Things I'd Rather Be Doing

Bored to Death week 7: Stability

2009-11-02T11:48:00.000-06:00

With the penultimate episode of "Bored to Death"'s debut season, the show seems to have reached a nice equilibrium, with the characters and premise established. That makes it easier to watch, but it means challenges for next season (HBO picked it up for a second year weeks ago). How to keep it fresh, particularly as Jonathan and his ex grow further apart and the foibles that caused trouble this season have faded?

In this episode, Jonathan's case hits close to home: It seems the lesbians that had been getting Ray's sperm in the hopes of having a baby have actually been selling it to other lesbian couples. Jonathan and Ray stumble on this after Ray gets worried over the lack of contact from the couple. The search leads the two into some interesting scenes, including one with a food co-op girl who smokes pot with them in exchange for sharing information, an encounter with Hasidic Jews and another with Jonathan's ex.

George takes a back seat for much of the show, but it closes strong, with a proposed boxing match between George and his magazine publishing nemesis (played by Oliver Platt). Jonathan and a book critic who savaged his first novel (played by John Hodgman) want to get in on it as well. The challenge was a cliffhanger, which will lead to the big match this Sunday.

Jonathan's writing is discussed briefly. He has one sentence written (that he doesn't like) when Ray asks him to help find the lesbians. He also discusses the book with his agent, who sheds more light on the fact that it is a "comedy about one man's journey through the Kama Sutra."

This week's stunt casting was Samantha Bee from "The Daily Show," who played one of the lesbians.

Best lines:

Food co-op girl to Jonathan: "I just ordered this vaporizer called the Volcano. They use it on cancer patients in Germany. It's very healthy. It's what Woody Harrelson uses."

Jonathan to his ex, who was walking a new dog: "You replaced me with a little white dog named Phillip? But you could have held on to me. I'm not neutered. I don't beg for food. I don't need to be walked."

Dylan bests Sting in Christmas album battle

2009-10-29T10:26:00.002-05:00

Two giants took the unusual step of releasing Christmas albums this fall, and the surprise is who did it better. Was it the sentimental fool with a sweet pop croon who knows his way around traditional music, or the craggy voiced Jew whose music seems to eschew sentiment?

Surprise! In the battle of superstar Christmas albums, it's no contest: Bob Dylan bests Sting.

The intent of these two discs is different. Dylan surely hopes his disc will bring Christmas cheer, while Sting probably imagines his ideal listener in front of the hearth of a stone castle's main room sipping a glass of port. Each artist includes 15 songs, and one need look no further than the tracklistings to tell the difference. Dylan includes "Here Comes Santa Claus," "Winter Wonderland" and "Silver Bells," while Sting's tunes come from the likes of Praetorius, Schubert and Bach.

If Sting is good for anything these days, it's subverting expectations. Solo career tailing off? Cut an album of ancient lute music. Making inroads as a classical artist? Reunite the Police. Fans eager to hear the next thing from that still vital band? Go back to classical music and make the world's first completely joyless Christmas album.

Sting was sliding down a slippery slope toward irrelevance when he decided to reunite the Police. It was his most purely commercial and calculated move of the last two decades. After that triumphant return, he could have done just about anything. Fans would have loved to see the Police go into the studio, but there was little chance of that. A big rock album from Sting was a possibility, or at least a return to the airy pop he was making in the early 1990s. Instead, he returned to the contemplative, mannered music he was making before the reunion. The result, If On a Winter's Night..., is an impressive collection of music both new and old (mostly old), but as a Christmas album, it's a complete dud.

Even those of us who cringe at any bit of treacle in our music can at least tolerate a bit of goodwill and cheer (and sappiness) when it comes to Christmas music. Sting takes the opposite tack, however, offering the perfect soundtrack for the ascetic atheist winter carnival of one. It is at times beautiful, but it doesn't seem to have a place.

Bob Dylan's Christmas in the Heart, meanwhile, is the sign of an artist who gets it. No one expected this from Dylan, of course, particularly given the creative hot streak he has been on over the past decade-plus. But, like Sting, Dylan is one who seems to revel in subverting expectations.

Perhaps it is the charitable intent behind the disc (all proceeds go to charity) that steered Dylan in the right direction, or, more likely, it is simply his affection for classic songs. Whatever the cause, he offers spirited and silly takes on some of the best-known (and best-loved) carols. His jaunty performance fits well with the material. The swooning strings and jingle-ready backing singers are a bit much, but Dylan clearly had a vision here, and he executes it to the fullest.

Bored to Death week 6: Backstory

2009-10-26T14:36:00.002-05:00

Week 6 of "Bored to Death" felt like it should have come much earlier in the season thanks to the significant backstory dropped into the plot. it was funny, again focusing most of its attention on George and Ray, allowing the two to interact for the first time as they were brought together on one of Jonathan's cases.

It begins promising, with Ray pulling up outside a diner in his Subaru Outback, discharging passenger Jonathan, who emerges in a trench coat and sunglasses. He enters the diner to some pleasingly "Shaft"-like music, setting a nice tone... that is essentially dropped for the rest of the episode. The case: a nebbish cheated with a woman who videotaped the session and is now blackmailing him. Jonathan promises to get the tapes.

We get the most extensive look yet at the offices of EditionNY, the magazine edited by George for which Jonathan freelances. He stops in to pick up a galley of a new Paul Auster novel (yet another nod to the quintessential New Yorkness of the show), and finds George lamenting an invitation to a party for Gay Talese. Jonathan declines an invitation to join him, telling George about his case (George being the last core character to be let in on the secret). He tells George he has set up a sting by posing as a married man looking for a rendezvous with the woman, and George, the character most "bored to death" in the show, asks to tag along. He and Ray talk shop and smoke pot while waiting in the car for Jonathan, missing all of the action. They fill each other in on their respectively lives, giving viewers more backstory in the process.

Things go wrong, of course, and Jonathan ends up at the blackmailer's house, confronting her and her brother. Left weaponless but wanting to help, Ray arms himself with a snow brush, while George grabs a toy stick horse named Janet from Ray's backseat. The image of Ted Danson as George running toward the house, cocking the horse like a rifle, is priceless.

As has been the case with most of Jonathan's other encounters, the "bad guys" here are just trying to do the right thing but have taken a wrong step in trying to make that happen. That fits with Jonathan's M.O. -- despite his sometimes selfish nature, he is really just a misguided misfit whose attempts to do right are foiled by his own foibles. That, of course, undercuts the so-called "noir" in the show, but the sweetness, in its own way, redeems the show, too.

By the way, this week's stunt casting was Patton Oswalt as the manager of a spy stuff store.

Best lines:

George, when told Ray will drive asks, "Is it a good car?" Ray responds, "it's a Subaru." George then asks Jonathan as they walk away, "What's a Subaru?"

Ray: "There's nothing wrong with failure. I do it all the time."

Mark Strand reads, discusses poetry

2009-10-23T14:13:00.005-05:00

One of the benefits of living in Iowa City is that you get to hear a lot of your favorite authors read and discuss their work. Such was the case last night and today as I heard my favorite poet, Mark Strand, read from his work and then sit for an intimate Q&A about writing.

Strand is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, so he visits from time to time. It has been several years, however, since his last visit (in support of Blizzard of One, if I recall), so it was good to see him again.

The former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner began with a poem he wrote while a UI student in the early 1960s, "Sleeping with One Eye Open." From there, he jumped around, concentrating mainly on his most recent collection, Man and Camel. He pulled out a few older gems, such as "The Story of Our Lives" from the collection of the same name, and "Two De Chiricos: 1. The Philosopher's Conquest and 2. The Disquieting Muses" from Blizzard of One.

He was witty as always. After reading a handful of poems, he said he wished he had more to say about them, such as that they were true and autobiographical. They are not, he added, before saying that some were true, but were not autobiographical. He then read, "I Had Been a Polar Explorer" from Man and Camel. "I don't want to give you the wrong idea," he said. He obviously had never been a polar explorer, but rather read the title line in something by Kafka followed by ellipses, something that begged for completion, he said.

Discussing the poems about De Chirico's work, he said "The Disquieting Muses" was the better poem because it was the better of the two paintings.

He read two new poems, one, "Black Fly," so new that he hadn't settled on a title. The other, "The Golden Frogs of Panama," appeared just two months ago in the New York Review of Books. It was written in response to an article in the New Yorker about the disappearance of golden frogs due to climate change. Strand said he doesn't typically write in response to things going on in the world, and hasn't since Vietnam. After reading the poem, he shared that it is a sonnet, the first one he has saved after throwing several others away.

Today, Strand answered questions from a small group gathered at the Writer's Workshop building. The questioners seemed timid at times, and Strand filled the silences with thoughts that were as engaging as the responses to the original questions. Asked who he reads, he said he hasn't seriously read new poetry since editing the 1991 Best American Poetry anthology. "I don't look back to see who is catching up," he said. adding that he looks ahead at the generation before him. He then acknowledged that he is among the last of the generation that younger poets are looking ahead to see.

He is working on two books. One is a memoir about his parents, mainly about his father, that delves into the false story his father told about his upbringing. His father told a young Strand that both of his grandparents had already died, but they hadn't, for example. His tales were told to cover the fact that he had spent time at San Quentin Penitentiary. His second is to be called 100 Autobiographies, which he said will include 100 short "autobiographies" of "me and the me i wish I was."

Bored to Death week 5: Back on track

2009-10-19T15:21:00.003-05:00

This is more like it. After a disappointing fourth episode, "Bored to Death" is back on track with a funny episode that offers the fullest exploration to date of the possibilities of Jonathan as an amateur sleuth.

Things are more promising right from the fade in as the story begins with some cloak-and-dagger intrigue as Jonathan meets a mysterious Russian by "The Prison Ship Martyr's Monument," complete with code words to assure identities (which Jonathan of course bungles).

The man asks Jonathan to find a woman he was with only once... before he was sent off to prison. The woman, Irina the Lonely Dove, sings at a Russian nightclub. The search, for a change, is the main story of the episode, and it allows Jonathan to draw Ray and the two men's girlfriends (or in Jonathan's case, ex-girlfriend) into the story. That leaves poor Ted Danson's George out in the cold in terms of screen time, but his short story line is perhaps the richest of the show. The upshot is that for the first time, Jonathan doesn't feel like a bit player in his own series.

