Author Archive for Jeff Laughlin

Japandroids: Celebration Rock

Jeff Laughlin, May 15, 2012 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments

We are the children of a generation who were not required to go to war; a generation with little meaning and few heroes. We are a DIY-driven mass of knowledge-gluttons who rarely converse without thinking we are right. We are the 30-somethings we knew we would be and we can’t wait to be the elder statesmen we are destined to be. We consider each of our favorite albums to be, at least somewhat, our anthem. There can’t be hundreds of anthems, though. There can’t be just one, either. Japandroids’ grasp of youth and folly certainly ranks them as spokespeople, and their music is certainly energetic and with causation. Their pinnacles speak highly of our indecision and vaguely of angst. They understand the mute-worthiness of speaking, even when there’s little to be said.

Of course, there’s your dividing line. Depending upon who you ask, pop music’s grasp on reality is fleeting already, and our generation’s understanding of life’s foibles is limited enough without art mirroring us. When “The Days of Nights and Roses” muses on meandering: “Don’t we have anything to live for?/ Well, of course we do/ but until they come true/ we’re still drinking/ and still smoking,” Japandroids are presupposing the line of questioning from older generations. I’m not giving them The Who status quite yet, but what, if any, question would you expect the older folks to ask us? Each question you get, each news story of wayward youth and each glaring eye you wander past is asking you, “What are you doing with your life?” Well, “Roses,” and all of Celebration Rock attempts to answer it. “We all want to know what nobody knows:/ what the nights of wine and roses hold… we don’t cry for those nights to arrive/ we yell like hell to the heavens.”

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Reks: Straight, No Chaser

Jeff Laughlin, April 25, 2012 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: REKS, Straight no Chaser.

There are times when the chasm of Reks’ lyrics open up and a song like “Chasin” occurs. And other times he switches up his flow to play around with another MC and a song like “Riggs and Murtagh” happens. Then there are times when he becomes a braggart amongst braggarts and a song like “Such a Showoff” happens. No matter what happens, though, REKS submits to style in a way that not many MCs can pull off. Thinking about the precision it takes for an MC to effortlessly fall into several styles in one album, I can’t help but ignore the weaknesses of Straight, No Chaser.

I mean, the weaknesses are there: Statik Selektah has a style and it can get old in a whole album. REKS does have a tendency to fall apart when he gets too conceptual (”Sins” comes to mind). The guest stars don’t really add much, for the most part, since they are very similar to REKS (show off, show off); the exception being Action Bronson’s back-and-forth in “Riggs and Murtagh.” But that’s all background to how REKS handles his voice, his make-up. If R.E.K.S. was the introduction to his mindset, Straight, No Chaser is his announcement of how he’ll be handling future business. We’ve been warned and business is good.

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The Shins’ Port of Morrow and Excellence Executed Well: A Personal Essay

Jeff Laughlin, April 12, 2012 in Essays and Criticism. 1 Comment Tags: Dear You, Jawbreaker, Personal Essays, Port of Morrow, Shins.

I waited until two days after Port of Morrow was released to buy it. For those that know my level of Shins adoration, the wait was unusual. Maybe it was an affront to my fandom, but I wasn’t all that impressed with the Shins pre-album performances. SNL, Letterman, youtube clips, it was all a mass of garbled wonder and it left me bewildered. How can I hold any disdain for a band that put out three outstanding albums? Was it too much to ask that a too-long absence produce a fourth masterwork? Hold on, I’ll explain why it was and turned out not to be.

So often, bands spiral downward. I think Jawbreaker’s Dear You (the fourth studio album from my favorite band) is a standout example. Critically destroyed, childishly flamboyant, over-recorded, Dear You is a trainwreck at times, but that’s why I love it. I’m not entirely sure why it was panned so vehemently– perhaps the saturation of emotional rock music led folks astray on the purpose of the album. Perhaps their popularity amongst adoring fans made dismissal an obvious choice. Jawbreaker was the exact crossroads: too small to fail and too popular to quit. Dear You turned into a labor of love, but wasn’t worth the problems it caused. Often, a band’s shelf-life is shorter than the albums they continue to create. That’s all I could think about as the release date neared: The Shins’ popularity and relative obscurity were demonizing what should have been an exciting day.

