Besterberg, Where’s the Resterberg?
What a disappointing decade and a half it’s been for fans of Paul Westerberg. The mercurial former lead singer for the mighty Replacements moved from glossy pop rock to over-produced singer-songwriter navelgazing to under-produced home recording reclusiveness, from major label “next big thing” to indie label “has been,” from sober to drinking again. Westerberg’s cult status is consecrated, to an extent, by the Rhino collection, “BESTerberg: The Best of Paul Westerberg,” a curious 20 song collection culled from six of his nine albums, plus assorted extras, that feels like a condensed version of what should have been a three record set. B-sides and soundtrack contributions, like his anemic cover of “Nowhere Man” and the AIDS-themed rocker “Stain Yer Blood” (finally available without the “witty banter” from the tv show “Friends”) properly belong on a fuller collection of odds and sods (call it “RESTerberg”), along with some good stuff that didn’t […]
Telegraphing the Tension Through the Title
The tension between solo work and band work is sometimes palpable, as is the resentment of the post-breakup competition. Sometimes it’s laid right out in the album title. Here are my five favorite pissed-off, post (or pre)-breakup album titles. Or at least, the first five that occurred to me while writing this. 5. Bach’s Bottom by Alex Chilton. The mercurial lead singer of Big Star has had some pretty confounding output as a solo artist. His first almost-complete record mostly consists of covers (fans would eventually get used to this). His nervy and needy cover of “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” is the best ever, while his original “Bangkok” features a double entendre that would make AC/DC’s eyes roll. Alex was in a band called the Box Tops, y’see, before Big Star. See, bad puns abound! 4. Rigor Mortis Sets In by John Entwistle. The Who’s bassist, the writer […]
Sell Out!
I miss the days of “selling out” in rock and roll. It’s hard to fathom the purist fury that fans once generated over “plugging in” or signing to a major label. These days, not only does the clearest act of selling out – licensing music for teevee commercials and even performing in such commercials – not generate controversy, it is rewarded by higher sales! The once-underground techno star Moby became famous by licensing all of the songs off of his 1999 album, “Play,” for use in movies and commercials. For many, it was their first exposure to his music, and it led to more radio airplay and huge record sales. Established “catalog” artists discovered that this strategy could work for them as well. An old Who album cut, “Bargain,” has become a classic rock radio staple after being used in some car commercial. New Who “best of” collections had to […]
“Children by the Million”
The disastrous magnitude of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the Gulf Coast is almost inconceivable. I’ll hardly bother with a political commentary on the government’s woefully inadequate response to, and preparation for, this utterly predictable storm. I don’t think that we, as a society, are going to learn the lessons we need from this. Global climate change is real, and it’s magnifying the size and impact of storms like Katrina, but don’t expect Bush to sign the Kyoto treaty. The National Guard belongs here, protecting the nation, not occupying foreign nations, but don’t expect our governors to demand the immediate return of their states’ troops. Natural disasters are much more likely, and predictable threats than fantastic terrorist threats, but don’t expect the Department of Homeland Security to focus on coastal evacuation. We’ll learn nothing, and this will happen again. Perhaps next time it will be Long Island. I haven’t been near […]
Great Live Concert Moments
Former Washington Post music critic David Segal just published the sort of “goodbye to all that” article that gives rock-n-roll nerds like me big ‘ol boners. Segal writers about the Ahab-like quest for “great live concert moments” – moments during a live concert that are so unique and memorable that you realize you are sharing a special intimate moment with the band a few hundred fans (I don’t attend arena concerts as a rule, so it’s never more than a few hundred). So, I’m thinking of some of my own great live concert moments. The first to spring to mind was a 2001 New Years Eve show by the Fleshtones at Handsome Dick Manitoba’s little club on the Lower East Side. The Fleshtones would gladly admit to being a party band, but their party that night was truly cathartic as we bid goodbye to that awful year. We counted down […]
