Groove Evolution: Spoon's Transference

Spoon
Transference
(January 18, 2010 – Merge)

Somewhere in the Bible, God said He’d rather we be hot or cold. The lukewarm, He cautioned, would meet the indignant fate of being “spewed” from His mouth. Bad visual, but luckily we’re no longer in “Bible Times.”

Spoon’s new album Transference is an object lesson in the benefits of being lukewarm. In the tepid ground between hot funk and cool rock lies the groove. And it’s the groove that Spoon reinvents on these eleven tracks. The downside is that you won’t get “yr cherry bomb” or “camera on” this time around. But the upside is a masterful balancing act.

Gilding the groove are attractive tonal textures, including (but not limited to) chalky lead vocals, flush harmonies, reversed instrumental tracks, strings, and wowee-zowee space-organ. Jarring edits occasionally cut off the vocals mid-note. And at least once, the entire tail end of a song gets docked. Little tricks to keep us alert, lest a groove coma -- a yummy groove coma -- ensues.

“Before Destruction” opens the album with a spare rhythm concocted of hi hat, floor tom, and acoustic guitar strapped together with organ and swirling vocals. A perfect example of not burying the lead, and a great argument for why you shouldn’t.

The most blatant groove comes three songs later with “Who Makes Your Money?” It leans trippy with delayed organ hits, volume pedal guitar swells, falsetto, and an excellent opening lyric guaranteed to be misheard by the millions. (For the record, I’m pretty sure that Britt Daniel is singing, “Jack Benny’s drawn his slight face first…” or is it “his sly face-fur?”)

“Trouble Comes Running” makes a play for the obvious pure pop hit. But it also makes production waves, as the ultra-low-fi treatment is applied, obliterating any hope of pure pop acceptance. I mean, virtually the entire trap kit is panned left! I love it when bands pull this shit!

Whether accidental or by design, Transference subtly melds funk and rock (two elements that ordinarily should be kept far, far apart) into a sturdy new brand of groove music (a genre that typically smacks of laziness). In fact you may feel quite lazy, yourself, after your first listen. But keep at it, because just like studying the Bible, you discover something new every time.

JH

Ain't It Funky Now: Back To The Boutique

Beastie Boys

Paul's Boutique 20th Anniversary Edition

(2009 - Capitol)

It's hard to believe that Paul’s Boutique was a commercial failure upon its initial release. Even now, looking at this twenty years on, who would have thought a bunch of snotty Brooklyn Jewish kids (who formed originally as a hardcore band) could realistically cash in on the latest bad boy street rap trend and become trendsetters?

Now, like then, Paul's Boutique is a hard-core love letter to 70s funk. Its boogie is on the dance floor (or possibly the dirt floor, according to the 15 second banjo romp “5 Piece Chicken Dinner”), and it also doesn't shy away from heavy-hitter samples from the likes of Mountain, The Ramones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Elvis Costello, and Johnny Cash. The sound is a mish-mash of rhymes, scratches, and bass beats courtesy of the West Coast’s Dust Brothers and Mario Caldato Jr. who seemingly toss in whatever might have popped out of their heads at the moment while still keeping that consistent and constant groove throughout. The 40-minute album also maintains its beat and lyrical muster by dropping funky guitar and bass riffs into the mix before snatching them back, simultaneously contemplating the serious and the snotty and sometimes even the ridiculous:

Fear and loathing across the country listening to my 8 Track…

Bust a Travis Bickle when I feel I’m getting pushed…

Droppin’ science like Galileo dropped the orange….

The standout tracks are easy to remember: "Hey Ladies," "High Plains Drifter," and "Johnny Ryall" to name the obvious few, but then again, there's nary a stinker in this bunch o’funk. Songs such as "Shake Your Rump," "Egg Man," and "Car Thief" act as perfect companions to the above-mentioned rap-a-long singles and keep the overall momentum flowing, sometimes even eclipsing the individual standouts themselves.

