Dear Mr. Echo

In all my years of living in New York City, I had never been to Radio City Music Hall, not for a Christmas show, not for a rock show, not even for a tour when I was an intern at Rolling Stone, a mere two blocks away.  In all my years of adoring Echo & the Bunnymen, I had never seen them live.  The former finds its excuse in the old adage that New Yorkers never take advantage of their town. The latter–well, I became slightly obsessed with Echo & the Bunnymen two years after they broke up (the first time), in 1990.

During that summer, a remaindered copy of Ocean Rain (1984) made its way into my burgeoning remaindered-vinyl collection (Yes, I have a ton of worthess vinyl records, purchased in 1990, during the Great Vinyl Discontinuation).  I spent about a month listening to Ocean Rain–and very little other than Ocean Rain, except for maybe some Depeche Mode.  Like many of the albums I have obsessively listened to over the years, I still know every word to every song.  Unlike most of the albums I’ve had similar obsessions with, I don’t know a damned bit what they mean.

Ocean Rain is not about song lyrics.  If it were, then it would be a fairly nonsensical and incoherent album. From the opening lyric of “Silver” (“Swung from a chandelier / my planet sweet on a silver salver”) to the much-more-sensible, but still obscure closer, “Ocean Rain” (“Screaming from beneath the waves”), it doesn’t make much sense.  (I did find myself very proud at the time for having known what a silver salver was, having learned its definition via Barry Paris’s biography of Louise Brooks.  Second obsession of early teen years: silent film star biographies.)  No, Ocean Rain is not about song lyrics.

Ocean Rain is about exactly two things: dense, orchestral textures and Ian McCulloch’s wide-ranging voice.  His voice was warm and delightful, emerging from the speakers and surrounding you like drinking a hot toddy while wrapped in a fuzzy blanket.  And that is exactly why I had to go see Echo & the Bunnymen at Radio City Music Hall.  The show advertised Echo & the Bunnymen performing Ocean Rain with an orchestra! Of course, then I wondered: would Ian McCulloch still sound good after all these years?  He’s done lots of drinking, smoking, and other things that are not exactly conducive to vocal longevity.  And would he still have that hair?

Yes, that hair.

When we got to Radio City Music Hall, I realized with dismay that I could not answer the last of these questions.  Our seats were in the very last row of the very last mezzanine.  Ah, well.

The opening band, Glasvegas, might have been good.  I think they were; their songs seemed pretty catchy.  But there was a horrible, horrible microphone issue with the band’s bass drum, which the standing drummer played on its side.  I could hear little else, but the boom-boom-boom-boom of the steady beat.

After hearing nothin’ but bass for a good 40 minutes, I worried that the Bunnymen would similarly suffer sound problems.  Thankfully, I had nothing to worry about: their sound guy was aces.  Their first set included energetic, sometimes extended versions of their non-Ocean Rain hits, including “Bring on the Dancing Horses,” “The Cutter,” and “Rescue,” but also their much richer cover of The Doors’ “People Are Strange.”  Between songs,

I honestly don’t know if the years of boozing and whatnot have affected Ian McCulloch’s voice–there was a fair amount of reverb on his mic, which probably corrected a lot of mistakes.  But he could still sing, and his voice is still timbrally cozy.  He used his lower range a bit more, but who knows what that means?  I do highly suspect that he was drunk off his ass–his stage banter was completely incomprehensible, and it was not due to his Liverpudlian accent–by the end of the first set.

The second set, with a small orchestra (really, I’d call it a “string ensemble, plus French horn and percussion”), toured through the songs from Ocean Rain.  It was incredible for me, as a fan of the group, to see it performed with an orchestra (however small).  The strings added density and acoustic richness, harmonic fullness, and varied textures.  On the other hand, as a classical music snob, I was not exactly happy with violins’ intonation at times, and the French horns were not quite up to task (but when are they?).

In completely nonmusical aspects of the show: there was a woman, similarly in the last row, who flashed her boobs during EATB’s first set.  Seriously, what was she thinking?  That Ian McCulloch has eagle-eyed boob-o-vision?

And FYI: Radio City Music Hall has the best bathrooms in New York City.

This blog entry is for Andrea Lam, who could not be at the show last night, since she has real responsibilities, but who is the biggest Echo & the Bunnymen fan I know.