School Days Mixtape
It’s only a few more weeks until I go to school. I’ve started burning mix CDs for the road trip to Amherst. For a bit of fun, I’ve compiled some of the better school-themed songs. “Fuck School” by the Replacements. The Mats picked up the speed and dumbed down the jokes on their 1982 e.p. “Stink.” Whereas a song like “Goddamn Job” has a certain pathos, “Fuck School” is impotent, class-dropping anger. “School” by Nirvana. From the heavy metal guitar feedback to the lyrical refrain “No recess!” this is early Nirvana at their most obvious. Eh. Everybody’s gotta start somewhere. “College Man” by Bill Justis. Justis is best known for the instrumental hit, “Raunchy,” the twangy guitar and sax ramble that was pure sex on the airwaves in the 1950’s (Bit of trivia: George Harrison had to prove that he could master this song in order to join the Beatles). […]
Music City’s Always Been Good To Him, But Irving Plaza’s a Bitch
I saw Bobby Bare Jr. and a sampling of the Young Criminals Starvation League open for the Old 97’s last Thursday. Bobby didn’t fare too well with the crowd (Who would have? That audience wanted the Old 97’s, and they wanted them right away). The way the songs were reworked for a trio – excising those wonderful Stax horns – made it sound, at times, like generic “hard country,” and Bobby’s vocals were too low in the mix, so the audience missed some good lines. He did win over a few with some funny jokes and that terrific cover of the Smiths’ “What Difference Does It Make?” Once again, I urge you to run out and buy BBJ’s latest record, “From The End of Your Leash,” from the good folks at Bloodshot Records. The Old 97’s barreled through a typically entertaining set that clocked in just under two hours. I […]
From the End of Your Leash
I finally reached one of my goals for this website and got my first batch of free CDs for review, thanks to the good people at Bloodshot Records. Don’t think any less of my journalistic integrity if I wind up only writing positive reviews. I’ve long been a fan of the record label and its stable of clever and nervy alt.country artists. Perhaps the best record that I missed in 2004, “From the End of Your Leash” features the outsized sounds and ambitions of Bobby Bare Jr.’s Young Criminals’ Starvation League. A smart-ass songwriter in the finest Nashville tradition (his pop has dozens of Top 40 country hits to his credit), Bare Jr. is not afraid to let his masterful arrangements – complete with Stax horns and lovely harmony from Carey Kotsionis – compete with his frequently witty lyrics. “Hey, brother, could I borrow your girlfriend?” he asks in the […]
A Brief Return to the Twentieth Century: Gang of Four at Irving Plaza
The Gang of Four returned to New York in great style and form last night, showing no signs of their two-decade gap in performing. They were tight and sharp and ready to take over the world. Darting across stage and frequently switching places, Andy Gill’s jagged guitars sounded every bit as dangerous as they do on those old records while Jon King punctuated his singing by wildly flailing his arms like some sort of spastic messiah. It felt a bit like a socialist church (the crazy, speaking-in-tongues, big-tent revival kind) as the crowd (a wonderful mix of old-timers and kids) screamed along with lines like “The change will do you good!” and “To Hell with poverty!!!” The set list was mostly restricted to songs from their first two albums, the only ones that all four original members played on, although the late, Joseph Conrad-quoting “We Live As We Dream, Alone” […]
Gimme Free
Free shows are for the unemployed. This fact used to piss me off…when I had a job. Two years ago, I remember leaving work early and racing all the way downtown to see one of my favorite bands, Spoon, play a free show at Castle Clinton, only to be among the hundreds of fans who were beaten to the punch by the reserve army of the unemployed. I finally made up for that day by seeing Spoon play a terrific free show at the Virgin record store yesterday. Spoon are, to my mind, the band of the decade. They are exactly the sort of band that rock geeks long for: a tight little band, a sympathetic voice, a distinctive sound, a little mystery and lyrics that you sing along to before you even know what they are. I first read about the band in Camden Joy’s review of their record […]