The down note in an otherwise triumphant re-release this year is Beastie member Adam “MCA” Yauch's recent cancer diagnosis. Fortunately, it was found early enough for successful treatment, but not soon enough to avoid postponing the release of the Boys' 2009 album, Hot Sauce Committee Part One, and canceling their upcoming tour. So, raise a glass of Brass Monkey in toast to The Beasties’ new album and to MCA’s health, and to this truly one of a kind dance platter that is as necessary to your ears as gravity is to your own sweet moves.

-Blake Rainey

Ed: Blake Rainey is a singer/songwriter based in Atlanta. He has two excellent solo record albums available for your musical pleasure, as well as several brutish punk recordings with his famed bandmates in the Young Antiques. Check out all them groovy dudes HERE! And HERE!

Free All Music: A Tale Of Two Henrys

This was supposed to be about Henry Flynt. And I swear I’ll get back to Henry Flynt in due time. But just before I settled down to tell you about this fascinating fiddler from North Carolina who in 1961 made his musical debut in Yoko Ono’s famed New York loft, then proceeded to blow the ass-end out of the Greenwich Village avant-guard scene, I got a little email from Free All Music.

I signed up for their emails a month or so back. And it’s been radio silence ever since. Then suddenly, GAME ON! Free All Music says that I’m one of 250 beta tasters (sic), and hell fire, ain’t I flattered? Hell yes, I am. Wouldn’t you? Be?

Free All Music aims to change the way we acquire music online. Heretofore your options lay in theft (Bit torrent) or rental (Rhapsody streaming audio) or some hacked up, quasi-legal concoction of the two. FAM basically said, “Let’s make it so stupid, it’s simple!”

The result is a twist on the old terrestrial radio model where listeners hear some songs for free, then enjoy “a few words from our sponsor.” FAM flips the model, requiring you to first watch a thirty-second commercial before you download a song. The upside is that once you’ve fulfilled your obligation to watch (users can choose their commercial) the downloaded song is yours to keep forever. No copy protection, no embedded advertisements, no strings attached…anywhere.

To be perfectly clear, I think this idea is Tha Shit! Advertisers cover the costs; artists GET PAID! And you get a quality, virus-free, spy ware-free, LEGAL copy of your favorite song! That’s free enterprise, baby. But, as my man Axel Rose said, “every rose has its thorn(s).”

Right now, users are limited to 5 downloads per week. At that rate, snagging Pink Floyd’s The Wall will take nearly a month. Look for a more liberal weekly tab in the future.

I haven’t confirmed the bit rate on FAM’s downloads, but a song-to-song, headphone comparison between Rhapsody’s streaming audio and FAM’s downloads left me with the clear impression that you get what you pay for. Through five songs, Rhapsody consistently delivered a richer, more “real” sound, while FAM was slightly – and I do mean slightly – hyped on the high end. Not enough to quibble about, especially considering the cost. Rhapsody is about twelve bucks per month. Free All Music is…uh, free.

And with Free comes the Tale of Two Henrys. The issue is catalog, and I shall know thy catalog by searching it. My search for Henry Flynt rendered a list of twenty (standard for FAM) discombobulated hopefuls. Henry Flynt, being as obscure as an iceberg off the coast of Cuba, didn’t show at all. In fact, nineteen of the Henrys on the page meant nothing to me. But there was one Henry that rang a bell: Henry’s Dream, the 1992 album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. That’s a damn good record. I’ve mashed up its front cuts with a few from our original subject, Henry Flynt. Flynt’s Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Vols. 1 & 2 are simply not to be missed.

Sorry I didn’t really make a case for either Henry. Each is well deserved.

Here’s hoping the mashup plays well, late at night, on a Christmas Eve, 2009.

Merry Christmas.

JH

The Musical Concern

Arms
Kids Aflame (Bonus Version)
(October 27, 2009 – Gigantic Music)

Welcome to the “Shitty Little Disco” and Morrissey karaoke! That might come off as a putdown. But wait, there’s more! How about fleeting vocal imitations of Grant-Lee Phillips and Gordon Downie? Let’s throw in some lyrically adroit John Vanderslice. What’s an unabashed crooner to do?

