Blackmarket - St. Vincent Decor

So, what do you do when you find a band that is overtly similar to another one? But still good? Blackmarket are awesome, I’ve listened to this album like thirty times in the last four days. Lots of pop hooks, huge energy, totally awesome, guitar driven Baroque punk kinda thing. Very much in the vein of the Arctic Monkeys. Like, super in the vein. Same accent and everything. And these guys are from Arizona. Its just kind of a shame. They really have everything the Arctic Monkeys have, just not the originality to do it themselves.

Whatever. This album is fun. If you find it for cheap I’d recommend it if for some reason you can’t get your hands on an Arctic Monkeys record. Maybe you have listened to all your Arctic Monkey records. Maybe you buy your music at random and are in the middle of a systematic record collection cleanup. Whatever.

Brick Mower - Floors

Brick Mower are awesome.

What, you wanted more of an entry than that? Ok, they are a punk band from New Brunswick, which is near enough to being my home town as to not matter. They play some pretty badass music, but they also make a great use of melody and shit. This ep has six songs, all of them are pretty rocktastic. They actually remind me in some instances of some of my favorite late 90s emo bands like Anniversary, or indie bands like Nineteen Fourty-Five, but in a totally punk way I promise. They also have an awesome name. Brick Mower. Are they a mower that mulches bricks? Or a lawn mower that is mowing a bricked area, in which case they are not mowing anything. Either way super awesome and very punk. Punx. Ssssssssssssss. Go listen to them. Buy  their music. Keep their lead singer in plaid shirts and nerdy glasses. He kind of looks like a younger Sean Nelson. There's also a cute chick bassist but haven't we all moved past thinking that is cool? I mean come on. Punks, as a genre, we need to deal with our gender issues, and part of that is not making a fuss whenever there's a girl in a band. shes a good bassist. move on guys. sheesh. 

But yeah, Brick Mower, buy them hard. 

Bob Marley - Chant Down Babylon

Everything that can possibly go wrong with the purchase of a greatest hits collection went wrong here. I don’t remember if I purchased this or if it was a gift, but the sequence of thoughts probably went along these lines, either in the mind of a gifter or in my own head. “Ben likes Ska, but he’s never gotten into Bob Marley. He would probably appreciate a Bob Marley Greatest Hits collection! Here’s one!” The album sat, unopened, in my collection for years until a year or two ago when my wife Friday decided to rip all my music to her computer. We listened to this and discovered it is more of a conceptual tribute album, and was pretty terrible.

Its not that I don’t think any tribute albums can be good, but it depends heavily on who you get. And since I hate most popular artists, nine times out of ten I hate the artists recruited. More importantly, the artists involved need to be into the project and put effort into creating a good arrangement of the song they are covering, and for which they may not see much financial reward. Instead, these projects are usually conceived by record companies trying to milk a valued property on the cheap. Its another way to repackage preexisting material. So bring in the hot new artists, give them a day in the studio to cut a cover, and never speak of it again.

This album isn’t quite as bad as the stereotype, and upon a few more listens there’s some interesting things going on here. For one thing, the album was put together by Steven Marley, who is a dj and producer. The tracks are actually not covers; they are remix mash-up... things. Marley remixed his father’s songs, while hot new artists (circa 1999) contribute rapped passages which are interspersed into the songs. To their credit these passages actually relate to the song for the most part. Guru’s dedication to “my man Biggie and my man Pac” during Johnny Was is kind of embarrassing, but for the most part Marley and the artists come at this with a air of hero worship that ensures the content of the music is appropriate and emotionally rich.

At the same time these passages make it painfully obvious how much mainstream hip-hop has gotten away from its socially conscious roots. The passages feel forced and unfamiliar. Busta Rhymes take on Rastaman Chant was particularly uncomfortable. It’s like Marley and Rhymes were unfamiliar with each other’s work. Marley stuck Rhymes, who is values for his adrenaline fueled high speed rapping, on the slowest song on the album. At least he was able to maintain his flow. Other rappers on the album stumbled over words. And Steven Tyler is on here too.

