The Eels’ first 3 albums were as integral to my teenage years as my closest friends were. Though the electronic-tinged folk-rock tunes of bandleader Mark Oliver Everett were decidedly simple, their spirit resonated with me like few others have before or since. I often felt (feel) the way those songs sound- like you’re waking up hungover from whatever lousy hand life had dealt you the night before, and you’re wondering why you should even bother to get out of bed… but then you hear a bird singing a lovely song just outside your window, and you get up and look at it blissfully chilling on a tree branch, and somehow that’s enough for you to want to leave the house and face life again. Continue reading ‘First Listen: Eels’ Tomorrow Morning’
Author Archive for Joe O.
Black Mountain’s In The Future was one of my favorite records of 2008, so for over 2 years I’ve been eager to hear what this band would do next. And maybe I anticipated a little too much, because my first spin through Wilderness Heart was missing something. I still dig their uncannily ’70s lava lamp rock, which manages to feel mellow even when it drops Zeppelin and Sabbath-caliber riff-bombs. Only this time around it didn’t seize me as immediately. It seemed more generic and less adventurous. Yet because In The Future has continued to reward me long after 10 listens, I’m going to stick with Wilderness Heart a little more. Besides, I’m also partially to blame for my disappointing First Listen; I chose to do it in my apartment after midnight, which means I didn’t listen to it very loudly- which is rather unfair to a band that can rock as hard as Black Mountain can. I’ll get back to you guys after I’ve really had a chance to blast this thing.
I often wake up with songs already stuck in my head. However, this phenomenon rarely involves music I’ve been deliberately sticking into my head. Even when I’m ribs-deep in an album I’m reviewing- and even if it’s an album by a Top 40 hook machine like Lady Gaga- I don’t really wake up hearing its tracks inside my brain. Usually this just happens with random cheese from the ’80s and early ’90s that I haven’t heard since childhood.
But in the few weeks since I’ve started listening to Maps & Atlases’ Perch Patchwork, I’ve awoken nearly every morning with one of its tracks spinning in my mental stereo. And I don’t mean just one of its tracks. I mean most of the album’s songs have had at least one turn waking me up. This album is that absurdly catchy. Yet these melodies aren’t merely absurdly catchy. They’re nimble and sophisticated and precise, like Eastern European acrobats. Propelled by refreshingly unorthodox rhythms, intricate riffs, and singer Dave Davison’s tastefully poignant voice, the tunes frequently ascend toward heaven like fluttering moths before trickling back down to earth like misty rain.
I haven’t heard any of the 4 EPs Maps & Atlases have released, but I stumbled upon their full-length debut Perch Patchwork and was pleasantly surprised. Their sound is rich with peculiar, worldly rhythms and acrobatic melodies that feel more like hooks than exercises for music theory geeks. Sometimes it gets a little too breezy for my taste, but there’s no question that I’d like to spend some more time with this record. A full review should be up here within the next couple of weeks.
Is it possible to hear the sound of approaching doom? Does approaching doom sound kind of like room tone, but darker? Can we hear approaching doom squeezing a singer’s nerves tightly in its clutches? Can we physically sense the presence of approaching doom as it plays maestro to an ill-fated orchestra?
For instance, some people seem convinced that they could hear Kurt Cobain’s demons lurking in the shadows of Unplugged In New York. Yet how many of those claims come from keen human intuition, and how many are simply embellished memories revised by tragedy? Hard to tell. Continue reading ‘Classic and Unappreciated: Cambodian Rocks’
Let’s say you’re watching a horror movie where the villain is this Lovecraftian beast, as old as time itself. Despite its gargantuan size and blob-like physique, this beast can move with the force of a rhino and the agility of a mongoose. It has the insouciant attitude of a high school bully in his third senior year. It could maul an asthmatic little girl, then turn right around and high-five his beastly bros while they all chuckle like dumb stoners.
And just as this beast is lurching toward one of its victims, ready to strike- suddenly you see the zipper on the costume start to unzip. Then the dude inside the costume jumps out, looks right into the camera and plays 6 verses of “Oh Susanna” using armpit farts. Continue reading ‘The Melvins: The Bride Screamed Murder’
I’m only familiar with one previous Melvins album, 1994’s Stoner Witch, but that album is one of my favorites. More so than most other rock albums, I totally want Stoner Witch to think I’m cool. It would probably just make fun of me and beat me up and steal my woman if it ever met me, but I love it anyway. Stoner Witch is Todd, and I am Beavis & Butt-head.
The Bride Screamed Murder is The Melvins’ 18th album and their 8th for Ipecac Recordings, and while it may not be a Stoner Witch it does remind me that I ought to be listening to a lot more Melvins. Expect a full review on or around its June 1st release.