Todd Goldstein, a.k.a. Arms, has been patiently cultivating his musical life outside Harlem Shakes, the band in which he plays guitar, since 2004. The result is a debut LP that keeps growing longer legs. Originally released in the UK in 2008, Kids Aflame has recently been re-released in the US with three bonus tracks.

Skip the bonus tracks. If they were indicative of the original release, then this would be a one-spin record -- the kind of stuff you nod at, shelve, and eventually forget. It’s the other thirteen that make Kids one of the best of 2009.

Ukulele and finger snapping on the title track highlight Goldstein’s commitment to dynamics; whether between songs or within them, there’s never a lull. Moving from quirky, acoustic musings on biology (“Eyeball”) to the Glassvegas-meets-Walkmen, guitar blizzardry of “Jon The Escalator,” Kids plays through seamlessly. And yes, that includes chorus-perfect mimicry of the Tragically Hip on “Pocket.”

The brilliant little trick is that when you listen you’ll come up with your own list of sounds-likes, and it won’t matter in the least. Arms has scraped together a unique collection that won’t crumble under the weight of the repeat button.

Good for us.

The Shitty Little Disco is open all winter.

JH

The Gulf Coast Dispatch

MySpace Shafts Imeem Users

Just like that, Imeem was gone. I hit refresh a few times and waited for the playlists to pop up (here on The Wednesday Review). Nothing doing. Then it struck me, MySpace was buying Imeem. But that couldn’t be it, could it? I just uploaded a featured list, checked it, cleaned up some stray tunes… They wouldn’t just…

They would, and they did.

News Corp., parent company of MySpace, literally shut down Imeem while I was working on a review! My suspicions were confirmed only after I “Googled it.”

I landed on this post from All Things Digital, and blew my stack.

News Corp. had time to better handle this. If not in the days leading up to the acquisition, then certainly for some reasonable period thereafter. An explanatory email with a time window for transition should have been sent to Imeem account holders. Baring that, the site should have been supported until MySpace had some inkling of what to do with it.

Right now, my Imeem bookmark lands on a page that reads like a ransom note: “We have your playlists. No harm will come to them if you join our old, bloated, irrelevant cult. Resistance is futile. Wait for further instructions.”

Well guess what, News Corp. You oughta kiss folks before you fuck 'em. It's just good business.

My lists are gone, and I’m moving on. I have an old MySpace account, and I’m deleting it today. I encourage anyone who possibly can to jump ship. Drop MySpace, especially if you haven’t built your life or your band around it.

JH

Digging Up Bones

Spoon

A Series Of Sneaks

(May 1998 - Elektra Records)

Since it’s now legally required by the FCC that every network television series include a Spoon song, I thought it might be fun to look back at the record that got them shit-canned from Elektra in 1998.

A Series of Sneaks is a breathless run of slobberknocker, guitar pop, opening with “Utilitarian” (think the bones of Muddy Waters fronting the Clash) and coming up for air six songs later in the stripped down, do-it-yourselfer, “Metal Detektor.” While the first half of the album is plenty peppy, it’s the diversity – especially production-wise – of the second half that makes Sneaks more than just a major label debut.

In “June’s Foreign Spell” the guitar is held back in the mix, presumably to be let loose later. But the expected never really happens. The drums and vocals command to the end. A nice touch. “Staring At The Board” sounds like a boombox demo and clocks in at a crisp 54 seconds. Excellent.

The only real hint of Spoon’s funky punk future (Kill The Moonlight, Gimme Fiction, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga) comes twelve songs in with “No You’re Not.” And the album finishes strong with the medium tempo benediction “Advance Cassette.”

The whole thing – all 14 cuts – clocks in at a punkish 33 minutes, making it perfect for driving around looking at stuff, sitting, or scraping something off of a surface.