Review: Black Kids’ “I’m Not Gonna Teach Him How to Dance With You”

Ah, yes, this song’s been floating around for a while now, and former Columbia ethnomusicology student Christian Hoard pegged the band as “one to watch” last November.  But this week “I’m Not Gonna Teach Him How to Dance With You” is the FREE single on Apple’s iTunes (Secret reason I reviewed Jaguar Love’s EP and not the whole album? It was $1.99 in the used bin), and I’m sick and can’t bother with much more than a review of a single.

The obvious touchstone for the Black Kids is the Cure–from the fondness for the vocable “do” to the airy, heavily layered, symphonic synthesizers to the slightly morose lyrics about unhappiness with a girl to the Robert-Smith-esque timbral qualities of Reggie Youngblood’s voice.  We all know this (though apparently the kids reviewing it on iTunes don’t–out of the 500 or so reviews, only about ten seemed to recognize the Cure.  Others listed Arcade Fire, The Hives, The Killers, Gwen Stefani, and Bloc Party as reference points.  Learn your rock history, kids!).

However, I’m irritated with the constant assertion that the Black Kids are another “retro ’80s” band.  The musical style that the band apes dates from the Cure’s height of popularity, which was not in the 1980s but in the early 1990s.  In particular, the Black Kids draw on the sounds of the Cure’s 1992 album, Wish, which contains some of the bands poppiest, as well as most depressing, songs (Anyone else notice that the protagonist of “Friday, I’m in Love” is miserable six days a week?).

The Cure’s musical style is undoubtedly ripe to be imitated: the retro ’80s post-punk movement is past its prime, Bruce Springsteen is currently en vogue, and it’s not surprising to me that the Black Kids are looking to early ’90s Cure these days.  None of this nostalgia is bad in itself, as long as it serves to push music forward while simultaneously looking back.

As for the Black Kids’ “I’m Not Gonna Teach Him How to Dance With You” itself: The song’s lyrics are slightly silly, about dancing with a girl (with Reggie Youngblood referring to himself also as having been “a little girl”) he likes and not wanting to give her boyfriend tips.  It’s cute, but hardly substantial.

But the band executes the song with such exuberance, especially through the cheerleader-esque backing vocals from Ali Youngblood and Dawn Watley, that the teen angst of the lyric seems an entirely believable situation.  A guy likes the unattainable girl and tries, like Ducky’s lip sync to Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” in Pretty in Pink, to continue dancing with sweet, sweet moves though his heart is breaking and she’s probably going out with a guy named Blaine.

Though synths dominate the sound of the Black Kids, its spunky danceable quality bursts forth in the tight, machine-like pattern in the drums: crisp, clean, not much bleed in the kit, it could easily be isolated in some parts for an old-school breakbeat.  Extended remix, anyone?

Review: Jaguar Love (Jaguar Love EP) and Past Lives (Strange Symmetry EP)

The Blood Brothers always seemed to me to be the male equivalent of Sleater-Kinney.  Both bands had dueling, contrapuntal vocal parts; both knew how to turn a sung note into a scream; both turned from a more straight-ahead punk sound toward something less definable and unique as they grew as a band.

Unlike Sleater-Kinney, whose members remain unfortunately silent, when the Blood Brothers broke up late last year, they almost immediately split into two new bands, Jaguar Love (Johnny Whitney, Cody Votolato of the Blood Brothers and J Clark of Pretty Girls Make Graves) and Past Lives (Jordan Blilie, Mark Gajadhar, Morgan Henderson, and Devin Welch).

Jaguar Love and Past Lives aren’t really easy bands to compare, since the shift in sound and personality for each band draws on influences that are worlds apart.  Jaguar Love takes a more straightforward indie-pop approach, while Past Lives draws heavily on the sound of Gang of Four through the use of spiky, contrapuntal guitar parts and repetitive, driving phrases.  But neither yet sounds as fully formed as the Blood Brothers circa Burn, Piano Island, Burn (2003), and singers Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney both sound like they have to get used to being the only man up front.

With both Jaguar Love and Past Lives releasing EPs this summer, the question will be who will find success after their breakup.  Initially, the short answer would seem to be Jaguar Love, who signed to indie biggie Matador almost immediately after forming.  But the focus should be on the long term—who can find the most growth out of this experience, and which band will be able to stand on its own in the end.

