The sole great song of a rather obscure Rhode Island band from the early 90s. They were clearly influenced by the Pixies, but unlike most bands who knock off the Pixies, they are one of the few that ran with the “deranged-sounding male singer with somewhat ethereal female foil” formula. Very good song, some strong guitar playing, too. For more about Scarce, go here.

Baader Meinhof “Baader Meinhof, version 2”. From the album, Baader Meinhof, no less. It’s a concept album about terrorism by Luke Haines, and the song in particular is a dark little folk-pop number with a great recurring evil keyboard riff. Pretty much everything about this song is wonderful, and the record itself is pretty good too.

Also, a friend of mine gave me a copy of a cd with Lil Wayne rhyming over the backing tracks of other people’s hits – Jay-Z’s “Girls Girls Girls”, Raekwon’s “Incarcerated Scarfaces”, some other songs. Most of them are terrible, but their version of “Pass The Courvosier” is pretty good, even if Lil Wayne and his friends are abysmal MCs. I have no idea how this song may be labelled or titled, it’s a bootleg being circulated by Lil Wayne’s people, but keep a look out for it. It’s worth checking out.

Like A Party That’s Over Before It’s Begun

I experienced entertainment saturation yesterday – I saw two films (Secretary and Bowling For Columbine), bought five comics, saw Sleater-Kinney and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and listened quite attentively to a lot of music while on the train. I’m still digesting it all right now, so I might put off writing about the movies for a bit, especially Bowling For Columbine.

The S-K/YYY show was okay, nothing too exciting. A girl named Mirah opened up, she did a pleasant but not particularly memorable solo set of diary-entry folk pop. She was amiable, had a nice voice, and played decent non-strummy guitar, but her songs all sounded the same. I don’t feel compelled to ever hear Mirah again, but I didn’t mind sitting through her set.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were a mixed bag – they played “Maps” and “Y-Control”, which made me very happy, but they didn’t play “Mystery Girl” or “Our Time”, which annoyed me. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that those are the two best songs off of their EP, what were they thinking? Sometimes I just don’t understand some bands. They did play “Art Star”, which is an extremely obnoxious novelty song, and a few of the new songs they played just aren’t very good. I already knew a few of them from their WMFU session – there’s no convincing me that “Machine” and “Tick” are good songs. They’re just not. I wish that they were more consistent, because when they are good, they’re very good. I can’t say I’m big on Karen O’s live shtick, by the way. It’s charming here and there, but she’s mostly just preening and mugging. It’s tiresome.

I wish I could’ve stayed through the whole Sleater-Kinney show, but I had to leave about halfway through to catch my train. They were playing a fairly surprising set, peforming one of my all-time favorites “Burn, Don’t Freeze” early on, which for me was enough to justify the price of admission. I was also quite happy to hear “Oh!” from One Beat, and a particularly good version of “Turn It On”. It seems I jinxed myself the other day, because all three songs I mentioned that I did not want to hear were played while I was there. It wasn’t that bad, but I can name about 30 Sleater-Kinney songs I would have rather heard. Oh – if you were at this show, and they happened to have played “Hot Rock” after I left, please don’t write and tell me, alright? Ignorance is blissful.

This is what they played up til I left – Far Away / Oh! / O2 / #1 Must Have / Burn, Don’t Freeze / One Beat / Turn It On / The Remainder / Youth Decay / Light Rail Coyote / You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun

Only One More Non-Frank Issue To Go…

One of the comics I bought yesterday was New X-Men #133. Odd issue, I think. I can’t help but feel that this and the past few issues have been intentionally treading water til Frank Quitely comes back in December, biding time planting some important things that will become more significant later on. Some of it is just boring me, though – surely I’m not alone in finding the whole Fantomex/Weapon Plus thing not compelling in the least?