I was too young to really know why Jawbreaker fell apart or why people didn’t like Dear You. I was old enough to hear people complain about Wincing the Night Away not being as good as the Shins’ previous efforts. It was as if the album were an affront to those that worshipped Chutes Too Narrow and an excuse to dismiss The Shins for those who didn’t love them anyway. I figured it was their last release. Once James Mercer started writing with Danger Mouse, his path diverged from mine and I was content with the three albums he gave the Shins’ moniker. Hell, I even loved Wincing, unlike most folks I knew. There was nothing missing. The Shins were infallible and they’d chosen to stay that way. Then, I saw pitchfork articles touting terribly recorded live material. Then iTunes released “Simple Song.” Then the release date. Then my trepidation and waiting.

Had The Shins ruined my attraction to them? After 7 years, the idea of a new Shins record was more appealing than actually knowing one was coming. I held off on listening to bad recordings, opting instead for the “Simple Song,” a Cars-esque theatrical love song. I waited for SNL’s sneak peek too, hoping for a decent sound, but I wasn’t impressed. The company I was in were not Shins fans– not even close– so maybe they had affected how I heard the performance.

See, that’s where I failed: I needed to cull my youthful exuberance. When Dear You came out, I was just excited to hear from Jawbreaker again. I wasn’t worried about their stranding in the music world or what I would think if the record wasn’t great. After all the hand-wringing, I read what my friend wrote on facebook (thanks, Scott H.) and I got excited again. To paraphrase: “I’m a sucker for the Shins.” Me too, I forgot. So why am I scared? Two days after the release of what should have been my most anticipated album in a decade, I came home from work, copped Port of Morrow, and got comfy. My fears washed away pretty quickly– by the time Mercer refrains, “You were always to be a dagger floating straight to their heart,” I was satiated. Port of Morrow is great and I’ve listened to it damn near exclusively since I bought it. Fears allayed, I focused on why I would be so fretful, fell into a rabbit-hole of Chutes proportions and have reminded everyone I know of how good this band was/is.

The difference in my youthful ignorance and my world-wearied exterior isn’t personified often: I’ve softened on so many issues and I’m no elitist. Port of Morrow is not an album with grandiose pertinence like their past work. In fact, it’s a bit more direct and preachy rather than story-telling or dynamic. “September” is a grand exception. “40 Mark Strasse,” “Simple Song,” “It’s Only Life,” and “Fall of ‘82″ are all direct messages and unlike anything Mercer has ever done. All the songs masterpieces, collectively, Port of Morrow straddles the line between cheesiness and exaltation. Either way, it’s pop-perfection. He croons over certain songs, whispers and crawls over others. Even the iTunes b-side “Pariah King” serves as an example of how good Mercer is. Filler keyboard rambles, strangely entrancing vocal-highs and philosophical understandings of life amongst the bottom-feeders underline the one thing I wasn’t expecting: I love this band despite their absences and faults. I love them despite my own.

I was planning on just writing “It’s excellent,” and leaving the review at that. And it would’ve done this album some justice. Port of Morrow deserves the boring backstory, though. The Shins deserve my collective sighs and overwrought personality. They deserve everything I’ve got, because they’ve been consistently astounding for this long. Wrapping my head around Mercer’s genre-bending boldness is never old, despite how long I wait. I’m ready to believe again, The Shins. You’ve earned more than what I offered this record, but it won’t happen again, I promise. With renewed vigor, I’m telling everyone the truth. Port of Morrow is more than a comeback record, it’s more than a return to greatness, it’s more than perfection.

It’s excellent.

Electricians: Running

Jeff Laughlin, March 12, 2012 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: electricians, Running.