That said, there is little detective work here; he goes where the Russian tells him to and finds the girl almost immediately. The fun here is in the immersion into a different culture and the unintended consequences for the two couples.

George, however, steals the show. His magazine's readership numbers are dropping, and they are losing women at a fast clip. His therapist suggests that he try bisexuality to get in touch with his feminine side, so he decides to give it a shot. He calls a male escort, and finds that he has quite a bit in common with the guy... except for their attraction to men, it seems. It gives Danson yet another showcase for his talents. Though he is the catalyst for this show, I'd rather see him on a show of his own. His work here and on past seasons of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" prove he is better by far than "Becker."

One note, the Russian songbird is Branka Katic, who also played Bill's Russian girlfriend-almost fourth wife on HBO's "Big Love."

Best lines:

Jonathan (to George after the latter tells him of his bisexuality plan): "But if you experiment with bisexuality, it'll just make you more gay, not necessarily more feminine."

Ray (to Jonathan after the latter complains of a big hangover): "You've got to write something. I do my best work hungover. I have less brain cells to confuse the issue."

'Bored to Death' week 4: Or should I say, 'weak'

2009-10-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

Last night's "Bored to Death" was the weakest of the bunch so far, really nothing more than an extended joke about skateboard punks and an excuse to get a couple of costars on the screen. While things returned to the struggling-writer-as-PI theme, I would have willingly traded that for a story that didn't feel like it ran out rather than ended.

Jonathan's case is to find a missing skateboard. It was stolen from the 9-year-old son of Parker Posey's radical vegan single mom. Jonathan is put onto the case by Ray's girlfriend, who mentions it amid a rather tense visit from the lesbian couple that wants Ray's sperm for an artificial insemination. (see last week's wrap-up for details). This scene, which yields a few laughs at Ray's expense, proves that the characters around Jonathan provide much more satisfaction than the star of the show.

Jonathan falls for Posey and decides to take the case for free. He must pursue an "alpha male" 16-year-old who stole the skateboard from Posey's kid. That's it. He asks around, finds the kid, is rebuffed and then conspires with Ray to steal the skateboard. Jonathan's best scene follows, as he sits on the skateboard to ride it down a hill, the skateboard kids in pursuit. The scene is reminiscent, coincidentally enough, of the Hummer ad that was inspired by "Rushmore."

Meanwhile, Jonathan's boss, the magazine editor George, falls for a young woman because he has developed an obsession with the female armpit. He tells Jonathan he saw the blonde hairs of an organic-restaurant owner glowing in the sunlight, and he was hooked. He and Jonathan go to the restaurant for an event. George is so worried about fitting in with the young crowd that he dons a beret. Luckily, Jonathan nixes that idea. They get to the restaurant and the main joke is that the girl's armpits are filled with a thick thatch of hair. Things come full circle, however, as the skateboard kids find Jonathan and ruin the event.

Jonathan returns the skateboard, but is of course rebuffed by Posey. Jonathan can't find love four episodes into the season, and Posey wouldn't do more than one cameo, so that was a given.

One more cameo that seems as if it has legs: Bebe Neuwirth, Ted Danson's "Cheers" castmate, appears as Jonathan's editor or agent. We learn for the first time that Jonathan's long-gestating second novel is a "Kama Sutra novel" and he's not very far along.

The whole thing felt incomplete, more like a handful of disparate scenes than a coherent narrative.

Best lines

Ray (talking about his girlfriend's kids): "Those kids call me fat and hairy. They could stand to lose a few pounds themselves."

George, (after smoking pot with Jonathan): "Are we too stoned? My feet feel really interesting in my shoes."

Jonathan (to Posey's radical vegan): "In my heart I'm a vegan, but in my mouth I lack discipline."

Mojo Nixon makes catalog available for free

2009-10-06T14:45:00.004-05:00

I'm listening to Mojo Nixon for the first time in probably 20 years, and I have come to one conclusion: A little Mojo can be an amusing, exhilirating listen, and a little Mojo goes a long, long way.

The reason for this blast from the past? Nixon is making eight of his albums available for free download on Amazon.com. On offer are six studio albums, one rarities collection, one live show, one best-of and a new disc. All free. The new disc is Whiskey Rebellion, "a variety of songs left off of previous albums, songs from movie soundtracks and television shows, sports themes, alternative versions of previously released songs and demos." That's a strange way to relaunch a career, but then again, who even knew Nixon has been in retirement (can you still call it that when its a factor of people no longer requiring your services?).

I never owned any Mojo Nixon albums, but it was hard to avoid him for a while. He was near-ubiquitous on MTV, and songs like "Elvis is Everywhere" are simply a part of our popular culture. The one song I did have was "Burn Down the Malls," on an Enigma Records compilation. That seemed sufficient for me, but I must admit that the notion of free music was too tempting. I downloaded Unlimited Everything, a sort of best-of of the Skid Roper era. Hearing it now is conjuring false memories, because this is the first time I've heard most of these tracks. They just seem so familiar, perhaps because Nixon is such a singular performer.

“Can’t wait for Washington to fix the economy,” Nixon stated in a press release announcing the deal. “We must take bold action now. If I make the new album free and my entire catalog free it will stimulate the economy. It might even over-stimulate the economy. History has shown than when people listen to my music, money tends to flow to bartenders, race tracks, late night greasy spoons, bail bondsman, go kart tracks, tractor pulls, football games, peep shows and several black market vices. My music causes itches that it usually takes some money to scratch.”

Nixon's music may cause an itch, but it's the kind that usually requires antibiotics to contain. I'm glad there's a Mojo in the world. To be more specific, I'm glad there is one Mojo in the world. That I could get a couple of his tunes for free? That's a bonus.

'Bored to Death' week 3: Bringing the funny

2009-10-05T15:41:00.003-05:00

"Bored to Death" seems to be hitting its stride, and it does so with an episode that makes only glancing mention of Jonathan's private eye work. Instead, this is a showcase for Ray (Zach Galifianakis) and George (Ted Danson).

Though the show is billed as a "noir-otic comedy," I had hoped for more noir than comedy. Sunday, it was all comedy and no noir. While the premise of the show has heart-broken writer Jonathan Ames posting an ad on Craigslist offering his services as a private detective, episode 3 finds Jonathan considering an offer to punch up a script from Jim Jarmusch. In some ways, it felt like a stunt-cast cameo around which the entire episode was written. OK, who am I kidding; that's exactly what it felt like. Still, Jarmusch was suitably Jarmusch-like (his closing scene riding a kid's bike in circles around a vacant loft was so absurd it moved past cheesy and back to funny), and Jonathan's episode-long quest to retrieve a misplaced script led to some of the episode's funniest moments.

To recap, George, Jonathan's magazine editor, takes him to a party to meet Jarmusch. The filmmaker liked Jonathan's first novel, and wants him to work on a screenplay. Jarmusch has one great line, telling Jonathan, "You must really suffer from the terrifying clarity of your vision," and gives Jonathan a script. He misplaces it while making out with an underage Jarmusch fan, who happens to be the daughter of a therapist. Luckily, Ray, Jonathan's best friend and a cartoonist, had promised his girlfriend that in exchange for sex, he would go to therapy. That opens the door for Jonathan to get his script back, but ultimately, he must retrieve it himself.

The scenes with the therapist (Denis O'Hare), both on screen and off, were highlights. He so "eviscerated" Ray at his session that he not only forgot to get the script, but wandered away from the appointment blubbering about needing a long list of comfort items (beer, vodka, comic books, etc.) to cope. Later, when his girlfriend comes to make good on her end of the sex-for-therapy agreement, he tells her he can't. "When I was a little kid, I used to push my penis in to make it look like it disappeared. Today, it happened all by itself."

Meanwhile, the therapist dismisses all of Jonathan's problems (writer's block, etc.) and offers this zinger: "Lives don't change. We simply become more comfortable with our core misery, which is a form of happiness."

I haven't mentioned Jason Schwartzman yet because, while he's on screen nearly the entire time, Jonathan was such a straight man here that he threatened to disappear. Either Schwartzman is just that good, disappearing into the role and the story, or the real Jonathan Ames, who wrote the teleplay, has found it easier to give meaty parts to everyone but his own character.

One last note: An oddly well-timed reference to Roman Polanski by George came when Jonathan said the girl he had made out with was 16: "Polanski was much worse," he says. It is as if Ames knew the director would be back in the news.

Best lines:

Ray (discussing with his girlfriend a request by fans for him to donate sperm: "But it's flattering. They're fans of my work. I've never had lesbian fans before."

Jonathan: Movies equal money, women, glamor, more women.

Jonathan: I wish I would have met you in high school.
Underage girl: I wouldn't have liked you then.
Jonathan: That's true.

George (watching a naked girl walk back to his bedroom): She makes me feel like I'm 50 again.

Another month of music listening

2009-10-01T08:33:00.003-05:00

It was another eclectic month of music listening here in September, with a wider selection and a greater number of discs spun. Starting in August, I decided to keep track of every album I listened to in its entirety. The rules: Only an album heard in its entirety, even if it is spread over several days, will count. Repeat spins, partial listens, EPs, singles and background music don't count. This had to be active listening of a full album. I could listen in the car, at home, at work or even on headphones while mowing the lawn. Every completed album was added to the list.

I listened to 47 albums in August, and 52 in September. As with August, it was easy to pick out some patterns. I paid more attention to new music this month, listening to fresh releases from Jay-Z, Noise Addict, Polvo, Yo La Tengo, the Clean, Lou Barlow, Boston Spaceships, Girls, Track a Tiger, Monsters of Folk, Ben Allison, The Clientele, Flaming Lips and Volcano Choir.

I also got into degrees-of-separation listening. I picked up the new version of Richard Hell's Destiny Street (which didn't count on this list because I listened to it in August), so I listened to the old version for comparison. That led me to an investigation of Robert Quine, which led to a listen to his duo disc with drummer Fred Maher, which led to a spin through Lou Reed's The Blue Mask, which features Quine's guitar. Reading about Big Star (more on that tomorrow) and priming myself for the Keep an Eye on the Sky boxed set led me to listen to a lot of Alex Chilton, while reading the book Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records led me to pull out a lot of old Merge stuff.