I’m getting very tired of seeing the bargain basement 90s reject characters trotted out as part of the X-Corporation, it seems like a blatant concession to the fanboy element, and they are little more than the X-equivalent of those guys in the red shirts on Star Trek. Wasn’t part of the idea behind pushing the franchise foward getting rid of all the dead weight characters? I feel sort of cheated, cos we haven’t seen most of the cast since May, with the exception of #131. I miss Henry and Xorn. I miss Scott and Emma. I am bored with Jean and Charles. Wolverine is even more boring – all of his scenes in this issue are typical Wolverine formula. Zzzzz.

I thought the whole Lilandra-tries-to-assassinate-Charles scene to be a bit much, and it just kind of came from nowhere. I know Grant wanted to shoehorn the Shi’ar into the issue for that last page, but surely it could’ve been handled a bit better than that. Since the letter column says next issue is the “prelude” to Riot At Xavier’s, maybe we can look foward to having the plot move foward a bit more next month. This is getting really tedious. I expect better from Grant Morrison.

They Don’t Love You Like I Love You

If you’ve got access to a filesharing network, I recommend seeking out the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ songs “Maps” and “Y-Control”, both of which they recorded for a recent Peel Session. Both songs took me by surprise, because I wasn’t expecting much from the band. I had sort of written them off prematurely as a one-hit wonder band, and this proves that they can write solid music that can be geniunely emotional rather than just the sort of glib party rock on their EP. The songs also reveal who the real star of the band is – it’s not Karen O, but the guitarist Nick Zinner, who kind of marries the aesthetics of early 80s U2 and Dirty Of Luck-era Helium. “Maps” also reminds me of post-Slanted & Enchanted, pre-Crooked Rain Pavement. There’s a recurring bit of harmonics in “Maps” that sounds a little like the intro to “Texas Never Whispers” from the Watery, Domestic EP. I can’t imagine the Yeah Yeah Yeahs lasting for more than a couple more years, but I forsee a bright future for Zinner. He’s got style for miles and miles.

I’m seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs tomorrow night, they’re opening up for Sleater-Kinney. As of this writing, I have almost no enthusiasm for seeing Sleater-Kinney at all, but I’m mildly excited about the YYY set. It’s nothing against Sleater-Kinney, but they’re just about the last band I feel like seeing right now, though hopefully that will change by tomorrow evening. My interest in the One Beat songs has worn off quite a bit, and so I’m not exactly thrilled by the notion of sitting through the more tedious songs on that record, especially “Far Away”, “The Remainder”, and “O2”. I hope that the request-a-song survey on their website yielded a lot of response for the Hot Rock songs – that would be a nice surprise.

I’m Not The Man They Think I Am At Home, Oh No, No, No.

Also worth checking out is the cover version of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” that was recorded by a group of musicians assembled by The Mekon’s John Langford for This American Life. Landford found each musician through the classifieds, in an experiment to see if a real workable band could be created just by looking at one week’s listings. It went surprisingly well, in spite of the intentionally eclectic mix of musicians – a soul singer, an indie-punk drummer, an eccentric theramin player, a Christian rock guitarist, and an electric violin player who’s just started attending anger management classes. The song comes together in a very interesting way – the drummer and tablas players place a much stronger emphasis on rhythm than in the original, which compliments the reverb-heavy guitar nicely. It’s the violin and theramin that steal the show, though – it’s enough to make me wish that there were more songs in the world that paired those two instruments. To hear the radio segment, you can listen to the show in real audio here. (Advance to the 22 minute mark.)

…We Sure Do Need Him Now

I’ve been meaning to mention how much I love Harpers Bizarre’s version of “If We Ever Needed The Lord Before”, but I haven’t really had the words. I still don’t, but if you can find yourself a copy, I hope that it makes you feel as warm and happy as it makes me feel every time I hear it. There’s just something about it, it’s a wonderful recording. I especially recommend it for fans of the Beach Boys.