Sneaks sold poorly, and Elektra wasted no time is dumping the band. Now, a decade later, with marquee acts dumping their labels and cd sales on life support, Spoon, after charting top ten with 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, is looking more and more like “the one that got away.”

Their new album Transference comes out in January.

JH

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Music To Roast Turkey By

The surprising thing about putting together this Thanksgiving list is how often the turkey is the subject of song for so many Obscure Delta Blues Men. My favorite has to be “Turkey Leg Mama” by Doctor Ross. Or maybe it's "Turkey and the Rabbit" by T-Model Ford.

“Turkey Donuts,” as the title implies, is a weird little piece of nonsense that’s so silly you may wake up humming it tomorrow.

George Foreman, yes that George Foreman, gives thanks to Jesus in “Thank You Jesus Part 2.” And, yes, there is a part one… and a part three. It’s four minutes of your life that you’ll never get back, but the payoff (in the last few seconds) is worth it.

Anyway, we’ve got plenty of weirdness here, coupled with some guilty pleasures just to keep aunt Edna away from the jukebox. So pour yourself another wine, gather ‘round the kitchen table, and whistle while you roast (the turkey).

Happy Thanksgiving from the Gulf.

JH

The Musical Concern
The National
Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers
(October 6, 2009 – Brassland)

There’s an old line about Great Writers having the courage to pen the thoughts that mere mortals dare not speak. We see those thoughts on paper and flinch for a millisecond, and then we cheer them on. “Yeah, that’s it! Way to lay it out there!”

Take away the buffer of the page, though, and rather quickly things get considerably more uncomfortable. Imagine Cormac McCarthy at a dinner party…reciting passages from Blood Meridian. An esteemed author upon arrival, reviled misanthrope by party’s end.

In Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, The National’s fifth album, singer/lyricist Matt Beringer continues to mouth words more comfortably left on paper, and this time with less satire and general humor than on the band’s 2005 breakthrough record, Alligator.

The Dessner brothers and the Devendorf brothers (four fifths of the band) provide a diverse musical tapestry ranging from drum machine and acoustic guitar to wall-of-sound, noise rock. Whether meandering fiddle or electric piano, the backdrop is spot-on and expertly fitted to Beringer’s ever improving baritone vocal.

Overall, Sad Songs is a step beyond its predecessor, The Boxer, but a step behind the phenomenal Alligator, on which we have well-drawn character pieces, self-deprecating jabs, and evocative, historical snapshots full of romance and color. While it’s well worth a listen, it’s also hard, from a lyrical perspective. With so little of the whimsical to guide you, it’s not unreasonable to mistake your ironic troubadour for a stalker as he sings “You own me, there’s nothing you can do/Lucky you.”

Beringer cites Leonard Cohen among his influences, and he does the Grand Old Crooner proud. But remember, Cohen has been known to write a novel when he’s not busy with songs. In Cohen’s Beautiful Losers, he plumbs the depths of addiction, depravity, and love. It’s a fantastic read, but I wouldn’t want to hear him sing it.

Or would I?

JH

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Should We Talk About The Government?

Should we talk about the weather?

Goodbye endless summer! Hello early winter. Yep, fall never showed here on the coast, as morning temps dropped from the mid 70s to the low 40s, seemingly overnight. On the upside, we had no hurricanes this season. Even tropical storm Ida played nice as it passed directly over the Terri!

Wow! That was some boring shit. I sound like that chick from The Onion who goes on and on about her “hubby.” But, seriously, it was 7 degrees colder on the Gulf Coast than in N.Y.C. this morning. Must be somethin’ afoot in the world. Oh, I know…

My NY pals, Faith and Tony (a.k.a., Todd), got involved with some weird NPR Scam over the weekend. The creative result is an original tune name’o "Japan," a most welcome return to the recording world after Faith’s tussle with a taxi a few months back. After Round One, it was a draw. But I’m betting on that “l’il ole pea picker from Pennsylvania” to lick ‘em real good from here on out!

I’ve listened to "Japan" -- Faith’s signature bong-n-jangle guitar is back, plus some autobiographical taxi-wrestling lyrics… You can hear it at Myspace, or (pirated) above in this week’s Soundtrack to Wednesday playlist.