How does this compare to your own habits? Do you have the patience for full albums? What sparks you to pick up a disc and give it a spin? Let me know in the comments.

The list:

Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3
Husker Du - Flip Your Wig
Bob Dylan - Together Through Life
Steve Wynn - Sweetness and Light
Richard Hell - Destiny Street
Noise Addict - It Was Never About the Audience
Lou Reed - The Blue Mask
Robert Quine and Fred Maher - Basic
Robert Gordon - Is Red Hot
Ben Neill - Night Science
Gutterball - s/t
Superchunk - Come Pick Me Up
Matt Suggs - Golden Days Before They End
Polvo - In Prism
Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
Soulsavers - Broken
Anders Parker - Skyscraper
Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
The 6ths - Wasp's Nests
The Clean - Mister Pop
Lou Barlow - Goodnight Unknown
Rolling Stones - Between the Buttons
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
Evan Parker/Matthew Shipp - Abbey Road Duos
Emitt Rhodes - Mirror
Superchunk - Foolish
Bill Fay - Time of Last Persecution
Alex Chilton - 1970
Alex Chilton - Bach's Bottom
Emitt Rhodes - Farewell to Paradise
Big Star - Live
Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Cardinal - s/t
The Feelies - the Good Earth
Boston Spaceships - Zero to 99
Girls - Album
The Minus 5 - I Don't Know Who I Am
David Grubbs - Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange
Jim Carroll - World Without Gravity
The Clientele - Bonfires on the Hearth
Track a Tiger - I Felt the Bullet Hit My Heart
Stephen Stills - Manassas
Monsters of Folk - s/t
R.E.M. - Document
R.E.M. - Monster
Ben Allison - Think Free
Jenny Scheinman - s/t
Stefon Harris - African Tarantella
Flaming Lips - Embryonic
Peter Laughner - Take the Guitar Player for a Ride
Volcano Choir - Unmap

Neill's Night Science blends dubstep, jazz

2009-09-30T09:21:00.003-05:00

I came to Ben Neill's Night Science disc with half the knowledge I probably needed to fully understand and appreciate it. I know plenty about jazz and the melding of that sound with electronica (mainly thanks to the groundbreaking work of others through Thirsty Ear's Blue Series), but knew nothing about dubstep. Night Science, however, blends these elements to create something the label describes as "a dubstep masterpiece, a jazz classic, and something altogether unfamiliar."

I still don't know anything about dubstep -- though I can now at least identify the beat when I hear it, a stuttering, click clack that feels like a glitchy dancefloor call to arms -- but I know that Neill blends electronic instrumentation, a jazz feel and that insistent beat to create songs that convey darkness and menace despite their sprightly tempos.

Neill accomplishes this with an instrument called the mutantrumpet, which melds a regular trumpet with electronics. "The new mutantrumpet uses technologies from (a previous version) as well as a new ergonomic design which now includes 8 continuous MIDI controllers and 8 momentary MIDI controllers in addition to the acoustic note and volume control from the instrument’s natural sound. The instrument connects directly to the computer via USB." While I'm a huge fan of acoustic jazz, performers who experiment with electronic instruments and textures within the framework of jazz have long caught my ear.

With Night Science, Neill does just that, perhaps even more organically than most. The ability to alter his electronics with the touch of a finger while playing an admittedly greatly altered instrument allows him to subtly shift the sound in the moment. If there is a knock against electronic-driven jazz, it is its pre-programmed, static nature. Neill avoids that trap here.

That said, I can't point to any one song as say, "This is the one that will hook you." The hooks are few and far between here. This is a mood piece, and while each of the 10 tracks is separate and distinct, it also would succeed as one long, uninterrupted track (in fact, it does when I put it on while at work, allowing it to seep into the subconscious).

So, is this the great "dubstep masterpiece" as advertised? Far be it from me to say. I can say it is a very worthy entry in Thirsty Ear's fantastic Blue Series, a disc that will appeal to open-minded jazz fans and perhaps help pull at the boundaries of what they consider the genre to be.

Monday Interview: Richard Davies

2009-09-28T09:10:00.002-05:00

It seemed for several years as if Richard Davies was going to be another casualty of the music business: A wildly talented performer with a rabid cult of fans but little commercial success, forced to take a day job to make ends meet. No one can fault a guy for wanting to be able to make a living, but the loss to the creative world is a blow.

He left behind as strong a back catalog as any artist recording in the 90s, from the work of his Australian band the Moles to his bliss-inducing (and list-topping) album with Eric Matthews as Cardinal to his more challenging but no less rewarding trio of solo albums.

And then, nothing. Davies, who moved from his native Australia to Massachusetts, earned his law degree, opened his own practice and seemed to put his guitar and four track on the shelf.

Lately, however, it seems as if we Davies fans, the few, the proud, have a lot to giddily anticipate. The first new music from him since 2000's solo album, Barbarians, came in the form of a collaboration with former Guided by Voices leader Robert Pollard. The disc, Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks from Cosmos, found Davies and friends creating song beds over which Pollard sang his own lyrics and melodies. Unlike most such Pollard collaborations, four of the songs includes Davies' vocals, for all intents and purposes solo tracks. It's an album that blends Davies' twin sounds: stripped-down acoustic beauty with more fleshed-out pop (Davies' "Hail Mary" and the Pollard-sung "Nude Metropolis" are two of the best).

Even more exciting was word that Davies and Matthews had come together again after 15 years to work on a follow-up to their self-titled Cardinal debut. The four completed songs, while a bit less majestically produced that the first album, still fulfilled the promise of this long hoped-for re-pairing. Word was that the pair couldn't get along, however (which seems to have been the problem with Cardinal in the first place) and that the project had been shelved. As you'll read below, however, it seems the two realize the fruit of their troubled labors is worth the effort and plan an album in 2010. Keep your fingers crossed.

Finally, a long-gestating fourth solo LP from Davies seems to be in the offing. An album cover for something called Night Music is found on Davies' quasi-official fan site, and Davies reports here that something under his own name also is tentatively due next year.

Add to this the fact that Davies seems to be crawling back into the light via the Internet. He has a more active MySpace presence these days, shares news occasionally via the above-mentioned web site and, most interestingly, has a blog where he shares thoughts, old reviews, correspondence and photos. It all whets the appetite for more music, and finally, it feels like he has the time and inclination to deliver.

TIRBD: After earning critical acclaim with Cardinal, you issued three solo albums and then, for all intents and purposes, vanished from the music landscape. I know you got a law degree and started practicing. Was there a conscious decision, or perhaps a need to leave music behind to focus on law? Did you keep writing and playing even though you weren't necessarily recording or performing?

RD: I was 34 years old, and somehow had managed to ride the music industry from being in a good but unpopular band (the Moles) in Sydney to the point where I owned a house and had a wife and dog. lots of touring at that time and long stretches away from home helped make the decision easy - despite my eccentric music, I have a fairly balanced brain, and I always liked the law, I love my practice. I never stopped writing or recording for my own amusement though.

You have returned with the Cosmos project with Robert Pollard. How did that come about? Does this signal a re-emergence for you musically?

I'd always liked Bob s music and I knew David Newgarden, the guy who manages him, from when I first came to America. Bob and I wrote some letters back and forth and the album grew out of that. I had to take on a different role with Bob, by doing backing tracks for him etc, which was a real challenge and a lot of fun.

It seems like I'll be playing at CMJ with a band made up of a shoegazer-loving bass player and Bob Fay and his buddies the Whyte Kastles, a husband and wife team who specialize in weird soundscapes from Easthampton, Mass.

I'm working on some Cardinal stuff - four songs are done and recorded, and I have a solo record kind of finished - they may be coming out in early 2010.

How did Cosmos turn out compared to your initial expectations? Do you see a future for that project, or was it a one-off?

Cosmos is just out of the loop - it might have a future - I have done some ideas for any possible Cosmos recording. I love the way it turned out, like Bob said, its strangely beautiful, which is exactly what we were shooting for.

You have had some strong collaborators, but also done a lot of work almost entirely on your own. Do you prefer one or the other? What does each scenario provide, beyond the obvious, that the other does not?

I like collaboration the most because its the most fun to see what other people do with your ideas. That said, I like the challenge of finishing a song on my own too. I like that my collaborator collection includes Cosmos and Cardinal, because while they haven't sold a lot of records or filled stadiums, the music is mostly on target, but even more fun, I don't think Eric Matthews likes Bob Pollard and vice versa.

People got very excited by word that you and Eric Matthews had gotten back together to record, but it seems as if that project has been permanently shelved. Having heard the four finished songs, I'm surprised, and assume it's more a matter of personalities than music. Would you care to address that at all?

Well, we're back together, man, for the time-being. I think the music is uniformly strong that we managed to patch together, and there is more good stuff in the pipeline, but you are spot-on with your observation - we might come up with an album's worth of material, but our personalities are extraordinarily different. To be in Cardinal is to drink of the poisoned chalice, but if you have a strong constitution, you'll be perfectly fine.

The accolades heaped upon your music must be flattering and empowering, but are they also stifling or limiting in terms of the pressure or realization that new directions might not be tolerated?

I think that's the same for all creative types, writers, painters, etc. I simply don't care what people approve or disapprove of. I tired that for a while (e.g. see Telegraph, my attempt at a VH1 album - that one didn't work, although it has good music in there). Ultimately, its been surprising that the energy I put into music has made a few people here and there react to it. That's always rewarding. Ask Mick Jagger - his last solo album sold 900 copies, but it won't stop him doing another.

Is your outlook on music -- including as a listener, writer and performer -- different now because of the time you've been away from the grind of trying to make a career of it?

Yes, very different. A lot less grind is way for the better. I have a house, children, a dog that escapes and chews my important papers, but I still have music friends, Bob Fay I've known for 15 years, Bob Pollard, people like that.

With the music stuff these days, I just come to the canvas and have at it, let it pile up, then if it looks like somebody is going to want a show or a record, I dig in and finish that *h&t up.

Will we ever hear the unreleased music you've been making over the past several years? How does it compare with your three solo albums?

Chapter Music, a label out of Melbourne Australia, run by Guy Chapman, is set to put out a solo album in early 2010. It may be vinyl only, . They also will be putting out a Cardinal record of some description.