“And So We Return And Begin Again”

Those are the first words of the first page of the first issue of The Invisibles. It certainly suggests that Grant Morrison built The Invisibles to be a work that would only gain from repeated readings, that the whole series was stuctured so that the ending segues nicely into beginning, like a moebius strip in story form. The first storyline reads so much differently now than when I read it as a teenager, when it was originally published. Now that I understand the significance of all of the minor characters, the tossed off references, the themes and motifs that would become more significant and pronounced later on, it’s obvious to me how rich and well thought out it all is. It’s a very solid start, I remember loving the first storyline then, and it has aged very well. Being a bit older and more well-read certainly has helped improve my enjoyment of it all, no doubt.

By the way, there’s no way I’m doing this in one week. I’m too busy this week, I’m lucky if I get through Apocalipstick by Sunday at this rate. It’s no big deal, though.

Notes:

* Steve Yeowell is tremendously underrated. His illustration style is very pleasing, all soft lines and just the right amount of detail. He’s very natural and fluid, and has a knack for storytelling and capturing body language. I’m particularly fond of the way he draws buildings and cars. I’m not sure if there may be any subtext in it, but there are a lot of grid designs throughout Down And Out In Heaven And Hell – brick walls, pavement, skyscrapers. There seems to be a real emphasis on it, at least in terms of design. It’s effective – by the time we get to the scene with Dane playing frisbee with Tom in the meadow, the sense of open space is palpable, I can almost taste the clean fresh air and the diminished tension between the characters.

* The scenes with Dane at school with the man who we later find out is Mr. Six are very well done. It reminds me of a low budget tv movie, sort of. In a good way. Mr. Six looks like an aging 60s relic in the worst way, contrasting nicely with the flashy, glamorous 60s relic that we see later on in the series. At this point in the series he’s pretty much the archtype of the ‘concerned teacher who wants to help’, who is essentially a good guy in spite of thinking the only answer to Dane’s problems is for him to straighten up and work within the system. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t want to admit to himself that he too shares Mr. Gelt’s ideas about conformity and structure, as outlined in Gelt’s speach upon Dane’s arrival at Harmony House. I like Mr. Six a lot, he’s a very likeable character, especially later on.

* The scene with John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe in Liverpool is very enjoyable and funny, and one of the few places I’ve ever seen Sutcliffe shown as a down to earth guy who made a wise decision by not staying with the Beatles. When Lennon appears as King Mob’s godhead later on, it is mostly lost on me – it’s a graphically beautiful scene, and I get the Beatles in-jokes, but I’m generally sort of lost on the parts of the series that focus on drugs and/or spirituality. It doesn’t have much resonance for me, really. I suppose I agree with King Mob, though – “I like the idea of a psychedelic god.”

* The scene with the fat, naked Gelt kneeling down to “lick the filth from the fingers” of the Arcon is very disturbing. Yeowell did an especially good job of rendering Gelt. The Arcon looks a lot like a few different creatures from Grant’s Doom Patrol mixed together, though I’m certain that was very intentional.

* Ragged Robin doesn’t seem quite right in series one – it seems that maybe Grant didn’t really know how to write her properly til the second series began, and she became the focus of the second volume. Her ‘voice’ seem all wrong to me. Maybe I’m just missing or forgetting something…

Invisible College Homework

I’ve decided to do a little project this week…I’m going to re-read the entire Invisibles series in sequential order, and I’ll be logging my thoughts and observations here as I go along. I’ve already started on the first storyline of Series 1, Book 1 (Say You Want A Revolution), “Down And Out In Heaven And Hell”. I’m very fond of that story, but getting through the remainder of volume one might be a bit tough. Nearly all of Apocalipstick has bored the hell out of me each time I’ve gone through it, and even though things pick up a bit in Entropy in the UK, there was a damn good reason why I quit buying the series when it was originally published after the first volume ended. Of course, in retrospect, that was very silly of me – volumes two and three are where the story gets moving, and that’s in no small part due to the replacement of the dull, bland Jill Thompson with the more stylish and technically skilled Phil Jiminez. So… notes on Say You Want A Revolution shall follow shortly. But in the meantime…

Hit Hit New Release Rhyme Rhyme All The Time

U-God “Wildstyle Superfreak”