Jaguar Love Jaguar Love EP

Johnny Whitney sounds like a girl.  Actually, two girls: Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, of the aforementioned Sleater-Kinney. “Highways of Gold,” the opening song on the EP, and the lead single from the newly released Take Me to the Sea, opens with a verse that sounds remarkably similar to the chorus of Sleater-Kinney’s “One More Hour” in melodic contour and rhythm.  Oh, and words: both repeat “know(-oh-oh-oh-oh).”

Is sounding like a girl necessarily a bad thing?  Not really, at least not for me—I don’t give a rat’s patootie if you’re singing like your “correct” gender.  But I am bothered by how much this song draws on Sleater-Kinney’s handbag of tricks: Whitney layers his voice so that one track is overlapping with another, and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Brownstein, at one point or another, enunciate the same “Awah!” and Tucker do the “Ah-ah-ah.”  The linear guitar parts—another Sleater-Kinney favorite—and the loud, strong drumming with rapid-fire fills only add to the effect.

The other two songs on the EP, “My Organ Sounds Like…” and “Videotape Seascape” move away from the Sleater-Kinney mold and bouncy, repetitive pop toward a more layered sound and give Whitney—and his voice, take it or leave it, is most certainly the focus of this entire EP—a chance to show a more expressive range.  “My Organ Sounds Like…” allows Whitney to establish that yes, he can sing a melody, and he’s not so bad at it.  Every once in a while, too, he dips into his non-falsetto range, giving a hint of future growth (Note to Johnny Whitney:  If you can sing in a falsetto, you can embrace your lower range; falsetto is best used sparingly).

“Videotape Seascape,” the final song on the EP, best indicates the musical direction the band could take, if Johnny Whitney begins to sing in something other than his upper-upper-upper-range falsetto.  It’s not as though he’s any more understandable than on the other songs, but that he’s using his voice more like an instrument—one with a wider range of emotion, texture, and depth than earlier indicated—that fits in nicely with the repetitive guitar line beneath it.

Past Lives Strange Symmetry EP

Past Lives got the “favorite” singer for many fans, Jordan Blilie, but here the spotlight often belongs to the onetime Blood Brothers and Shoplifting guitarist, Devin Welch.  Welch’s guitar parts, whether layered or interlocking, spiky or connected, always add interest to a song; he’s basically could be the Johnny Marr of the Pacific Northwest, if Johnny Marr hadn’t gone and joined Modest Mouse.

The opening song, “Beyond Gone,” builds from the a simple, slow-tempo marimba underneath an arpeggiated guitar line.  The drums click against the rim of the snare, delicately indicating the tempo.  And then, Blilie actually sings!   The initial sparse and quiet arrangement builds through a wall of Welch’s feedback, and then, just as dramatically, goes quiet again, the song ending with just the marimba and an extended drum roll, leading straight into…

“Strange Symmetry,” the title track, where the band’s Gang of Four influences are on display in an unrelenting art-punk charge against the melodic pop world, until the last thirty seconds or so, which, quite frankly, I want to hear as an engagement with that pop world that the rest of the song eschews.

“Skull Lender” starts out much the same as “Strange Symmetry,” except that it’s maybe even more in the Gang of Four mold; ditto for “Reverse the Curse.”  Also, unlike the first two songs, where it was first absent and then subtle and catchy, the technique of adding both reverb and double-tracking to Jordan Blilie’s voice begins to be a little grating, like when you first realized that the Strokes’ lead singer Julian Casablancas sounded like he was singing through a megaphone for every single song on Is This It?

Thankfully, the final song, “Chrome Life,” ends the EP on a musical high point.  Beginning with some terrific, clicky drumming and textural, sustained guitar, it is driving without being repetitive, just melodic enough and still edgy enough in turn to be a wholly satisfying song.  It waxes and wanes as a song, leaving just enough in your memory to want to listen to it again.

So, the verdict:  I think it depends on a lot of “ifs.”  If Johnny Whitney can broaden his range, both in tessitura and expression, then Jaguar Love has a bright future.  (And I didn’t even mention in this review how much I really like J Clark’s drumming–is there any instrument that guy can’t play?)  If Past Lives can stop listening to the Gang of Four’s Entertainment on repeat, then so do they.

Review: Paul Weller’s 22 Dreams

Dear Paul Weller,

I was going to do a straightforward review of your album, 22 Dreams, but I just can’t.  On the one hand, I feel like my issues with the album boil down to the same problem throughout, and, on the other, the damned thing contains 22 songs.  And, while that’s a lot of songs for your buck, it doesn’t lend itself to a thorough review.  Many of them are tasty, polished, finely crafted pop songs, perhaps the best you’ve done since Stanley Road.  And for that, good on you!