The unreleased stuff is pretty hi-fi for the most part, at the same time more on the front-foot (meaning more aggressive, or savage) than some of my other solo releases.

You mention having to play a different role in Cosmos with Robert Pollard because you had to provide him backing tracks. Do you take anything away from that experience that will affect your own music?

Oh, I think so. The stuff I've been writing in the last few months has been a mixture of either solo, Cosmos, or Cardinal. It all starts out at the same place, piles of lyrics on scraps of paper and mounds of musical ideas made with whatever comes to hand, then a period of sifting, winnowing and contemplation. The difference I think this time is the volume of stuff I have lying around because it tends to just pour out on a Friday or Saturday night and accumulates, then gets seized upon if there is a need to beat it together for a project.

'Bored to Death' week two: character development

2009-09-27T21:48:00.002-05:00

If the first week of "Bored to Death" was about setting the premise, week two was about better developing the three character's at the show's core. To recap from last week, writer Jonathan Ames battles the loss of his girlfriend and trouble following up his debut novel by posting an ad on Craigslist offering his services as a private detective. Improbably, he gets calls and takes cases.

Last week, he took a missing persons case; this week it was following a guy for a jealous girlfriend. While there is plenty of potential in a show about an average guy trying to emulate the great pulp noir detectives of 40s and 50s fiction, thus far it is being used as little more than a device to bring Jonathan into strange situations. As such, the stories have been a bit thin. That's OK, however, as the real treat has been the interaction among the characters.

Jonathan, played by Jason Schwartzman, is almost Seinfeldian; he is the straight man around which revolves a cast of strange characters. We learn a bit more about his two closest friends, Ray, the comic artist played by Zach Galifianakis, and George, the magazine editor played by Ted Danson.

Ray, who has troubles with his girlfriend, Leah, goes for a colonic at her behest. Explaining it to Jonathan, he implores his friend to go with him: "I have a real phobia around my ass," he explains.

Meanwhile, George hits Jonathan with a description of life that explains his rather clingy, lonely existence, and plays up a theme of duplicity and falsehood in the episode. He tells Jonathan that relationships and love are based on projection; no one loves someone else for who they are. He tells Jonathan that they are featured in each other's movie, but that they are different movies, a nice set up for a later quip about "Fight Club."

As for the case: Kristin Wiig from "Saturday Night Live" plays the same character she plays in everything else as a drunken girlfriend who fears her boyfriend is cheating on her. Jonathan follows the guy, engages in conversation, and eventually tracks him to an Alanon meeting. There, he sees his ex-girlfriend, and fears his prey and his ex are an item. A confrontation leaves things a mess, though Jonathan seems to take hope from something Wiig mentions when he tells her he saw the boyfriend at Alanon: "He must really love me" to go to those lengths, she says.

Best lines:

Jonathan: "I'm kind of a non-practicing vegan."

Jonathan (outside the Alanon meeting): I don't mean to be insensitive, but do you know where there's a bar around here where I could kill some time?"

George (to Jonathan): "You need to be sane when I'm insane."

Best costuming: Ray wears a bed-sheet cape while drawing himself as a super hero.

Westerberg releases new digital EP

2009-09-23T10:57:00.004-05:00

After a flurry of quick digital releases in 2008, Paul Westerberg has been quiet this year. Until now. Tuesday brought the release of another digital offering, an EP titled P.W. + the Ghost Gloves Cat Wing Joy Boys The EP title derives from one word from the titles of each of the six tracks. As with last year's releases, there is no supporting information. It sounds like another one-man-band affair, though the fidelity is higher than on those recordings. Has Paul invested in a home studio?

As with much of what he has released on his own through Amazon.com, this is strong material. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is his strongest release since Stereo/Mono in 2002. He has released good songs since, of course, but everything since has had its share of filler. Here, he offers six strong tracks that cohere very well as a whole.

One difference in this vs. 2008's releases: You can get this one on CD. The cost is $6.98 vs. $3.89 for the digital download, but you do get different artwork (the CD artwork is on the right above).

His output during 2008:
--49:00. One 43:55 track with more than 20 song snippets. July 2008
--"5:05." A single (whose time, when added to 49:00, actually equals 49 minutes). August 2008
--3oclockkreep. Two-song EP, with a 20-minute mash-up (the title track) and the track "Finally Here Once." August 2008
--"Bored of Edukation." A single. September 2008
--D.G.T. A three-song EP: "Always In A Manger," "Streets of Laredo" and "D.G.T. " December 2008

Here is a track-by-track look at the EP:

1. Ghost on the Canvas - An acoustic guitar-driven mid-tempo ballad. Some nice guitar lines and a bit of channel separation give his a, well, slightly ghostly timbre. Westerberg's drumming often gives his songs a shambling, reckless quality, but here a bit steadier beat would do wonders. Still, the sound of this offers a clarity that makes it considerably satisfying.

2. Drop Them Gloves - From the opening cry of "Hit it!" this feels like the kind of by-the-numbers rocker Westerberg has been cranking out in varying degrees of fidelity since his solo debut. This would fit snugly on Stereo/Mono thanks to the chugging beat and right hook of a riff. The mournful harmonica is a nice touch, and the entire track has a tough defiance that perfectly echoes the lyric about fighting back.

3. Good as the Cat - Westerberg has really established a sound. As this song kicks off, any number of past tracks come to mind, all thanks to the acoustic shuffle beat. Consider this a slowed down "Dyslexic Heart" with a similar wink-and-nod lyric: "Baby, I am what I am. Don't hate me for that. Lately, seems like you don't give a damn, just treat me as good as the cat." Songs this effortless lead one to believe that Westerberg could crank out tunes like this all day.

4. Love on the Wing - The EP's longest track, at 5:27, is a piano ballad that feels like a Suicaine Gratifaction outtake that evolves into a peppy acoustic pop song that keeps the piano as it progresses. That instrumental variety is a nice touch, and shows that Westerberg could stand to offer a bit more in these basement concoctions.

5. Gimme Little Joy - Another acoustic pop number. It's solid, if unremarkable, which is probably a fault of the sequencing, if anything. If it replaced "Ghost on the Canvas" at the start of the EP, it would have set a better tone and would seem a bit fresher than it does here after three solid tunes.

6. Dangerous Boys - A perfect closer, a rattling little tune that adds a jaunty gait to Westerberg's arsenal (which up to this point was limited to a full-out gallop and a tasteful shuffle). The percussion begins as a lone handclap in an echo-laden room, which is strange, but works. Drums and bass come in on the second verse, giving the song a nice bit of momentum.

Win a copy of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records

2009-09-22T16:12:00.003-05:00

The folks at Algonquin Books generously provided me with three copies of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records to give away to TIRBD readers. To enter, leave a comment on this post sharing your favorite Merge release and why you like it. Do so by midnight, Friday, Sept. 25 to be eligible. Three commenters selected at random will receive a copy of the book.

I finished my copy of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records (Algonquin, $18.95, 294 p.) weeks ago, but haven't found a way to jump into a review. It's a massive book full of interesting information, surprises, fond reminiscences and a true indie rock vibe, and I kept waiting for divine inspiration. Barring that, I realized I just needed to dive in. That's fitting, I suppose. Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance did just that 20 years ago when they started the label to put out 7" singles from their own and other bands.

The book, written by Gawker writer John Cook with McCaughan and Ballance, seemed at first blush like the kind of thing I would skim. I left Superchunk behind many albums ago, and never picked up the likes of Pipe, Breadwinner, Butterglory and the like. I was interested in how the label formed, how it grew and how it worked its way into what is without question the best indie label in the country. But did I need to know everything?

Turns out, I did. Casual flipping through the first chapter led to more intense reading of the next which led to my picking it up at every spare moment, sad when I finished. Credit goes to Cook, of course, for assembling a coherent narrative from the disparate bits of oral history gathered from nearly every major player in the label's history (only Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Magnum, unsurprisingly, declines to participate), but the real credit goes to the label and everyone behind it for creating such a compelling story over the past two decades.

The book can be read any number of ways. I found it to be several books in one: A Superchunk bio, a label history, a treatise on the state of indie rock and indie distribution as the 1990s gave way to the 2000s, and a collection of short profiles of Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Magnetic Fields, Spoon and Lambchop. Perhaps the best testament to Cook's skill is that I read chapters about acts I'd never heard a note of (Butterglory/Matt Suggs) or admire much more than I like (Lambchop, Magnetic Fields).

The book, the label's 20th anniversary and all of the attendant hoopla surrounding both make it a great time to be an indie music fan. Mac and Laura have done several interviews, and you can see them perform at some in store appearances, including here and here. Converse.com has some videos from the label's XX Merge 20th anniversary concert series. Lastly, Merge has a second book forthcoming, the Merge Companion, a limited-edition, 350-page book that features every album, CD, single and DVD cover released by the label over the past two decades.

The takeaway here is that the label survived because it put out music that it liked. Sometimes (often) that meant small sales or losses, but occasionally its tastes and that of the masses aligned and it ended up with something like Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts.

"Whatever the future holds for the music business, Mac and Laura aren't too occupied with trying to figure it out," Cook writes. "Merge didn't get where it is by planning for the future, or concocting growth strategies, or trying to get out ahead of its competitors. It simply tried to find music that Mac and Laura loved, and sell it to people who also loved it."

'Bored to Death' week one: a promising start

2009-09-20T09:44:00.004-05:00

The new HBO series "Bored to Death" wants to be a lot of things. Only time will tell if it pulls all of this off, but the first episode is certainly promising, and much of that promise comes in the form of the three leads.

Here's the setup: Writer Jonathan Ames is trying to follow up his debut novel, but can't seem to get going. His girlfriend leaves him in the opening moments of the first episode in part because he drinks too much and smokes too much pot. A chance encounter with Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely (it was in one of the many stacks of books that seem to be the only thing left in his apartment after his girlfriend takes all of her stuff) leads him to list his services on Craigslist as a private detective. He gets his first case soon thereafter, and we're off.

Here on TIRBD each week, I'll dissect the new episode with commentary, criticism and a recap.