I have no idea where this song is from. I’m guessing that it is a single. I wouldn’t even have known about it were it not for Nikon Driver’s recommendation. This is damn great, easily the best solo U-God record I’ve heard by quite some distance. As evidenced by his performances on The W and Iron Flag, U-God is the only Wu Clansman who appears to be still working on changing and evolving his style while the rest of them seem to have found their particular niches. U-God’s style is very distinct, he does that…um…thing with his voice, a vocal style which I can at best awkwardly describe as ‘side to side’. He reminds me of a boxer, for some reason – maybe it’s because on one Wu track he convincingly quotes Mohammed Ali’s “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” line, and it’s stuck in my mind. He’s great at just firing off images, he’s more into being rhythmic rather than going for rhymes, and it has a very unique effect that I think people tend to underrate and/or overlook. It’s understandable, lord knows I tended to tune him out while paying more attention to Ghostface, Method Man, GZA, RZA, and Raekwon in the past.

As for the song – the beat is very strong, I’m especially fond of the bongos and the occasional isolated piano chord and bass note that recur in the track. U-God’s creepy repeated whispering of the word “freak” over the chorus is a nice touch, and his guest MCs, none of which I can positively ID though one sounds a lot like Inspectah Deck though I’m not confident about it. Click here for an audio clip of the song. It’s too bad this track wasn’t saved for the next full Wu album, all told. This song is too good to be obscure.

Es precioso, es melancólico, es genuino.

Wednesday’s Beck post, en espanol, courtesy of Miguel.

All I Know Is I Got No Money, And That’s Got Something To Do With A Good Time

I will rationalize paying the frankly ridiculous Ticketmaster service fee that I paid on top of the cost of my Sonic Youth ticket this way: when I saw them over the summer, it was for free and it was wonderful. It was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. This charge in some way retroactively pays for that show. Of course, I’m just deluding myself. I guess maybe I can just think of the fact that surely Ticketmaster has some nice person working for them who really needs cash, they’re working hard to support their family. I can imagine that money going to them. It’s just as well. I’m very excited to be seeing Sonic Youth again. I’ve even marked my calendar, geek that I am. I hope they play “Skip Tracer” this time around. Or “Expressway To Yr Skull”. Or “Silver Rocket”. I’m seeing the first of two shows at Irving Plaza, so knowing my usual luck, I can expect to see those songs in the setlist for the second night, right? Again, it’s just as well.

Feel The Wrath Of His Bombast

Yeah, Mark. It’s a real SHOCK that Paul Levitz wouldn’t answer those questions. When I think of the name Millar henceforth, surely the first thing that shall spring to mind is ‘tact’. And definitely not ‘self-serving’.

Three People Asking Doesn’t Make It ‘Popular Demand’, But Let’s Do It Anyway…

Here’s some recommended songs to download, with no explanations.

John Cale “Hello, There”

Soft Cell “Tainted Dub” (Be careful – there’s another version out there that’s lame techno. You want the dub version of the hit “Tainted Love”. You can listen to real audio of this version here, thanks to WFMU’s Advanced D&D program.)

The Kills “Wait”

Lou Reed “Andy’s Chest”

Bjork “Possibly Maybe” (acoustic string version from the new Family Tree box set)

Polvo “Lazy Comet”

Har Mar Superstar “Cry 4 Help”

Erick Sermon and Redman “React”

Jay-Z and Beyonce Knowles “’03 Bonnie and Clyde”

Boredoms “7”

We Don’t Have To Talk At All

I’m listening to a recording of Beck playing “Ramshackle” live on the television program Sessions At West 54th back when he was touring for Odelay. It reminds me that yes, I don’t have a problem with Beck’s folky side, that’s not my problem with Sea Change. Even more so than on Odelay, this version of “Ramshackle” has this lovely grace to it, and doesn’t chuck melody out of the equation when acoustic guitars and naked emotion are two major components of the song. It’s gorgeous, it’s melancholy, it’s geniune. It’s one of his finest tunes.