"Japan" on Myspace

NPR Scam

(Note: “Scam” is a term of endearment. I have no idea wtf this NPR thing is.)

Adios,

JH

The Musical Concern
Grant-Lee Phillips
Little Moon
(October 6, 2009 – Yep Roc Records)

My online jukebox categorizes Grant-Lee Phillips as “Adult Contemporary.” And that’s uncool. See, back in the day – around the time the AC label was invented and offered up as a radio format – it represented the bland, tepid, throwaway music that your parents, who were indeed adults, might listen to if they thought they were hip.

As a new dj at the time, I was cue-burning vinyl copies of Olivia Newton-John and Billy Ocean while naively fighting for Tom Waits and Roxy Music adds. Naturally, I never won those fights. But I did begin to develop a healthy disdain for labeling things, especially music things.

No wonder I cringe at the sight of Grant-Lee Phillips standing beneath such a macabre banner. Better to call him “Americana.” And if that doesn’t fit, how about the old fallback/catchall, “Singer/Songwriter?”

Singer/songwriter Grant Lee Phillips has redefined adult contemporary music and made it okay for me to listen to. On his latest, Little Moon, Phillips is decidedly upbeat and digging the family scene. I mean, you gotta be in a good mood to open your album with “Good Morning Happiness,” while the unemployment rate plays footsy with 10%.

Anyway, Phillips’ “wife (and) little girl” are undoubtedly the muses at play in this set covering life’s wonders (“Violet”), hopes (“One Morning”), and the occasional nuclear threat (“It Ain’t The Same Old Cold War Harry”).

While the chord progressions are standard, there are plenty of well-placed strings, tubas and trombones, and a little ripsaw guitar here and there. Slightly muffled, yet curiously flabby, drums are a pleasant surprise. Otherwise, the record is long on lullabies, punctuated with John Phillip Souza stomp (I know!), and melodies that hang around for days.

Ultimately, Phillips’ vocals distinguish him. Stretching the crap out of a vowel, or running-on a lyric to fit a rhythm means there’s seldom a dull moment, even when the lines turn average. And when the lines stand out you get stuff like this:

I don’t feel sad when Cash wears black

I hear the train…coming

A good thing’s down the railroad track

You gotta believe in something

If that’s “Adult Contemporary,” then that’s cool.

JH

The Musical Concern
Daniel Johnston
Is And Always Was
(October 6, 2009 – Eternal Yip Eye Music)

Every mind is an island - a landlocked island surrounded by walls: knee walls, great walls, or middling, porous walls that filter the stuff of daily life. It’s the last one that most people are born with (or build up). This one renders “balance,” “normalcy,” “functionality.” In short: sanity.

An abundance of trouble awaits either side the wall too thick, too low, or too high. The island will dry out, flood, or whither in darkness, and might, over time, become boring, manic, or menacing. Eventually, the tolerance of neighboring islands is exhausted and upheaval ensues. At length, this is insanity.

In the hour or two before sitting down to write, I listened to an interview with a “teacher” who espoused all sorts of nonsense regarding the “human condition.” The talk was broadcast on a reputable national radio network, yet I hazard a guess that not a handful of fellow listeners recoiled from the following packaged insanity:

“(Y)ou are…pre-biological. To find yourself you remove yourself from the identity as a body by stopping thinking. In the sweetness of silence, silence is realized to be always here, always available. Silence is here in noise, it is here in thoughts, it is here in confusion, it is here in anger, in sorrow, in life and in death. Always present. Then realize that silence is your own self… You are always present as silence.” --Eli Jaxon-Bear

There’s much to be gained from a smooth speaking voice and a calm demeanor, not to mention the careful indexing of mad thoughts and faux logic. But imagine, if you will, the preceding passage spoken in fits and starts by an agitated or angry speaker who pauses too often and too long to gather his sentences.