So, back to that name. Yes, this Jonathan Ames is that Jonathan Ames. Well, sort of. In a bit of confusing meta-fiction, the real writer Jonathan Ames found himself in somewhat similar circumstances at one point, but rather than advertise himself as a PI, he write a story called "Bored to Death" in which a writer named Jonathan Ames does so (you can find it in McSweeney's 24 (which also features some great Donald Barthelme-related content) or in Ames' new collection, The Double Life is Twice as Good. Confused? Five minutes into the first episode, you won't be. The conceit of Ames writing about Ames goes away because the persona has been placed the capable hands (body?) of Jason Schwartzman.

Schwartzman, still best known as Max from "Rushmore," seems finally to have found another role worthy of his talents. As Ames, he is funny, earnest, sweet, romantic (in all senses of the word) and just naive enough to think he can pull this off. By day he is a struggling novelist and magazine writer. His editor is the very funny Ted Danson. Ames (the real Ames, that is), says he wrote the character of George Christopher to be a sort of Christopher Hitchens-George Plimpton hybrid. For those of us in flyover states who know these men by their writing more than their personalities, that matters little. What we have in George is a guy who best typifies the show title: He is rich, successful and bored to death. His role seems to be as a sort of reverse mentor who wants to live vicariously through Jonathan's exploits. Oh, and he likes to smoke pot. A lot. The type of magazine isn't explained in the opening, though Ames' assignment to interview people at a gallery opening makes one think of New York or some such society rag.

Jonathan's best friend is Ray Hueston, a web comic artist based on Ames' real-life friend and collaborator Dean Hasp iel (the two created The Alcoholic, Ames' graphic novel from earlier this year). As a nice touch, Haspiel is creating all of Ray's comic art shown on the show. Ray, too, is bored, craving sex from a girlfriend who is too tired from her job and kids to satisfy him. Played by Zach Galifianakis, he's a wiseass with issues. With Schwartzman playing more of a straight man, it seems Galifianakis and Danson will fight each week to see who can deliver the best zingers. These two are as well-cast as Schwartzman, and the chemistry among these three, already evident, will ultimately drive this show.

So, back to that original thought: the many things this show hopes to be. It's obviously a comedy first and foremost. But it also has significant dramatic elements, dealing with notions of male arrested development, the ennui of the upper class and, if one stretches, the way communication is affected by technology (is this the first Craigslist-driven show?). Beyond that, there is the crime/noir element. Ames' case in this first episode, a missing persons' quest of a sort, is more about introducing us to the PI's quirks than about finding someone, so it remains to be seen how much of the writer Ames' affinity for noir and detective fiction (he claims to have come upon the idea while reading noir giant David Goodis) shines through. This is billed as a "noir-otic comedy;" we got comedy and neurotic behavior in the first episode. Let's see what they do about "noir" from here on out.

There is much fodder in the depiction of a modern guy modeling his PI actions on those of the pulp heroes of the 40s and 50s. That is explored briefly here when Jonathan is admonished by a cop to stop what he's doing. Here's hoping there is much more where that came from.

Lastly, the theme song, "Bored to Death," was written by Schwartzman and Ames and recorded by Schwartzman under his nom du rock, Coconut Records.

Best lines:

Girlfriend: I told you months ago that if we were going to make this work you had to stop drinking and smoking pot, and you didn't.
Jonathan: It's dangerous to go cold turkey. I'm down to white wine.

George: Men face reality; women don't. That's why we need to drink.

Ray (outside a coffee shop, to Jonathan): Some early-morning post-natal yoga class exploded. It's like a nursery in there.

Baseball (as in Project) and Bob (as in Dylan)

2009-09-18T16:19:00.005-05:00

I have been remiss about getting this interview with Steve Wynn posted because I've been doing things like... traveling to see Steve Wynn. So, I'll wrap a review of Wynn's recent Baseball Project show in Chicago in with this short Q&A about his new self-released CD, Steve Sings Bob.

First up, the Baseball Project. The show was a triple bill, with the BP, the Steve Wynn IV and the Minus 5. However, it was all the same band, with Wynn on guitar and vox, Scott McCaughey also on guitar and vocals, Peter Buck on bass and Linda Pitmon (Wynn's wife and drummer in the Miracle 3) on drums. They decided to play one big show rather than separate band sets, and that was a wise choice. They opened with the Dream Syndicate's "That's What You Always Say," which set a nice tone: laid back but with blisteringly good guitars. From there it was a mix of tunes from Wynn's latest, disc, Crossing Dragon Bridge ("Manhattan Fault Line") Dream Syndicate (a scorching "Medicine Show" and "Days of Wine and Roses") and even Gutterball ("Trial Separation Blues.") The first hour-long set closed with "Amphetamine," which was so good I feared the second set couldn't top it. Yes, there was some fall off, but not much as, McCaughey dominated that set with a sprinkling of Minus 5 tunes new and old.

The Baseball Project songs were the highlight of the night. "Harvey Haddix" got an update to include Mark Buehrle's recent perfect game (with a nice, harmonious bridge to note his accomplishment), while "Past Time" smoked and "The Yankee Flipper" had a few heartier souls in the crowd saluting with their middle fingers raised high. A new Baseball Project song was debuted, "Tony," which tells of player Tony Conigliaro, who was hit by a pitch in the eye.

All in all it was a fantastic show that reaffirmed my fandom of everyone involved. Strangest was seeing multimillionaire Peter Buck quietly playing bass on stage in a small bar. He's surely the richest person to set foot on that stage, which is testament to how much he must love playing live.

The band pulled out one cover: Neil Young's "Revolution Blues," passing on the chance to cover Bob Dylan and give me a less clunky segue into my interview with Wynn. Oh well.

Wynn has performed several Dylan songs over the years, and recently decided to gather a bunch of them on CD. The result, Steve Sings Bob, is a limited-edition (of 300) collection of Dylan covers from 1982 to present. Most are live, some more polished than others, but all are good and fully fitting the spirit of the material. In the liner notes on his site, Wynn shares one interesting story about "Blind Willie McTell." It was recorded by the latter-day Dream Syndicate in 1988 on a radio show, and released on a Bucketful of Brains magazine flexi the next year, "marking the first time the song had officially seen the light of day, a few years before Dylan's version was released on the first of his bootleg series. We even had to get the permission of his publishing staff to put out our version before he did."

The tracklist:

1. Blind Willie McTell (The Dream Syndicate)
2. Positively 4th Street (Steve Wynn and Loose Change)
3. Watching The River Flow (Steve Wynn and Friends)
4. Honest With Me (Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3)
5. Knockin' On Heavens Door (Steve Wynn with the Alejandro Escovedo Band)
6. All Along The Watchtower (The Dream Syndicate)
7. Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar (Steve Wynn Quintet)
8. Outlaw Blues (The Dream Syndicate)
9. Gotta Serve Somebody (Hazel Motes)
10. Like A Rolling Stone (Steve Wynn and Jason Victor)

I asked Wynn a few questions about the project, and he graciously responded, "from the middle of a van rolling across northern Washington...."

TIRBD: You've done a few covers here and there, but nothing to compare with the number of Dylan songs you've done. What is the appeal of his music from an interpreter's standpoint?

SW: Well, the most obvious answer is that he's a great songwriter with an incredible catalog of amazing songs. But, beyond that, the songs are usually easy to learn and leave a lot of room for interpretation (witness his own wide varieties of takes on his own material over the years). It's also a common language for musicians -- almost everyone loves at least one period of Dylan or another so it's easy to name a song when you're looking for a quick cover and know that there HAS to be one Dylan song in common between the various memory banks of the guys on stage.

What challenges do you face when tackling Dylan's work?

That's easy: remembering the words. Every song has at least 5 or 6 verses. I was joking to the band before our Italian show (Steve Sings Bob in Ravenna last month) that they had the easy job. And it's true. You can learn the music on the spot but it's not easy to fake the lyrics. Fortunately, so many of his songs are firmly embedded in my DNA.

Were there songs you've done that you wanted to include where you couldn't find a decent recording?

Not really. In fact, my favorite song on the CD was the version of "Gotta Serve Somebody" that I recorded with my "punk gospel" band Hazel Motes. And that version is VERY lo-fi, just an audience recording.

Is there a favorite Dylan song that you don't feel you can pull off?

I really wanted to do "Highlands." All 18 minutes of it. And I will definitely do it one day. But I'll need a teleprompter or a music stand.

A month of music listening

2009-09-01T13:12:00.004-05:00

I suppose it was sparked by a desire to establish a defensive position; when yet another CD arrived in the mailbox to be added to the thousands already crowding the office-turned-music room, I felt compelled to justify the acquisition. Do I really listen to all of this stuff, or, as I feared, do I limit myself to a spin or two of a new disc before filing it (alphabetically, of course) on the shelf?

So, on Aug. 1, I decided to start keeping track of every full album I spun. Because this was my obsession, I made the rules: Only an album heard in its entirety, even if it is spread over several days, will count. Repeat spins, partial listens, EPs, singles and background music don't count. This had to be active listening of a full album. I could listen in the car, at home, at work or even on headphones while mowing the lawn. Every completed album was added to the list.

The result? I listened to 47 albums in their entirety during the month. With some, I listened to at least part of them more than once, and I certainly heard a handful of tracks from dozens more. Then there were the afternoons at work spent with the iPod on shuffle, or time spent in front of the computer listening to MP3s or YouTube clips, ensuring that I heard hundreds more songs over the course of the month.

What the list reveals is how streaky my interests are. I'm going to catch the Steve Wynn/Minus 5 tour in a couple of weeks, which accounts for the five Wynn-related discs I spun during the month (and the new Minus 5, as well). Hearing a Moby Grape song on shuffle led me to the Skip Spence album, Oar, while slowly paging through Rob Jovanovic's Big Star bio,Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop, led me to that band's catalog and the Alex Chilton disc, Set (which was surprisingly good, and reminded me, despite its being released 25 years later, of Big Star's ragged live recordings from the early 1970s).

I do listen to new things when I get them, as indicated by the many August releases on the list. Will I listen again soon? We'll see.

It's an eclectic set, I suppose, if one can look past the preponderance of white American men past the age of 30. OK, it's not eclectic at all, but it is a fairly accurate representation of what I like. Seeing the list is both interesting and instructive, and I think I'll do it again this month. September promises to be more varied already: I spent the morning listening to a leak of Jay-Z's imminent Blueprint III just to see what all the fuss is about.