I’ve been checking here and there to make sure that my judgement of Sea Change is accurate, and it seems that the more I hear the record, the more I dislike it. “Paper Tiger” is a keeper, but when compared to even the mediocre cuts on Odelay and Midnite Vultures, it just doesn’t hold up no matter how pretty the string section is. I can’t recall where I read it, but Beck said something recently to the effect of that he has more upbeat material recorded and stockpiled, but he’s not sure when to release it, or if that sort of thing is still ‘relevant’. Revelant. Bah. As if it really matters all that much whether or not something is part of some imagined zeitgeist. As if only acoustic-leaning music can side-step that and be timeless by default. Please, Mr. Hansen: melodic, catchy songs are ALWAYS worthwhile. Boring, self-indulgent dirges seldom are. Please, please, please – if you’ve got some catchy songs, please give them to us, regardless of what critics might think. I’m taking a hardline stance on this issue: big pop ironic showman Beck is the best Beck. Bring him back to us.

“Sorry. I Intend On Getting Drunk And Writing Impenetrable Prose.”

Myles from X-Statix is probably my favorite character in comics currently being published. Well, it’s either him, or Henry McCoy from New X-Men, who like Myles is a furry animal man, an insecure intellectual who may or may not be gay, and severely depressed. The best scene of last week’s X-Statix #3 was the one in which a miserable, drunken Myles stumbles through his library, contemplating whether or not his love for Phat is genuine or truly a cynical ploy for attention. He tries to rationalize it – are he and Billy Bob in a state of “gay-slash-not-gay”, like “multi-sexual cats in Schrodinger’s box?” He thinks about how his teammates are in similarly contrived conflicts with one another, and begins to wonder if they are subconciously allowing themselves to sacrifice their free will and go along with these scripted conflicts to keep things interesting. After all, as Tike declares later on in the issue, they aren’t real superheroes. They’re entertainers. So, are they being scripted, like entertainers? Is it all just Doop playing the puppet master? Yes. Of course. But then what? How do reality tv people adjust when the edited-for-broadcast, engineered-for-conflict semi-fictional parts of their lives end, the season’s over, and they have to go back to being regular people again? Is it as simple as riding that fame out, milking it like Tike and Dead Girl? Do you try to go home again after becoming someone else, like Billy Bob? Do you try to prove yourself like Guy, to try to regain self-respect? It’s all a bunch of question marks at this point in the series, and it seems unlikely that Peter Milligan will try to answer any of them, but rather to just pile up more questions for his audience to ponder. X-Statix is quality stuff. You should read it.

Kicking, Squeeling, Scenester Little Piggy

Ugh. It’s been a while since I’ve read such an utterly contemptable quote that isn’t attributed to a member of the Bush administration.

From New York Metro:

“Brooklyn is a gold mine,” declares helium-voiced club promoter Larry Tee while standing in a studio apartment in the East Village, preparing protégée Melissa Burns for a recording session with her group W.I.T. (Whatever It Takes).

“Have you seen the crowds out there? They’re hot, sexy, fuckable. My God, Manhattan has the ugliest crowds I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s like now bridge and tunnel goes the other way. Manhattan keeps the trash out of my parties.”

What a loathsome, shallow bastard.

Emotions Run Deep As Oceans Exploding

Boom Selection is currently hosting the best new bootleg mix I’ve heard in a few months – a thrashing rock version of Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet”. Hats off to Jack Knife Lee, the remixer, who has accomplished the best you can want from a bootleg version – he’s improved the original by stripping out Dr. Dre’s godawful music and giving the lyrics a much more appropriate accompaniment. The chorus, which sounds limp and mawkish in the original, now sounds as venomous as it clearly should. Of course, making superior bootleg mixes from Eminem tracks is a little too easy since just about anything is an improvement over what Dre puts behind the poor guy. If Eminem should be mad about anything, he should be mad at Dre for making his music sound so damn weak and flimsy.

I Am Overwhelmed. And Ecstatic.