A note about the liner notes. When you pull the booklet out it feels thick and looks well designed. I thought “ok good I’ll get some background on the project.” The book contains pages and pages of recording information of the type that is interesting to no one, lots of pictures of weed, one page describing the project, and then fouor pages of t-shirt ads. While the layout and design are stylish and artistic, this self aggrandizement couched in an artistic worship for the senior Marley and concealing obvious money grab kind of characterizes the album as a whole. The sad part is that this isn’t without promise.  Maybe if the rappers had been given more time to work on their lyrics this would have turned out better, but I would really have liked the younger Marleys to get out of their dad’s shadow and work on something new. All in all, not a painful album, some nice hooks, but there is definitely better music out there more worth your time and space on my shelf.  

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Xtra Acme

Today I am discussing an album that I have listened to many times over the years that I have owned it, and I still don’t know how I feel about it. Formed in 1991, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are credited with starting the whole Garage punk thing, while simultaneously never getting credit for their hard work. All through the 90s, while everyone else was playing alternative or some breed of hardcore, Jon Spencer and his cavalcade of awesome were plugging away, making punk music that owed more to classic blues and soul than it did to the Ramones. When this genre was eventually picked up by the mainstream, it was newcomers like the White Stripes, The Hives, the Strokes, and The Vines that made a name for themselves. Jon Spencer doesn’t seem to have said much about this injustice, the band took a short hiatus for a few years and are now exploding the blues much as they always have.

When I first bought this album, I really didn’t know what to do with it. I kind of still don’t. It is all over the place. Spencer delivers his vocals in a classic southern ministerial style, Russell Simms pounds the most crazy drum lines into the ground, moving easily from a vicious funk to an almost gentle blues. The guitar work from Judah Bauer and Spencer are competent and clean, intricate without tripping over itself. The song is the goal and it is delivered with skill and power.

At the same time the band never takes this seriously. The music is delivered as if it is the most important thing ever, while the lyrics are almost nonsensical in their profound discussion of the mundane. An example:

And then, at the end of our beautiful date,

Maybe we’ll take in a movie

Maybe we’ll go get a hot dog

Baby, you ever had a hot dog?

Onion?

Mustard?

Sauerkraut?

I’d like to eat a hot dog with you baby

I’d like to hang out on the corner with you

Maybe at the top of the empire state building

Anything that you want

So long as we’re together.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! This kind of in your face tongue in cheek really differentiates the explosion from their more popular disciples. Jack white has his moments of levity, but the White Stripes are mostly characterized by an artistic focus that verges on creepy, crosses the line, and takes a dump in the line’s mom’s china cabinet. By contrast the explosion mocks the very idea of artistic integrity, while exemplifying it to a ridiculous degree. Think Little Richard meets Frank Zappa. 

While awesome at times, the songs often feel like inside jokes that leave me out. This is kind of disconcerting, and can take me out of the action. In particular Soul Trance, while a lovely collaboration with Dub Narcotic Sound System, is a five minute long joke track that really breaks up the album’s flow. Lap Dance has a similar effect, and is only a few tracks before Soul Trance, which makes the album really come screeching to a halt. The album is also super long, and some of the tracks really drag. 

These may seem like quibbles but they got in the way of my ability to enjoy the band for years. Its not that I don't like bands that refuse to take themselves seriously, on the contrary, but the effect was like listening to humorous tape someone made in college. There are moments of brilliance, separated by hours of giggling and the sounds of lighters. 

All the negatives were set against some great performances and tracks that would get stuck in my head. even the aforementioned Lap Dance is kind of a bizarre ear worm. So I really didn’t know how I was going to fall on this, but i did finally 'get' this album. I was making yet another five hour drive to New Jersey from Massachusetts and put the album on around the time I hit I-84. By the time it ended two odd hours later in upstate New York, I was totally sold. Obviously the focus is the music, where all the positives are. The intentionally uninteresting lyrics serve to force a distractable public to pay attention to what has always been the most fun in music: the music itself. 

oh right. duh. 

Billy Bragg - Don't Try This at Home

Billy Bragg, you luscious Mynx. I had a bit of a Smiths type problem with Bragg, wherin I was so obsessed with “Talking with the Tax Man About Poetry” that I had trouble getting into his other albums. I’ve bought a number of them and I’m going to end up reviewing them here, but this one had a hand up on the others.