How does this compare to your own habits? Do you have the patience for full albums? What sparks you to pick up a disc and give it a spin?

The list:

The Dream Syndicate - Days of Wine and Roses
Six Organs of Admittance - Luminous Night
Wye Oak - The Knot
Robert Pollard - Elephant Jokes
Brendan Benson - My Old Familiar Friend
Anders Parker - Crow
The Bats - The Guilty Office
Joe Pernice - It Feels So Good When I Stop
Steve Wynn - Live in Brussels
Stephen Duffy - Duffy
Woods - Songs of Shame
Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Emitt Rhodes - American Dream
Emitt Rhodes - s/t
White Rabbits - It's Frightening
Neil Young - Fork in the Road
Blitzen Trapper - Furr
Steve Wynn - Fluorescent
Cosmos - Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks
Skip Spence - 0ar
Robert Pollard - The Crawling Distance
Deer Tick - War Elephant
Dead Weather - Horehound
Deer Tick - Born on Flag Day
Lemonheads - Varshons
Scud Mountain Boys - Pine Box
John Cunningham - Happy Go Unlucky
Antlers - Hospice
Minus 5 - Killingsworth
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware
Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall
Bap Kennedy - Domestic Blues
Pronto - The Cheetah
Avett Brothers - Emotionalism
Holsapple & Stamey - Here and Now
Big Star - No. 1 Record
Big Star - Radio City
Chris Bell - I Am the Cosmos
Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers
Paul Kelly - Words and Music
Grizzly Bear - Veckatemist
Alex Chilton - Set
The Church - Starfish
Steve Wynn - Dazzling Display
Steve Wynn - Steve Sings Bob
Joe Henry - Blood From Stars
Died Pretty - Using My Gills as a Roadmap

'It Might Get Loud' doesn't make it to 11

2009-08-29T13:48:00.003-05:00

Why Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White? If you're going to make a feature film about guitarists, and you seemingly have access to dozens, if not hundreds of players, why would you settle on these three? I raised this question when I first heard about "It Might Get Loud," and by the time the film was under way, I had my answer.

All three are or were innovators. You could argue that Page invented heavy metal (or commercial hard rock or AOR or any number of other formats. The Edge has done as much as anyone to alter the sound of the guitar with electronics and effects, and White has somehow forced the music of 1930s bluesmen onto the radio with an aesthetic that eschews the very things that the Edge advocates. Name three living guitarists who offer as much (and whose commercial success could guarantee that the film would be made. Maybe next time we'll get Thurston Moore, Bill Frisell and Curt Kirkwood).

It's easy to knock the film: the summit among the three is the most contrived part of an otherwise enjoyable film, and what little it yields in interplay among the three is disappointing. It allows these artists to create and nurture their own myths rather than push them to reinterpret themselves. It is laudatory where there is plenty of room for critique. But what it does offer is solid, fascinating and revelatory.

The set-up is simple: These three were brought together for an afternoon in early 2008 to discuss the guitar. Each also is followed in what amount to mini 20-minute career overview/documentaries that are intercut with each other and with footage from the meet-up. These segments are the best part of the movie. The Edge revisits the school where U2 first got together. Page gives a tour of the manor house where Led Zeppelin recorded it's fourth album (clapping to show the reverberations in the foyer that made John Bonham's drums on "When the Levee Breaks" so monstrous) and White shows off his early work when he was still making a living as a reupholsterer.

Each offers revelations. Page chats about the soul-sucking nature of his session work, saying he was essentially creating Muzak before he finally decided to quit and pursue his own music. In an amusing aside, the Edge shows the riff for "Elevation" with and without effects. With, it's a shimmering concoction that sounds like several guitars at once. Without, it's a simple two-chord figure that someone could master in a matter of minutes. White offers the most self-analysis, stating that the black, white and red color scheme and childish ornamentation of his band was a cover that diverted attention from the fact that he wanted to recreate the music of Son House for the masses.

The so-called summit seems promising, but either director Davis Guggenheim didn't want to go in that direction or it yielded so little that he was forced to use other footage. When the three interact, there are interesting exchanges. The Edge asks Page about a chord progression, while Page seems shocked that the Edge plays a certain chord in the seemingly simple intro to "I Will Follow." "So, 'at's a C? You sure about that?" He asks. The three jam a bit on each other's songs, from "I Will Follow" to "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" from the White Stripes (which could earn a killer solo from Page if offered) and "In My Time of Dying" from Led Zeppelin. Much more of this, as each looks for ways to integrate their own sound into the work of the others, would have been fantastic, as would the discussions of guitar that, in the finished film are fleeting. Perhaps we'll need to wait for an extended DVD package for such outtakes.

The film ends with the three playing "The Weight" from the Band. It's an odd choice, a song that is easily mastered and offers little challenge for players of this skill. But it's charming, too, and shows that these three would probably be sitting around doing just this even if they weren't iconic figures of rock.

Overall, it's a testament to the value of taking time to more fully explore a subject in documentary form. There is no shortage of information about these three -- one could surely make a compelling documentary from extant footage alone -- but by allowing these artists to talk about the thing they love most at length, Guggenheim has created a treasure. A flawed treasure that doesn't fulfill its promise, but a treasure nonetheless.

Monday Interview: Mikael Jorgensen

2009-08-24T06:44:00.001-05:00

Though it didn't start out as such, Wilco has sort of backed its way into being a supergroup. The lone holdout thus far had been keyboardist/programmer Mikael Jorgensen. Before him there was John Stirratt and Pat Sansone's Autumn Defense, the Nels Cline Singers and Glenn Kotche's solo work (as well as his work with Jeff Tweedy in Loose Fur).

Jorgensen has now joined them with Pronto, his own side project that has one disc under its belt (All is Golden from March) and another on the way with The Cheetah, out Sept. 8.

Jorgensen is an East Coast guy who came to Chicago earlier this decade to help John McEntire (Tortoise, Sea and Cake) build his SOMA recording studio. He joined Wilco in 2004, and has had a clear influence on the band's music since. But it wasn't clear until now just how solid his chops are.

Things get somewhat confusing from here, however. Pronto's first disc, All is Golden, is a poppy delight, a disc full of songs that could have served ably as B-sides to Wilco singles from the Summerteeth and A Ghost is Born eras. Tracks like "When I'm on the Rocks," in fact, would not be out of place on a Wilco album. Jorgensen's voice isn't the strongest in rock, but it works within the context of his solid, at times transcendent pop song constructions.

The band's new disc, however is a big sonic curve ball. The Cheetah is a mostly instrumental batch of electronic glitch-pop actually recorded before All is Golden. This isn't Four Tet -- Jorgensen's pop roots and adherence to classic song structure prevent anything too out there from emanating from the speakers -- but it's long way from All is Golden. Find a happy mid-point between these two poles, however, and you begin to see why Jorgensen fits so well in Wilco, and look forward to a future where Pronto finds a way to fuse these two aesthetics together to create something fresh and new.

Jorgensen is joined in Pronto by drummer Greg O'Keeffe, guitarist Erik Paparazzi and bassist Tunde Oyewole.

The sounds of All is Golden and The Cheetah are so different as to be completely different bands. Did you give any thought to issuing the latter under a different name?

Not even for a second. I enjoy, and expect, that Pronto will change and shift with whatever musical direction that we become curious about exploring. It's more interesting to me that a name can act as a container than a brand.

If I read things right, All is Golden was recorded after The Cheetah, but released before it. Is it safe to say that the sound of the current and future Pronto will more closely approximate that sound, and if so, will that confuse listeners who saw the shift between AIG and The Cheetah as indicative of that future direction?

Yes, All Is Golden was recorded well after The Cheetah, yet released before. AIG was a challenge I posed to myself: to make a pop /rock record. The synthesizers and laptop textures didn't really seem to have a natural place, except for a few moments, notably the beginning of "Mrs. Bruford" and the swirly outro of "I Think So."

The writing for The Cheetah is much different than for AIG. AIG was, in a way, easier because you can hold a guitar or sit at the piano and make modifications to a song very quickly, and then record it, and at that point your practically done. With The Cheetah, there seemed less conventions to rely upon, (i.e. verse, chorus, bridge) and the arrangement and musical decisions were based solely on repeated listening and applying our intuitions whilst sitting in front of the computer. The process is akin to abstract painting rather than portraiture.

In the light of AIG, perhaps a few people might be confused by The Cheetah, but my hope is that it will be exciting for folks to hear this considerably different side of what we do and plant a seed of expectation for what surprises may lay ahead.

How is your work as a studio engineer brought to bear on your own music? Do you find yourself trading hats and looking at things as an artist vs. engineer?

More often than not it's a total benefit. Knowing the different flavors of microphones, pre-amps, effects etc... and understanding the vocabulary in the studio, it's very helpful and speeds up parts of the recording process. My fear is that this understanding can act as a limitation by preempting experimentation. You do the best you can.

Because I know how to do it, I usually do all of the engineering and mixing, with the exception of tracking. When we're in full band mode, it's much better to have a talented and competent person managing all the knobs and levels rather than me trying to both play and worry about the technical side.

One of my goals with Pronto is to eventually remove myself from the technical/engineering aspects altogether and collaborate with an engineer/producer type.

You must juggle your Wilco schedule with other pursuits. How does that juggling affect the music you create, thinking particularly of having to perhaps leave things incomplete or do things piecemeal as opposed to conceive of and create something as a whole?

That's certainly a big challenge. We have a rehearsal/recording studio space in Brooklyn where we try and record as much as possible while I'm home. If we can crank out one relatively fleshed out idea every month or so, that feels like progress. By the end of a year, that's 12 or so songs. All the recording is done into the computer and then I have my laptop and can wiggle things around and make changes and then upload them for the guys to listen to. I have a hazy idea of how we're going to approach Pronto LP02, but for now, it remains an intriguing mystery.

At what point will there be an all-day Wilco festival with the band headlining a show featuring Pronto, Glenn Kotche solo, Loose Fur, the Nels Cline Singers and Autumn Defense?

Ha ha! I love it! I'll blue-sky this proposal to the Wilco Brass and see what sticks!