Today is a good day. I’ve recieved a cd-r with many, many hours of old radio broadcasts, including several hours of Bob Lassiter airchecks. It’s amazing, and I’m extremely grateful to the guy who sent it to me. I’ve got the Kennedy/Nixon debate, NYC radio coverage of Hurricane Gloria back in ’85, Neil Rogers airchecks, Art Bell ‘quitting’ radio, several Jean Shephard broadcasts, plus a bunch of bits that I don’t know anything about at all. I’ve got a lot to listen to. This is just fantastic.

The Hurricane Gloria broadcasts are a lot more compelling than you might think – it’s very urgent, it sounds a lot more dangerous and horrible than I remember when I was a kid, but then again, I grew up in the Hudson Valley and not on Long Island. It’s not just hurricane coverage – it includes a lot of news, ie Reagan in peace talks with Russia, lots of advertisements, and general newsradio things. Very cool stuff.

When Your Spirit’s On Trial, These Nights Can Be Frightening

I found the Lee Ranaldo cover “Isolation” on Soulseek, after waiting quite a while for someone to show up with it. This is probably the best vocal performance I’ve heard by Lee, and I already quite like his voice. For those who haven’t heard it, it’s a very faithful version of the song, save for some noise and feedback here and there. It’s just beautiful, and in a time when nothing sounds quite right to my ears, it works for me. It fits just right. I dug up my copy of Plastic Ono Band, and that record is working for me as well. There’s some other things that have been alright for me the past few days – I know I’m going to make some people wince by mentioning that Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellowbrick Road” and a couple Coldplay songs (“Clocks” and “Politik”) are among them. Those two Coldplay songs are very impressive – I never had much time for them before I heard those two songs. Solid stuff, very surprising considering how bland their previous album was, save for the big hit “Yellow”, which I like well enough. I listened to Morrissey’s “The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils” on repeat earlier today, and that fit my mood alright. I’m always amazed by the fact that that song has never been a particularly popular Morrissey/Smiths song. It’s my favorite song the man has ever sung.

Stuck In Isolation…

I promised that I would post every day this week, but I really have very little to say today without going into personal things. I haven’t been listening to as much music, because nothing quite sounds quite right lately. I mostly spend free time listening to old episodes of This American Life, and that seems to make me more happy than just about anything else.

Actually, I did find a really great song today – via Scott Williams’ show on WFMU, I heard a fantastic cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation” by Lee Ranaldo. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been easy finding it on SoulSeek…

How Often Do You See A Hundred-Foot Tall Robot Having A Crisis Of Confidence?

Haus has written the most interesting thing I’ve ever read on the topic of the Transformers. This was originally part of his “Barbe-interview” thread on Barbelith. This is the closest I’ve come to having even the slightest bit of interest in this topic since I was about nine years old.

Also:

Has Jody Beth Rosen cracked the Mixerman code? It seems that way to me.

I’m Turning Into The Frank Quitely of Blogging…

…and so I’m going to challenge myself to post something five consecutive days this week. Starting tomorrow. I’m at a loss right now.

I’ll Try The Things You’ll Never Try

Thank you to Todd for pointing me in the direction of Nickel Creek’s version of Pavement’s “Spit On A Stranger”. It’s a super-glossy pop-bluegrass hybrid, and I like it a lot. I think the squeeky-clean sound really suits the song, I like how they’ve made it so cutesy and square. The harmonies sound lovely, and I like the strangely inhibited distortion towards the end, and how the lead singer really goes for those high notes where SM would just deliberately flatten them out. This is probably my favorite Pavement cover (and I’ve heard a lot of them), because it is the first one I’ve heard that really seems like a tribute to Stephen Malkmus’ incredible gift for pop songcraft and adds something to the song that wasn’t already there. I hope this becomes a hit for Nickel Creek, because this song really deserves to be a hit, and because Malkmus deserves those fat royalty checks.

Happy Birthday, Russ

Exactly what it says above: Happy birthday, Russ.