The former we call “teacher,” but the latter, “lunatic?” It’s crazy what we call crazy.

Too soon, Rimbaud and Van Gough crumbled under the weight of their own lunacy. Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson carried their load to the bitter end. The great masses of manic-depressive genius, however, are trampled under the foot of Time. The odds are against them, Time being what it is. (Given enough Time, any monkey…)

So, it is with something akin to reverence that I come to Daniel Johnston’s latest LP, Is And Always Was.

Time and the odds were not on his side. Not when, in the 1980s, he ran around Austin, Texas passing out homemade cassettes of his homemade recordings. Not during his numerous hospitalizations for “nervous breakdowns.” Not when the crowd grew quiet as he melted down and quit on stage. And not as computer algorithms identified Daniel Johnston as a mere musical novelty, lumping him in with The Shaggs and Wesley Willis.

Johnston, now 48, has lived a mental Hell and suffered the accompanying indignities and hazards, yet here he is with something wonderful, something vital, and for him (and his fans) something new.

Producer/musician Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, Beck, Paul McCartney) has managed to craft an even-keeled, eleven-song album fit for an audience who would have dismissed, if not panned, Johnston’s previous releases. All tracks get the full studio treatment, and there’s scarcely a harrowing moment during their combined 35 minutes. Yet Johnston, in his unguarded glory and casual, raw emotion, is completely present and commanding throughout -- it’s still his show.

Some fans may find themselves wishing for more lo-fi, or less zap ‘n’ blip from the special effects machines. Others may have to relearn how to tap their toes to a consistent beat. But that’s a small price to pay if it buys a broader audience and a bigger stage, if it allows Johnston to stretch Time and beat the odds.

Whether you’re a hardcore fan or a newcomer, I simply wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t love “Queenie the Doggie.”

Queenie the Doggie, who “always had the most fun, most all of the time,” is an instant Johnston classic. More celebration than lament, Queenie scampers through Johnston’s sun soaked memory backed by a half-country, half-calypso soundtrack. A children’s song, if not for the breezy delivery of the lyric that opens and closes the song: “Queenie the Doggie was a friend of mine/If only the money could save her now.” And also this: “Love is an illusion and it plays with your brain/It’s plain and it’s simple, it’s hard to explain.”

In “I Had Lost My Mind” Johnston flips the figurative upside down, and goes in search of his mind, not unlike one would search for a pet. His encounter with the lady at the Lost and Found is straight, sand-up comedy, as his “cute little bugger” is returned. “I said ‘Thank you, ma’am, I’m always losing that dang thing.’”

The quasi-anthemic rocker, “Fake Records of Records of Rock and Roll” disses the music world and lays down the mid-tempo boogie! Johnston isn’t happy with the bands or the fans these days. “Well, it sounds just like shit to me -- Fake records of rock and roll/The ruin of history -- Fake records of rock and roll/Can’t even get down and boogie --Fake records of rock and roll -- Look out!”

And finally, from the spacey, acoustic-driven opener, “Mind Movies,” a few lines for comparison with the above quoted passage from Eli Jaxon-Bear:

“You make a lot of movies in your mind and you sure are impossibly unkind. I am nowhere to be seen. I’m out to lunch. And I don’t want things to turn out wrong. I’m just a psycho trying to write a song. And talk is cheap. I’m just a creep for your love. You never were a zero ‘til you died. You make a lot of movies in your mind and you sure are impossibly unkind. And I love you so. And I can’t let go.”

Which passage says more about the “human condition?” Which teaches or informs? Which one smells of dishonesty? Honestly, side by side, which passage appears the product of madness?

JH

Daniel Johnston

The Gulf Coast Dispatch

Aaand, We’re Back.

After several weeks away from the music typer, TWS returns with a look the new Daniel Johnston record, Is And Always Was.

While away, I DJ’d a doo-wop sock-hop on the coast and a rock-n-roll wedding in Atlanta.

Great fun all the way around, especially in the ATL, where hospitality serves at the pleasure of the smart and funny.

Thank you all, so much.

JH