Things the Grandchildren Should Buy
Eels frontman, E., has long mined personal tragedy to make uplifting art. Starting with 1997’s beautiful “Electro-Shock Blues,” a visceral elegy to the twin tragedies of his sister’s suicide and his mother’s death from cancer (events that occurred within months of his scoring his first big hit with “Novocain for the Soul”), and culminating with 2006’s sprawling “Blinking Lights (And Other Revelations),” E has incorporated his family biography into his music. But in the last two years, the erstwhile Mark Oliver Everett has gotten explicitly autobiographical. First, he hosted a documentary, which aired in the U.S. on PBS’ “Nova,” about his troubled genius of a father, Hugh Everett III, who directly challenged Niels Bohr with his “many worlds” theory and was crushed, professionally and spiritually, as a result. Finally, E published a sprightly memoir, “Things The Grandchildren Should Know,” late last year.
The book reveals Everett as a memoirist on par with Sedaris and as a smart ass philisopher who could hold his own with Vonnegut. The Vonnegut comparison is particularly apt. All that’s missing is the “So it goes” refrain as death compounds death. The tragic slow decline of his older sister is well-worn territory, but brings extra poignancy to both the book and the earlier eels LPs, while his bizarro accounts of a mad scientist father who spoke not more than a dozen sentences to his son during his life would be too fantastical, if it were not corroborated by the “Parallel Lives” documentary. Meanwhile, a beloved dg is put to sleep (so it goes), a ghost-watching neighbor unexpectedly passes (so it goes), a beloved roadie OD’s on heroin after a joke made in bad taste (so it goes) and a cousin is a flight attendant on the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 — probably into the side of the building where Everett’s dad once worked (so it goes and goes and goes).
There is a certain lump-in-the-throat quality to E’s memoir that is nicely cut with sweet reminiscences, plain-spoken confessions and good old fashioned piss and vinegar. There are few rock-n-rollers today who are as vital or as relevant as Everett. Would he to publish the Vol. 2 of his “Chronicles.” In the meantime, we can rejoice in the impending release of his first album of new material in four years, “Hombre Loco” (due out June 2nd).
Belle and the Beeb
With the departure of Isobel Campbell and a turn towards straight-forward power pop, Belle and Sebstian morphed into a new band earlier in the decade. This was not a totally unwelcome development, as the genre is desperately in need of a savior and the band’s “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” and “The Life Pursuit” were two of the best releases in recent years. And, yet, we lost a delightfully idiosyncratic voice in the old B&S. Matador Records reminds of of what was lost in their recent releases of Belle’s sloppy seconds (to paint a vulgar picture).
2006’s sprawling collection of odds and sods, “Push Barman To Open Old Wounds,” consisted of more highlights than some of the band’s official LPs and paved the way for their new collection of BBC sessions. Most bands take advantage of the Beeb’s generous compensation package to pad their numbers and add back-up session players. Belle and Sebastian, already known for the expansive sound of their rock-n-roll chamber music choose an oddly pared down sound on these tracks, as if to prove they could take their music out of the studio and on the road. The collection includes four songs from 2001 that mark the transition from their earlier twee period to the later power pop years. Alas, they are no great revelation.
“The BBC Sessions” comes packaged as a two-disc set, although a sticker on the cover warns that the second disc, a live Belfast concert recording from 2001, is a “limited edition.” In front of a live audience, the band seems to come alive in ways John Peel could only dream of. You’d feel pretty good too if you could get a stadium of fans to sing along about “a girl next door who’s famous for showing her chest.” Covers include the Beatles, Velvet Underground and local heroes Thin Lizzy, whose “The Boys Are Back In Town” is a clear highlight, but in Belfast that’s a bit like singing the “Star Spangled Banner” and being surprised that people stand and remove their caps.
Keep Your Riches, Give Me a Bonus Track!
Finally getting their due after a generation and a half of younger bands cashed in on their legacy, the Replacements are in the midst of the rock-n-roll equivalent of a Presidential exploratory committee for a reunion tour. First came Jim Walsh’s adoring biography, and now the Mats’ early funny records get the deluxe treatment from Rhino records, re-mastered and fleshed out with bonus tracks.