Amongst the rubble of my past life, there’s few bands I tried to hold onto despite them being out of the public eye. Most of them were during my time in NYC and are either completely different from when I heard them then or have stopped making music altogether. Some I’ve stayed in contact with, others have slipped through the cracks. Somewhere in the rubble, I got a hold of a record I really liked, this little minimal EP from Electricians. I can still sing a couple of the songs, even. I was awaiting a bigger, longer, more produced LP; something that brought their sound more definition and weight. I’m here to admit I was mistaken. You don’t need the production help, Electricians. A full LP of what you have is just fine.

Running begins and ends at the peak of their talent level. At no time are they overshooting or adding filler to give their songs added beef. In fact, the first sounds you hear on the album’s opener, “Actuator” are filler before they break into straightforward rock-and-roll riff as if to beckon the idea of largeness and shun it. The song is under two minutes, a perfect introduction to Running. The more staid and lyrically-driven “Sorry About the Snow” follows suit. A three-minute jam that vacillates between low-boil and full-out yelling (”Wooooooooah, the winter’s not that cold.”), it sets up for the meat of the album.

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The Life and Times: No One Loves You Like I Do

Jeff Laughlin, March 7, 2012 in Music Reviews. 3 Comments Tags: No One Loves You Like I Do, The Life and Times.

I’ve never reviewed a Life and Times record, yet I’ve been an outspoken fan of every record and EP they’ve ever touched. Of course, now that I operate a music blog with no restrictions, they’ve decided to put out their strangest record to date: an explorative vision of love, violence, and overwrought devotion. Each song is a representative demand: some songs are declarations of lovely and desirous commands to gain a lover’s attention, others are penetrating decisions that border on madness. In either case, recording a concept as simple and engrossing as this one demands a different approach: each song is a day in the life, or more correctly a day in the thoughts, of a person attempting to ensnare his mate. No One Loves You Like I Do is a penetrating look inside love’s consuming force. Therefore, I decided to place the songs in order to possibly expose the core of the album. Experimentation begets experimentation.

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Lost Records: Sonna’s We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight

Jeff Laughlin, February 20, 2012 in Classic and Essays and Criticism. 0 Comments Tags: Lost Records, Sonna, We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight.

When I bought two Sonna records in the fall of 2003, I had no reason to think I’d ever really fall in love with them. They were $4 apiece, used. I was working at WUAG in Greensboro, NC and had played Sonna a few times on my radio show. The musicianship seemed scattershot– music to write to and forget. In fact, I really only listened to them that fall. The records themselves sat on my shelves (reverse alphabetical order; next to Seam and Sebadoh) for a good four years before my rediscovery of We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight.

It was a true NYC winter in 2009. Those who know winter walking know how snowy weather compounds walking. They know how snow means more walking, harder walking. It means tricky slopes and steps, ice spots and huge hills of piled-up black snow along walkable parts of the sidewalk and street. It means constant vigilance. Once you get home, the bottoms of your jeans freezing cold and wet, it meant relaxing in the warmth. I went on a record exploration during those cozy nights. I was working on my first book and decided to break out the instrumental jams of a few years ago. When I ran across Sonna I furrowed my brow. They were exactly what I needed, but I couldn’t remember even buying the records.

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Lonely Weekend Singles Club #2: Ignore the Rappers, It’s the Jam

Jeff Laughlin, February 17, 2012 in Initial Response. 0 Comments Tags: Action Bronson, Harry Fraud, Riff Raff, Singles Club.

This week’s installment of the singles club is a strange one. I’m featuring Action Bronson and Riff Raff’s “Bird On a Wire” which belongs to those names as much as the beach belongs to a cottage owner. From the introduction of the rolling bass line and the first 80’s style hook, this is a Harry Fraud joint. Dude’s a good producer, being billed as an up-and-comer by magazines paid to ignore up-and-comers. He’s a darling of rap blogs. The fact that Riff Raff– a soulja boy tell ‘em offshoot bro and MTV “star” of “From G’s to Gents”– is on this track just shows how much money soulja boy is gonna throw around to get his people good beats. Bronson is a mediocre rapper with some good songs sprinkled throughout his career. He slows his Ghostface-style flow down to fit the beat and it is pretty obvious he is the talent here. He drops a couple jewels, including my personal favorite “Tailor me a leather suit/ on some Jodeci shit/ Bi-coastal, man/ We supposed to be rich.” It’s a faux-DOOM flow which works since he and Raff are just background noise anyway. I’d like to personally thank Riff Raff for only staying on the track for like 30 seconds and letting the beat ride proper. Also, thanks for dropping 30 brand names into that 30 seconds. You have a really bright future ahead of you.