So, what makes me so reluctant to write a real review?  Well, it’s your voice, sir.  No, it hasn’t gone to the dogs.  If anything, it’s better sounding than ever—in the abstract, at least.  You’ve always had one of those voices that contains a little bit of grit, a timbral interest and depth rare in pop music, and nearly completely absent from punk music (especially the nasal pop-punk which descends, ironically, from your first two albums with The Jam).  Your expression with the Jam was spot on, even as the band moved from punk to pop and even injected a little ‘60s Motown influence: I think of “Going Underground,” one of your songs that is distinctly English in flavor, but I can still hear the soul music you love creep in as you belt out the chorus, and then return at a hushed whisper.

And, now that I think about it, it’s not actually your voice these days that bothers me, but how you use it on 22 Dreams.  On the songs that reflect your rock & roll side, like “22 Dreams,” you sound great.  But on “All I Wanna Do (Is Be With You)”—which sounds a bit like “Bitterest Pill to me, sir, but the mining of your past work is another issue for another day—you have an artificial, overly heavy vibrato.   On “Have You Made Up Your Mind,” you sound like a control-freak soul singer: at once overly enunciated, vibrato heavy, and strangely clipped, but also dripping with emotive phrasings.  The incongruity of your voice pops out in contrast to the casual, almost perfect Uptown soul backing vocals.

Look, I know you’ve wanted to be a soul singer since you told that Swedish lady on TV that your influences were the Sex Pistols and Tamla-Motown.  But if you want to be a soul singer, you can’t be clipped or artificial in your performance, or else you will end up sounding like an R&B version of Rod Stewart’s American songbook.  Let go, or you’ll sound like a reserved Englishman wanting to be a Motown singer.  And though you are English, and want to be a Motown singer, you used to have a lot less reservation.

At times, this strange vocal inflection infects other styles you embrace.  “Invisible,” another song with the vocal problem, is similar to your earlier “You Do Something To Me,” crossed with Randy Newman.  I know you’d disagree with that, but, really, that’s who you sound like.  So, Rod Stewart and Randy Newman: both guys I can’t stand, and regret hearing you sound like.  The worst example of this stunted phrasing and goat-y vibrato is on the folk-inspired “Why Walk When You Can Run,” which, I’m sorry, I will not be adding to my iPod.  Oh wait: I forgot about “Where’er Ye Go,” another piano-oriented tearjerker about setting some love free and it coming back to you, or something like that.  On that one, you sound like an old man, a Polonius of pop, emoting with a bloated cliché.

This sounds very much like I hate 22 Dreams in its entirety.  Musically, however, it has some of the best songs you’ve written in years.  Even though I can hear the very clear influences of the music you love—English folk, 1960s rock, jazz, you name it—dominating song by song, it’s a pretty cohesive grouping of songs.  The instrumental “Song for Alice,” which, with its backwards-tape-sounding trumpets, brings to the table both Beatles-esque recording techniques and fine jazz touches in the drumming.  And the tiny snippet of a song, “The Dark Pages of September Lead to the New Leaves of Spring,” sounds like the outro of an excellent psychedelic folk song.

“Push It Along,” though a little silly and repetitive, is one damned catchy tune, as is “A Dream Reprise,” another horn-tastic burst with (again) ye olde backwards guitar recording.  Man, you have an affinity for that, but it’s fun—like “Music for the Last Couple,” only cuter now that you’re old.  “Night Lights,” at over six minutes, effectively layers texture upon texture in a reprisal of the vaguely Eastern-inspired sounds as “Light Nights,” the album opener.

So, here’s my suggestion for your next album: record the vocals live, in one take.  I know you’re fond of the noodly recording bits, but you’ve isolated them on 22 Dreams into parts of the song that don’t feature vocals, anyway.   If you limit the amount of vocal takes, you’ll never get them to that “just right” stage, which, in the kind of music you’ve always made, is just wrong.  (Including the Style Council, which, aside from “Shout to the Top,” consistently suffered from this problem.)

I do want to thank you for one final thing, though.  Thank you, sir, for not singing about your loins—or anyone else’s—on this album.  I’m still embarrassed for you for that misstep.

Yours,
Elizabeth