First of all it contains the single “Sexuality,” which I think is kind of awesome. Beyond the fact that I happen to like his message of openness, and beyond the fact that this was kind of ahead of its time at the time, the song is hilarious. If you haven’t heard it you should go watch the music video on YouTube. He is so freaking British. The bumbling, nerdy attempts to assure the audience he is straight before talking about how he is ok with gay people is heartwarming in its ineptness.  After being told “I’ve had relations with girls from many nations,” I believe in Bragg’s prowess less than I did previously, but that’s cool. And the rest of the lyrics are kind of a mess. Halfway through he gets to talking about nuclear submarines, which seem to have nothing to do with anything, and then there’s the verse about his, uh, performance anxiety…I just love this song. The man is the Hugh Grant of ultra-liberal British folk.

Nonetheless I had trouble getting into the album. It’s really long, and folk music has trouble holding my attention at the best of times. But I found my entry point at the song ‘Everywhere.’ The song tells the story of two friends, one Asian and one Caucasian, who join the army hoping to fight the Germans, just in time for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The white kid is killed at Battan and the Asian kid is sent to a detention center and eventually shoots himself. Musically beautiful, lyrically aching, a wonderful song, although from a narrative standpoint I might have changed the ending but whatever, I didn’t write it. Just saying suicide is not the only answer to survivor’s guilt. Moving on.

The album has a massive bredth, though it definitely feels a bit over long. There are only 16 songs on the album, and all of them are excellent as stand along compositions, but the album lacks a lot of the coherence that made “Talking with the Tax Man…” so awesome. It may grow on me more as I keep listening. In the mean time I can’t say I would cut any of these songs. they are all excellent pop-folk songs that take fascinating and intelligent stances on everything from love to topics of the day. Obviously this is a keeper. Swoot. 

Bush - The Science of Things

Bush has always been really confusing to me. I tend to like their singles, but never enough to buy an album or look into them. When I talk to people about them, they either despise them, or say something along the lines of “hey, they're pretty good. I like that song about zen.” They just seem to be ubiquitous. For certain time periods they just kind of represent what was on the radio. And yet when I try to classify what it is they do well there are always others that do it better, and in fact others I think they were ripping off.

So how do I feel about Bush? I've been thinking about this for a while, so when I realized that this album was the next one on my list I was pretty bummed. I figured it was gonna take me a while to figure this out, once and for all. But then it hit me: they are the Billy Joel of the 90s.

Think about it: generally mediocre band that somehow survives on standout singles that seem to have seriously ripped off other songs. Defined by a lack of genre loyalty that somehow boils down to bandwagon jumping to whatever is hot at the time. They are not bad, the music is entertaining, but there is nothing here worth getting excited about. Hell, Gavin Rossdale even married someone far too hot for him, who is also a worthless human being. It all fits.

This album pretty much exemplifies all this. Theres some fun songs on here, but its nothing other bands haven't done better. At the time they were given a lot of critical praise for the incorporation of electronic elements into their music, but even at the time that was a bullshit piece of praise. Even in the top 40 there were already other, better bands who were doing the type of dj-grunge that is on display here. Off the top of my head? Incubus. And they were a lot better.

I honestly don't know if im going to keep this. Theres some really fun music here, but I really doubt im going to ever seek this out just because “Chemicals Between Us” is kind of fun and the album tracks have a good energy. Except fuck, that song is like a direct ripoff of the Seal song "Crazy." How did I not notice that? fuck Bush.

Black 47 - Iraq

So I don’t know which album is Black 47’s best, but this isn’t it. At an academic level I’m kind of ok with that. As I discussed in my review of "Bitersweet 16," the band had taken a long hiatus after Chris Byrne left. They kept touring, but didn’t write any new music. 2004’s New York Town was a huge critical success, and helped expunge the 9-11 demons that had been haunting the band. At the same time the band had been hearing from their fans who had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Never fans of the war, the band was moved to make their next album, 2008’s Iraq, an album of anti-war songs told, as they usually do, from the perspective of those involved most intimately.