In my First Listen review of this record I called the songwriting “unremarkable,” and in a way, I was right. But now after 10 listens I realize that in a much bigger way, I totally missed the point. Unlike Jack White’s other bands, The Dead Weather isn’t necessarily about making melody-driven rock songs- they’re about riffs, grooves, and atmosphere. On their second album, it’s apparent that the band is not only getting better at what they do, they sound like they’re having a lot more fun doing it, too.
The air oozes humidity and buzzes with static electricity. Jack Lawrence’s tense but fluid basslines creep up behind you like shady private detectives. White and Dean Ferita’s cobra-blues guitar licks fill in the cracks between their respective other bands (a little less pyrotechnic than The White Stripes, not quite as metal as Queens Of The Stone Age). White’s drums tie the strings together with simple, strutting beats, and Ferita’s synths bubble up like neon potions in a mad scientist’s test tube rack. The vocals by White and Alison Mosshart may not add much melody, but they do add plenty of rhythmic punch and raw bad-assery. Mosshart’s sultry hollers sound like come-ons cloaked in threats (”Let’s go where no one can see us/ and find the difference between us/ you can cry like a baby/ just let me do what I need to.”) When White’s in the spotlight, he likes to spit his brand of wry, rap-like braggadocio (”All the white girls trip when I/ sing at Sunday service”). Every few minutes the atmosphere reaches a breaking point: the sky explodes into thunder, lightning, and torrential rain for a brief spell before it all drifts away just as quickly. Then The Dead Weather keep on trudgin’ along the muddy road, soaked to their socks, until the next storm crashes over them.
That’s not to say Sea Of Cowards is an overly repetitive record, as most of the tracks have distinct vibes. The sleek UFO tractor beams of “The Difference Between Us” enhance the allure of Mosshart’s bipolar coquette. The slithering leviathan chorus of “Die By The Drop” and the skittery spider-walk verse of “Gasoline” add layers of delicious dread. And the bluntly-titled “I’m Mad” offers so many great moments that it feels much longer than its 3:13 running time (in a good way).
Not too surprisingly, most of the Jack White-fronted tracks tend to feel like little more than methadone for those of us eagerly awaiting our next White Stripes fix. Opener “Blue Blood Blues” is the most Stripes-like number here- more specifically, it kind of resembles “Icky Thump” with its herky-jerky stomp and off-the-top-of-the-head-sounding nonsense lyrics (”Crack a window, crack a broken bone/ crack your knuckles when you’re at home”). Yet with the addition of some ghostly backing vocals, the track at least makes an effort to fit The Dead Weather’s style. “Looking At The Invisible Man” tries a similar trick by taking what sounds like a White Stripes B-side and slathering it in radioactive bullfrog guitars and moon-elf vocal filters, only it doesn’t work quite as well this time. Then there’s “Old Mary,” an artsy indulgence of White’s mutant Catholicism (”Old Mary, full of grease, your heart stops within you…scary are the fruits of your tomb and harsh are the terms of your sentence”). It’s not a track I’d listen to out of context, but I love it as a haunting coda to the album as a whole.
In fact, despite what my First Listen-self said about the unremarkable songwriting and lack of “hits” on Sea Of Cowards, “Old Mary” and “Invisible Man” are the only two tracks I wouldn’t put in rotation if I still had a college radio show. I’m still not sure if the rest of the record is, as I originally hoped it would be, “more than an intoxicating mix of blues, fury and sweaty monster sex.” Then again, how much more should I really demand from such visceral rock n’ roll? What matters most, I think, is that with each spin I take through Sea Of Cowards, the deeper it sinks into my blood.
Jack White may continue to keep his hitmaking formulas and his sympathetic sweetheart side hidden from The Dead Weather, but Sea Of Cowards probably kicks ass anyway. White’s third band’s second album struts for 35 minutes like it’s headed toward a one-night stand with The Bride of Frankenstein.
On first listen, I forgave what sounded like unremarkable songwriting because I was seduced by the riffs. They’re heavy and spry, liquid and sharp, and they’re the main reason I plan to spin Sea Of Cowards at least nine more times. The album’s official US release is May 11, so by then I should have a better idea whether it’s more than just an intoxicating work of blues, fury and sweaty monster sex.
Editor’s Note: In a series of “classic” articles, 10Listens is giving some love to albums that may not have gotten much in the past. These won’t be reviews, per se, but collections of ideas spawned by revisiting albums we may be alone in loving. There’s no timetable to when these appear, so they will come as they may. Enjoy. Oh, and if anyone comes up with a good name for this series, I’m all ears.
Somewhere in the second half of our 20th Century, a Delta Blues Man’s hitchhiking his way up the Mississippi toward Chicago, thinking he’s gonna be the second coming of Howlin’ Wolf. Along the way he’s picked up by a van full of kids- whatta they call ‘em, beatniks? Hippies? Only they don’t dress like no beatniks or hippies. They wear bold pinstripe suits and finely groomed facial hair, like dandy-boys. Only they ain’t no dandy boys neither. There may not be a single word to describe what these weirdos are. Their license plate says California, so the Blues Man assumes they’re from San Francisco. Then again they could very well be from Mars, or the future.