Crime Express series offers short crime fiction

2009-08-19T13:21:00.004-05:00

Another great new venue for crime fiction writers has debuted in the UK, and the results are well worth figuring out how to convert pounds to dollars so you can import them to your mailbox.

Crime Express, a new series from Five Leaves Publishing, offers a series of short crime stories each published as a short pocket book. They retail for 4.99 pounds (about $8), and are short enough to devour in one sitting. Consider them something between a short story and a novella, something perfect to keep with you for those times when you have half an hour to kill.

If you can hold off that long, that is. The first I've read, Allan Guthrie's Killing Mum, is a ripping good read in the vein of his longer works. Hitman Carlos Morales gets an unusual job: killing his mother. But who ordered the hit? And how could he possibly pull the trigger? With 15,000 words to tell the tale, Guthrie doesn't make the reader wait long to find out the answers, yet that amount of space allows for more development and description than your typical short story.

Other authors in the series include Ray Banks (Gun), John Harvey (Trouble in Mind) and Lawrence Block (Speaking of Lust).The Block book was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association short story Dagger this year. There are 10 Crime Express titles to date.

Five Leaves Director Ross Bradshaw answered a few questions about this exciting new series.

TIRBD: What was the genesis of the series and how does the work to date compare with that initial idea?

RB: For years I had the notion of publishing long short stories/short novellas, call them what you will. It stemmed from a couple of books I read, not crime, one being Swimmer in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle, the other being Rain by Kirsty Gunn. I was impressed with what you could do with fiction that length. By chance I'm bringing out the Kotzwinkle in a new edition in the autumn, but that is by the by. Then I thought "series," and then I felt that crime fiction would fit the series notion best of all. I know a fair amount of crime fiction writers and the first three I asked (John Harvey, Stephen Booth and Rod Duncan) were excited to try to write to the length I had in mind, 15,000/16,000 words, 20,000 max. It is quite a challenge writing to that length. And I thought they would work better as a stand alone imprint. Maybe get people following the series, collecting the set.

How are the authors chosen and what guidance are they given?

After those three David Belbin, a local writer best known for his young adult material but someone with a big interest in adult crime fiction, and the short story, came in as series editor. He'd already done the desk editing on the first three and years ago he'd edited an anthology of Nottingham crime short stories for us, City of Crime (boy did that title go down well with the then leader of our local Council). Dave's been steadily building the list, and through everyday networking he gets the writers. I know he is concerned that the books work to their own length and are not a full length novel trying desperately to break out. That has implications for plot and character, and the number of characters of course.

I know the Lawrence Block story is a reprint from an anthology he edited. Do you foresee other opportunities to single out and highlight work that might otherwise have been overlooked?

Dave's a big fan of Block and that story had been buried in a small press anthology series in the US that disappeared after two books, which was barely seen on this side of the pond. We were pleased to get such a big name on the list but after that the series has been, and will remain, all new work commissioned by us. Unfortunately we don't have the time to read unsolicited material.

Is there an endpoint for the series, or will you keep things going as long as authors contribute and readers pick them up?

We've published eight so far. Some have sold very well, some less so. Unfortunately the major chains in the UK are not keen on the A6 size. When Murder One closed in London that meant that there is not a single crime shop in Britain (unlike the USA where there are many great independent mystery bookshops) which means we are very much in the hands of the big chain buyers. They are not keen on the format so we are looking at relaunching the series next spring. Same length, still Crime Express, but perhaps not the smaller format. Pity. A lot of readers did like that shape but the chains, the chains... We've commissioned a few ahead already.

How does it fit in with Five Leaves' overall mission?

Five Leaves has done a few full length crime fiction books, but I thought the short ones would be better as a stand alone imprint. Al Guthrie and the previous book by Ray Banks are darker than the books we normally publish, but that is no bad thing. I don't think we'll go dark completely on the crime front but it seems to me that some of the most exciting crime fiction around is on the dark side. As to our overall mission... if I ever draw up a mission statement feel free to shoot me. Five Leaves publishes the books that excite us... social history, Jewish culture, young adult, a bit of poetry, a bit of this, a bit of that. And crime fiction.

Monday Interview: John J. McCauley III

2009-08-17T10:30:00.001-05:00

In the past two months, I went from knowing Deer Tick by name only to being a fanatic for the band's music. Credit the quartet's live show, which is a raucous, fun affair. Knowing they were playing in town, I listened to a couple of songs online, and was intrigued enough to give them a shot. I left with a copy of the just-out Born on Flag Day in my hands and memories of one of the best live shows I've seen in a long time.

The band's roots are found in the person of John J. McCauley III. This Rhode Island kid began playing and recorded solo under the name Deer Tick, blending old-time country, folk and classic rock to create a stew flavored by his somewhat meek vocals. That evolved as he surrounded himself with musicians to record his proper debut, War Elephant. The eclectic disc included finger-picked gems like "Ashamed" and "Art Isn't Real (City of Sin)." McCauley's voice took on a raspy tone that seemed to signal living and experience well beyond his years. The disc was uneven, but contained plenty to like. It felt like what it was: a collection of songs from a singer-songwriter willing to try anything.

Along the way, McCauley formed a band around himself, joining with drummer Dennis Ryan and bassist Chris Ryan. With these accomplices, McCauley seemed to realize how much fun it is to really rock out. Grabbing new guitarist Andrew Tobiassen, the newly minted quartet finished a sophomore disc, Born on Flag Day, and hit the road. A lot. The new songs were much more raucous, maintaining McCauley's finger-picked guitar and wild melodies, but pushing them through the speakers with force rather than a sly subtlety. From the opening blast of guitar feedback on "Easy" it's clear this is a band, not a one-man project.

The live show drives that home. These guys are young, and it shows. Sure, there is a lack of polish that gives it away, but that's not a detriment. it's a blessing. These guys have fun, and the audience can't help but join in. More than willing to celebrate their influences, they play a big batch of covers, hitting John Prine, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp before a rousing, set-closing run at "La Bamba." This is still clearly McCauley's band. He occasionally dismisses his bandmates from their instruments, sending them off to gather around a microphone to blanket his vocals with blissfully ragged harmonies while he picks out what is essentially a solo song or two. But despite his talents, McCauley is a stronger artist with this version of Deer Tick at his back. As good as the band's first two albums are, the truly enticing thing about the group is thinking of how good the next one will be.

TIRBD: Born on Flag Day are much rowdier than your previous work. Is that a function of having a band performing them, or were they already headed in that direction before the band got a hold of them?

JJM: I think its the band's contribution. The old songs off of War Elephant are the same way; when the band plays them they're rowdy as fuck.

You're all young guys who are of an age where most of your peers are trying to separate from their families and prove themselves on their own, yet you offer dozens of family photos on the insert of the new album and thank your families profusely. Is this embrace of family values some strange form of reverse psychology rebellion?

Born On Flag Day is a special album for us. Its the biggest thing I've ever done. Its the highest profile way we could all let our families know that we appreciate who they are and where we came from. And I think, even though we are young, we've been separated from our families and have already proved ourselves on our own. We grow up fast here in Providence.

You also, for a young band, seem very willing to wear your influences on your sleeve. You played five or six covers the night I saw you recently, and all could be pointed to very clearly as influences on your sound. Most artists try to hide such things in a bid for authenticity. Why the transparent embrace?

Its music, man! Nobody's doing anything incredibly original without sucking ass. You like Tom Petty, play a damn Petty song!

There is a real southern sound to your songs, so it's a surprise to learn that you're from Rhode Island. Where did that particular influence come from? Is there a Rhode Island sound that people might otherwise expect?

There's a Seattle sound in our music, too. People like to focus on the country thing though. Like you said, we wear our influences on our sleeve. Its not like we don't have a country radio station here in Providence.

Your voice is among the most distinctive elements of the band, and by the end of a show it sounds like you're gargling gasoline laced with broken glass. Now that you're touring more, are you able to sustain that intensity of delivery without it going out on you?

I made it almost the whole seven weeks this trip, but right at the end I caught strep throat. I had it a few years ago and was able to sing through it, but this time it was impossible. That's the thing that sucks now, when I get sick, I get sick. Sometimes Emergen-C every morning just isn't enough. I've been singing like this since I started playing in bands ten years ago, singing like this never causes me any pain.

What is it like making music in an environment where people are now really paying attention to you and coming to shows with expectations? Has the exposure of things like the Brian Williams interview had an impact on the crowds at your shows? Does that affect the way you approach performance?

I think the attention makes for a better live show. I, for one, started stage diving. Its all very exciting and the four of us are giddy as hell. And I think when you come to see us, that becomes very obvious.

What's the new cultural boogie man?

2009-08-14T14:37:00.003-05:00

A lot of things coalesced for me today thanks to, of all things, a piece in the Wall Street Journal. What it comes down to is that the establishment will always find a cultural boogie man against which to rail, and this will stand in for true societal ills.

The WSJ piece was a reprint of an editorial from Aug. 29, 1969, "By Squalor Possessed," taking offense at the Woodstock festival. It was part of a larger look back celebrating the pending 40th anniversary of the festival. One sentence really hit home, and confirmed my long-held thought that each generation eventually opposes the one that follows, only to see that following generation become the status quo that complains about the next.

"For various reasons it is being suggested that many rebels will not abandon their 'life-styles (the cliches in this field!) and that there are enough of them to assume some of the levers of power in the future American society," they wrote. "It would be a curious America if the unwashed, more or less permanently stoned on pot or LSD, were running very many things."

Of course, this is exactly what happened, and "the unwashed" are now donning power suits and complaining about the violent video games and risque Internet usage of their kids and grandkids. I'll leave comment about the the further-expressed worry that "it will be at best a culturally poorer America and maybe a politically degenerated America" to sharper political minds than my own.

This is nothing new. I recently slogged through David Hajdu's 2008 book, The Ten-Cent Plague, a book about the creation of comic books and the campaign against them waged in the 1950s. Though Hajdu seems to have modeled early chapters on the first books of the Bible (his tedious and exhaustive life histories of each player reading like a he-begat-she-who-begat..." section of the good book), he does eventually get around to describing the hilariously absurd lengths to which Congressmen, parents, teachers and religious leaders went to demonize what were only words and pictures printed on the page.