The Replacements’ later years on a major label were marked by disappointment, as each effort to turn their next record into a “Great Rock Statement” missed the mark, making the out-takes and B-sides an essential part of the band’s narrative. Their indie years, on the other hand, were marked by a constant maturation and growth that culminated in as perfect a record as any band has ever committed to modified petroleum product, 1984’s “Let It Be.” Consequently, the bonus tracks are the usual mix of covers (“20th Century Boy”), demos (a more vulnerable sounding “Sixteen Blue” and a Westerberg solo “Answering Machine”) and excised tracks (“Temptation Eyes” and “Perfectly Lethal”) that add little to the record but a historical footnote and the slight satisfaction that there are better sounding versions of these songs than our muddy, 16th generation traded bootlegs.
It was on “Let It Be” that the band finally acquiesced and let lead singer Paul Westerberg load up the disc with four of the most beautiful fucked up ballads. On earlier records, these songs wound up as B-sides or home demos that were never fully realized. Now they are rightfully reclaim the spotlight, starting with “If Only You Were Lonely,” the cutesy, clumsy love-song left off of the band’s trash debut, “Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash,” but featured on 76.5% of all mixtapes made ever since. “If Only You Were Lonely” hinted at a wit and maturity that songs like “I Hate Music” and “Shutup” belied, but guitarist Bob Stinson hated it, and it was relegated to B-side status. The remainder of the bonus tracks on “Sorry Ma” indicate that “I Hate Music” was as witty as all four band members were willing to get on their first record.
“If You Get Married” was probably the next great ballad that the Replacements might have recorded, an elegiac ode to swinging bachelorhood and the dread of growing up, except that Westerberg never had the nerve to propose its inclusion on a record. Heretofore, its only known existence was a low-quality recording of a slightly inebriated live performance. On the newly-remastered “Stink,” “Married” turns up as a fully realized home demo — a lost classic. The rest of the short record is fleshed out with Hank Williams and Bill Haley covers, which, as far as I can tell have never gotten out of the vaults until now. It’s enough to make a fan misty to hear the Replacements wail on some classic in the studio at the height of their prowess, and for that reason and “If You Get Married,” “Stink” is the best value of the Replacements’ re-mastered discs.
“Hootenany” is a hoot. At the time of its release, it was the most stylistically diverse of the Replacements’ records. The bonus tracks continue in that freewheeling style. Two of those extra tracks are alternate versions of “Lovelines,” a first reading of the back pages of the Twin Cities’ favorite weekly alternative newspaper and a rambling rocker that steals the melody for the band’s smart ass entry into a Miller college band contest (“Keep your riches, give me a Budweiser,” our favorite weisenheimers shout). The highlight here, as on other records, is a Westerberg solo home demo, “Bad Worker,” in which our hero takes himself to task for being an otherly-motivated employee and a disappointment to his father.
A band as bootlegged as this is likely to leave a few key tracks off, but that seems an intentional tease for the boxed set that could follow (and the reunion tour to support it).
Blame It On the Solo Career
Ever since “Satellite Rides” failed to make them stars and lead singer Rhett Miller cut loose for a middling solo career, the Old 97s have reunited every four years to record a mellow studio album. Their latest, “Blame It On Gravity,” seems slight and easily dismissible, but so did their last long-player, “Drag It Up,” which turned out to be a real sleeper and is probably the Old 97s record that I listen to the most.
As can be expected from a band with multiple songwriters and a moonlighting lead singer, the sidemen deliver some of the best material here. In particular, bassist Murray Hammond, always one to take a star turn here and there, turns in a pair of crooning country ballads (Pick Hit: “The Color of a Lonely Heart Is Blue”) that serve to remind that the 97’s started out as the band that just might save country music. Otherwise, Miller steers the band towards power pop and VH1-style rock.
Rhett Miller remains a clever songwriter with a gift for wordplay and indelible characters, like the kid who “came from Pheonix in a borrowed VW Bug just to prove that he was on her like she was a drug” (“The Fool”) or the lothario who preys on “girls like you with your flip flop smiles and your big blue eyes on vacation” (“Dance With Me”). Most of these songs, particularly the slow burn of “The Easy Way” and the driving “Ride,” merely hint at the incredible power of this band live. Whatever else are “Blame it On Gravity’s” merits, at least it will put the Old 97s back on tour.