Whatever they are, they’re so stoked to meet an authentic Delta Blues singer- guess what, they’re musicians too, man! They should totally jam! Now the Blues Man reckons he sure ain’t no square, but he still wonders how much common ground he’ll find with these cats. Even if they’re not hippies they still must be waist deep in all that hippy-dippy acid rock- The Magic Doors and The Strawberry Airplane and such. He asks if they know any Bo Diddley, and they answer by busting out a gritty impromptu a cappella rendition of “Who Do You Love?” So the Blues Man reckons these crazy cats just might be all right after all. “Well hell yes we can jam!” he says, and the not-quite-hippies rejoice. But first, they say, how bout a little grass? You dig grass, don’t you, Blues Man? Sho ’nuff, baby. Sho nuff, n’ yes I do…
When the smoke clears, the Delta Blues Man could swear they’re somewhere in the Mojave. But how’d that happen if they were just on the outskirts of Memphis- what was it, 20 minutes ago? 5 hours ago? And is that a giant gila monster sleeping on top of the sun?
They’re not even in the van anymore. In fact, the van’s nowhere to be seen. They’re all just standing there, surrounded by miles of sand and rock, with nothing but their gear in front of them. Amps too, with power lights glowing red and traces of feedback humming in strange frequencies- but where in the hell are they plugged in?
The kid behind the drum kit says, “OK Blues Man, you kick it off and we’ll follow.” So The Delta Blues Man steps up to a mic that looks like a bug-headed tree, and he clears his throat. He starts playing this riff he’s been fooling with lately, this thing with a little slide to it, though he doesn’t really have any lyrics for it yet. Then all of a sudden words just come to him from deep within his subconscious. “I was born in a desert…came on up from New Orleeeeeans…” Wait, that don’t make no sense, ain’t no deserts in New Orleans…”I came upon a tornado, sunlight in the sky…” Tornadoes in sunlight? A moon stickin’ in my eye? What in the-
In spite of talkin’ all this nonsense jive, the band dives right in, fast and bulbous: a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag. The drummer lays down this herky-jerky locomotive groove, like a Johnny Cash tune with a peg-leg. It’s odd, but the Blues Man can dig it. The lead guitarist- Cooder, was that his name?- kid’s got otherworldly chops, he’s dancing on some other plane. And that bass player! So much energy, and yet so very smooth…
…he realizes they’ve been playing a brand new song for about a minute and a half now, in fact they’re already at the breakdown. Just drums and that perfect bass line and the Blues Man hollering, “Zig-Zag traveler for the mercy mile!”, whatever that means. It’s like the moment that all American music has been building up toward until now. It’s blues, it’s Motown, it’s rock n’ motherfucking roll. And not only that, it’s going to affect the course of music to come- that’s right, he can see the future now. He doesn’t know John Lennon, and he doesn’t even know if he likes John Lennon, but he knows John Lennon is gonna go crazy for this noise. Him and a couple guys named Joe Strummer and Tom Waits. Also some blues rockin’ kid named Jackie White who hasn’t even been born yet.
The Blues Man’s mind tricks him into thinking he’s coming down, and so the band slides into a much safer song. Safe as milk, you might say, so long as that milk hasn’t been basking in the desert heat. The kind of song you’d sing to snag a woman: “Call on me whenever you’re lonely and blue.” They could probably play Ed Sullivan with this tune, if they were the types who’d want to play on Ed Sullivan. OK that was nice and all, but let’s get far out again, fellas. I’m gonna sing this next one like some kind of bayou monster, and let’s see if we can make those guitars sound like mechanical caterpillars. Yeah, that’s it. And maybe let’s do a bridge where we slow it down to half-time and throw in some pianos or xylophones or something like that. All right now just for kicks let’s try another Top 40 ditty, something a little Smokey Robinson. Hold on- you’ve got one of them theremins? Well let’s see what kind of magic we can make with that bastard! Ooh yeah, I can feel that vibe all the way down in my EEEEEeeeeeeEEEEE-Lec-Tri-Suh-Teeeeee….
In the distance, a mighty lighthouse rises up from the Earth and spews lightning like a gigantic Tesla coil. The band skips jauntily down the Yellow Brick Road. They summon the ancient spirits of Abba Zabba from dark, baboon-infested jungles. They grumble about factory jobs and pesky bosses while a wandering coyote drops by to blow on harmonica. They bow and praise the miracle of Woman. There’s a sad, Kafkaesque identity crisis in an unsettling time signature. Finally the sun sets on our mythic jam session with a surreal memory of a distant Autumn- “feet of dust under trees of rust.” Then the sun comes up again. The Blues Man and his magic band decide that this whimsically menacing trip has gone on exactly as long as it needed to. This is their gift to the gods, and if the gods desire to share this gift with humankind, these songs will find their way back somehow.