Back to the backbone: this beat fucking knocks. I want to drive a flying car over every American city with more than 200,000 people in it, urinate on park-trees and keep this beat on blast. I want to carve this beat into my shoes using esperanto. I want to figure out the world’s hardest rubick’s cube with only this beat as my guide. I want to live inside this beat while it stares lovingly at its two mothers from a swimming pool. Even the programmed drums are perfect. It’s my jam. I hope it can be your jam too. What would it take to get Meek Mill to freestyle over this? Can we get some good rappers to jump on it? If anyone hears anything, let me know. Until then, I’m on my “ignorance is bliss” grind, this song turned all the way up on computer speakers until the MP3 leaks.

Lonely Weekend Singles Club #1: Freddie Gibbs & Madlib/ The Shins

Jeff Laughlin, February 11, 2012 in Initial Response and Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: Freddie Gibbs, Madlib, Port of Morrow, Shins, Singles Club, THUGGIN.

Ed. Note: It’s new idea time. Every so often, Joe and I will be talking about singles we like in anticipation of new reviews. Get some.

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Thuggin’

Freddie Gibbs and Madlib collaborating is a dream collaboration and if 10 listens is all I need to review something, I can likely review this three times already. Gibbs goes in hard, Madlib’s production is, as usual, astounding and the beginning sample rules. Even more maddening is that the B-side, “Deep,” could be even better. When this album comes out, I might never be heard from again. I plan on bumping this and driving around for days until I run out of money/gas and have to sell drugs to get back on my feet. I mean, why not? I could be thuggin’, right? Right? In any event, is the whole album as tight as the Thuggin’ EP? If so, I’m gonna be hard-pressed to find a better album this year.

The Shins – Simple Song

Time for a totally different direction. I’m an unabashed Shins fan and I’m all kinds of pumped about Port of Morrow. That said, this song is super-produced, the lyrics lack their normal storytelling fervor and, overall, I’m not sure if I love it. I know I like it, but The Shins have never really had a single I didn’t absolutely love. Maybe I can force myself to love it. Just maybe, the rest of the album will crush this synth-driven hook-jam. Either way, “Simple Song” is pretty good, at the very least, and I am shaking in anticipation for a new Shins record. Believe that.

Jeremy Squires: A Place To Hide

Jeff Laughlin, February 9, 2012 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: A Place to Hide, Jeremy Squires.

Cataloguing melancholy is hardly a new thing, especially in folk. It just never gets old. Jeremy Squires represents all that goes well and all that makes sense about an age-old practice. His first record, A Place to Hide, places emphasis on simplicity and melody with a penchant for specious lyrics. Squires sports a saccharine delivery. His is a passively haunting croon that passes through the songs rather than dominating them. Perhaps the recording lends to that softness, but the delicacy sounds intentional. Squires’ delivery and dimensional understanding of the songs is stronger than these recordings can capture. That said, A Place to Hide is a solid debut.

Opener “Evil Things” represents the album well. The guitar moves over light drumming while piano accentuates the background. Squires vacillates between light and dark, dream and waking dream. The power in the song comes in a build, like the lyrics, with cymbal-led clutter and the clack of muted snare. “Just Like Magic” echoes the craftsmanship of “Evil Things” on a quieter level. An autumnal song, “Just Like Magic” isn’t the best on the album, but it might be the best delivered. Long, held-out notes cruise over the methodical guitar as Squires bounces from lazy verses into sharp choruses. The song shows the best strengths of the album while shying away from weakness. As the album continues, it’s easy to forget this song until you revisit it.

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