These people, while winning short-term victories, ultimately failed. Comics persevered, and were quickly superseded at the top of the cultural and societal evils list by films (which by that point already had already been attacked by puritans aghast at the idea of bare flesh on the big screen), television and yes, rock 'n' roll.

But guess what? Each of these art forms outlasted their opponents and took on a depth and breadth and richness that made them absolutely indispensable chroniclers of our time in a way that the most erudite, reasoned opposition to these forms did not. "Today, the young's addiction to rock is at the same time a rejection of classical and the more subdued types of popular music, and considering the way rock is presented it must be counted a step down on culture's ladder," reads the WSJ editorial. Who needs parody when the real thing is so blissfully out-of-touch and funny?

"In any event, opting for physical, intellectual and cultural squalor seems an odd way to advance civilization," the WSJ writes. I wonder what they thought about that squalor as they saw it's celebration become, over the years, a multi-billion-dollar cash cow. That, of course, may be the biggest lesson of all: Where there is a dime to be made, even the most repulsive things will be tolerated, if not embraced.

The revolution has been digitized

2009-08-13T08:02:00.005-05:00

What is revolution? In the words of Malcolm X, "Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way." In the hands of artists, revolution represents all of that and much more. So much more, in fact that any attempt to define it based on its usage would be contradictory at best. Better then, to let those artists speak for themselves.

That seems to be the motivation behind a new art project that manifests itself most tangibly as a two-CD set titled Music for a Revolution. It was compiled by UK artist Alan Dunn over the course of four years. It's an ambitious project that found the artist creating endless playlists around the term "revolution," eventually hitting upon this 69-track collection presented in an artfully rendered package in an edition of 1,000 given away to all who ask.

The most famous songs to include the term "revolution" are not here, but each is cited as inspiration. The first, of course, is the Beatles' "Revolution." Dunn writes on the project's web site
that the sound collage created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono that became the separate track "Revolution 9" was an antecedent for his project. "What emerged from that session, an 8.22 collage we now know as 'Revolution 9,' laid the foundations for this collection exploring artists’ uses of the term."

Derek Horton's liner notes also cite the "tacit influence" of Gil Scott Heron, whose "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" looms large over the project, and Horton's notes, which begin, "The revolution will not be digitised." He's wrong, of course. The revolution has been digitized, as anyone moved to action by a YouTube video or an MP3 clip of a rousing speech can attest (or, of course, heard this disc, which comes at the waning moments when music can be both digitized and revolve, as hard media gives way to soft). Horton's own notes feel contradictory. The Malcolm X quote above comes from the notes, as does this: "Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms singing ‘We Shall Overcome’? You don’t do any singing, you’re too busy swinging." "The revolution will not have a soundtrack," Horton writes. "There will be music but (quoting Jim Carroll) "just because there is music piped into the most false of revolutions."

Isn't this very document a soundtrack? Yes and no, and that equivocating means that perhaps Horton's sentiments aren't contradictory at all. While there is plenty of music in this collection based on the idea of revolution, it is the spoken-word material that hits hardest here. Perhaps that's because those snippets are drawn from in-the-moment events, where the fire and passion and rage of revolution is visceral. The music, in contrast, is thought out, less organic, the term "revolution" used as shorthand to evoke an emotion or idea or thought.

"Works of historical importance were collaged and sequenced with newly invited compositions, blind calls for submissions, spoken word, student pieces, anonymous works, YouTube snippets and existing tracks," Dunn writes. The upshot is that most will have heard of few of these artists before spinning the disc. Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices is the biggest name here (for U.S. audiences, anyway), with the track "Headache Revolution" from his band Boston Spaceships. Tracks from Chumbawumba and Paul Revere and the Raiders also make an appearance.

The rest, then, is new to most, but good. Dunn has done an exceptional job compiling and sequencing these tracks. It helps that many are short snippets; it's hard to be bored by something that changes direction every 30 seconds or so. At the end of its more than two-hour runtime, the idea of fomenting revolution is not the first thing that comes to mind; fatigue inspired by the overuse of the term is a more likely reaction. But as for Dunn's stated goal of exploring artists' use of the term, he succeeds. The listener can't help but grasp how fluid and elastic the word is, and have the way they think about it enhanced for the effort.

Stark House unearths rare Harry Whittington noirs

2009-08-12T12:49:00.004-05:00

As a crime fiction fan who feels as if he is just now scratching the surface of the genre's history thanks to folks like Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime and authors Craig McDonald, Bill Crider and Ed Gorman, I know I have a lot of catching up to do. The folks at Stark House Press, or rather, publisher Greg Shepard, are helping and/or adding to that task by unearthing some lost classics. Stark House's latest find is a trio of books by Harry Whittington, rightly called "the King of the Paperbacks" (Note right off the bat that this is not the same Whittington who was shot in the face by Dick Cheney).

Whittington wrote around 200 books in his life (1915-1989), and while they're hard to track down, they are worth it. Stark House makes it easy to dive in, gathering three in one new book: To Find Cora, Like Mink Like Murder and Body & Passion. Before diving into those, a little history, thanks to David Laurence Wilson, the man who found these books and, in the case of at least one, significantly edited it to return it to Whittington's original form.

In an illuminating essay that reads a bit like bracing crime fiction itself, "Harry and his Bastard Children," Wilson details his quest to identify and locate 39 books Whittington alluded to but never revealed. Midway through his career, Whittington signed a deal wherein he would write one 60,000-word novel each month for $1,000. He did this for 38 or 39 months (reports seem to vary). He wasn't proud of these, and they certainly wore on him: "The novel a month with the other work I was trying to do, plus the tensions and the debts, exhausted me. Emotionally. Mentally. Physically. I cried at weather reports," he wrote in the essay, "I Remember It Well," which was printed in 1980s Black Lizard reprints of his books.

Wilson recounts his efforts to locate these books, and I won't spoil it by sharing details, but suffice to say much of his effort was rewarded. One of the books he uncovered is the second one in this volume, Like Mink Like Murder. Rejected by U.S. publishers, it was issued in a different form in France in 1957 as Ta's Des Visions! loosely translated as, "you're seeing things." It made it to English audiences in yet another form as Passion Hangover in 1965 (under the pen name J. X. Williams). Wilson edited it for this edition, trying to capture Whittington's original intent: "Distracting add-ons were removed. it was a feat of subtraction, bringing Like Mink Like Murder into the main current of Harry's storytelling. Everybody was always 'gazing' and 'srugging' in the (1965) novel. You will find less of that here." Wilson cut it from 55,000 words to 36,000, and the result is a taut thriller that does everything a Whittington book should do, placing an average guy who has made some dumb choices directly in the path of trouble, and then watching him try to extricate himself.

The other books, while not as rare, certainly were difficult to obtain before now and are real finds. To Find Cora is a 1963 book original published under the misleading title, Cora is a Nympho! (They loved their exclamation points back then), while Body & Passion was published in 1952 under the pen name Whit Harrison (one of several, including Harry White,Hallam Whitney and Henri Whittier used by Whittington).

All three are great reads if you're a fan of 1950s and '60s pulp. When you're done with those, Stark House has an earlier book that collects two more Whittington's: A Night for Screaming and Any Woman He Wanted. Others are available if you dig. I picked up Web of Murder online, and grabbed Ticket to Hell on a recent visit to Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis. Yes, that means I've only read five out of nearly 200, but it also means that any time I want a quick dose of vintage crime fiction, there will be plenty from which to choose.

Dungen, Woods offer surprises

2009-08-11T08:33:00.004-05:00

Hearing Dungen perform last night at the Picador in Iowa City, I came away with one goal: To hear everything the band has recorded. No, I wasn't indoctrinated into the church of Dungen, a blind acolyte to the Swedish psych-rock band's sound. But I enjoyed enough of it that I want to hear for myself the depth and breadth of the band's work so I can pick out the parts I did thoroughly enjoy and explore from there.

I went to the show expecting some long, psychedelic guitar freakouts, and while there was plenty of that, I was most taken with the band's piano-based pop songs. With a frontline of two guitars (or one guitar and keyboards) and bass with all three performers singing in sweet harmony, the band was most successful when it dialed down the squalling guitars and focused on hooks. The ability to call on a frenetic guitar solo to juice a song was a plus, but the tunes that didn't rely on that as the sole hook were the most successful. (Sorry for the vague references; I don't speak Swedish, and I don't think they identified any of the songs by title anyway).

The band certainly has reach. Leader Gustav Ejstes broke out a flute for a few songs, giving these tunes a vibe somewhere between Jethro Tull and Herbie Mann. A little of that goes a long way (and Ejstes doesn't need to play it a bunch to justify bringing a flute from Sweden... it's not like it's a contrabass or something). Given the range of sounds -- flute-driven prog, heavy guitar psych and piano pop -- it was hard to get a read on the band. Suffice to say that all of it was good, some of it great.

I had heard the latest album by the openers, Woods, before catching the show, and was surprised at how much they connected. Pitchfork gave the disc, Sounds of Shame, an 8.3, saying it evokes everything from "Guided by Voices to the murkier depths of the Siltbreeze or Flying Nun back catalogs." I hear none of that (save for maybe a bit of the Flying Nun jangle) in the record, and certainly none in the show. Instead, I hear the Velvet Underground in the guitars and VU fans Yo La Tengo in the mix of sweetness and abrasion in the vocals and arrangements. At times, the songs would start sweet and then erupt into a furious blast of guitar, like a Lesley Gore cover band, with guest guitarist J Mascis.

The most striking thing was the voice of singer Jeremy Earl. If you didn't see the bearded youngster on stage, you'd be forgiven for assuming the band was led by a twee little girl. Again, Pitchfork gets it wrong, calling it a "slightly unhinged pitch, sounding something like a muffled Neil Young." There's nothing unhinged about it. Drenched in reverb, Earl's voice is a high, sweet instrument. Perhaps the best comparison is one a friend made last night to Jonathan Donahue, singer of Mercury Rev.

Regardless, I came away really liking the band's set without being able to articulate exactly why. Perhaps it was simply the promise that it's short but potent set held. I'm not going to put Sounds of Shame into heavy rotation, but I will keep a lookout for the band's next release, because I have a feeling it'll be something special.