After Katrina opposition to Bush became very common, but even in leftist circles the years before were kind of stifling. Even if you could find friends who wouldn’t jump down your throat for opposing the war, opposition became an exercise in losing. No matter how much you and everyone around you opposed the war, the Bush administration’s every action seemed calculated to piss us off more, and completely lacked any attempt at compromise. Given the massive support the war had, it was necessary to try to persuade people with reason, but the lack of any kind of recognition that something was deeply wrong from either the media or the political scene made me just want to scream.

The subsequent lack of articulate political music was one of the oddities of the age. The music was either inarticulate screaming, horrible groupthink-heavy hippie music. There was some really great indie music from this era, but most of it was either apolitical, or layered in so much imagery as to be inaccessible. Like, The Shins are a pretty political bunch but I really never know what they are signing about. So.

Black 47 are seasoned political singers. Maybe past their prime, but they have always been able to write music that is fun and articulate while being able to avoid groupthink. This is mostly due to Kirwan’s brilliant use of narrative storytelling, and that is a flag flying high on this album. Each story is from the perspective of someone involved in the war, usually soldiers. This perspective, which should probably have been an obvious source of material, is almost unique in modern music. I’m not sure why Kirwan was the only one able to tap this source, possibly it was his long harbored and nurtured connection to the type of working class boys that join the military to fund their education, while most indie bands hold to their nerdy roots and “write what you know” ethos. In particular “The Ballad of Cindy Sheehan,” “Sunrise on Brooklyn,” and “Battle of Fallujah” are jems.

So intellectually these songs are pretty revelatory. It is unfortunate how, uh, bad most of them are. Black 47 has often made a habit or rewriting traditional arrangements, often to good effect, but the ones on this album are not super successful. And the band packed them to the front of the album. A poor choice that seems to be a theme recently. The opening track, “Stars and Stripes,” kind of sums up how I feel about this album. A reworking of West Indies folk song “The John B. Sails,” also of Beach Boys fame, the lyrics tell the story of the narrator watching his friend Johnny die after getting shot by a sniper. Unfortunately I find the use of the traditional song distracting and forced, and I feel similarly off about track 2, “Downtown Bagdad Blues,” a reworking of “Minstrel Boy.”

In all this is not a terrible album. Certainly an interesting historical document, though I think The Thermals did a better job delivering the political message on “The Body, The Blood, The Machine.” There are some fun songs here, and some really killer lyrics, but overall the album feels forced into a concept and is musically a bit flat. If you are a hardcore Black 47 fan maybe pick this up, otherwise I’d pass. 

The Smiths - Meat is Murder

So I complain a lot about how Jam Bands are super masturbatory. It occurs to me that this is kind of ironic. I spend hours every week on this blog, reviewing albums no one has heard of and then posting on my Facebook so my friends will know to read it. What is worse, it seems this month has been solid with albums that everyone in the western world has already listened to, but not me. Often people have been nagging me to listen to these albums for years, possibly decades.

In my defense, I have a very specific way that I get into an album, and once I do I will obsess over that album for years. For example, I first got into The Smiths in my senior year of college. I happened across the song Panic, fell in love, ran out and got the album. Panic is still one of my favorite songs of all time. And then I just kind of got stuck on that album. I dunno if I was afraid the others would not be as good or just got distracted by other things but I never got another Smiths record.

Morrissey, the lead singer, has not helped things. Since the band broke up it has become very obvious that the guy is a massive tool. He is the classic example of a star who gets so wrapped up in their own ego that they consider any criticism to somehow be politically motivated. The man does make a convenient political target. He is a hardcore, having-pets-is-like-slavery PETA member vegan, gayer than Liberance, and had an unfortunate tendency towards paraphernalia of the far right for many years. To be fair, I really doubt the man is racist. He was just cashing in on punk fashion and it’s not like the accuse Johnny Rotten of being a racist these days. And I really don’t care about his sexual or dietary preferences. But the man has zero sense of humor about, well, anything, least of all himself, and refuses to admit of any moral grey area. He is the type of celebrity that sets his causes back years. He and Lady Gaga should really start a family band. They have to be related.

This has definitely cooled my enthusiasm. I try to separate the man from the music but when you are into political music, like I am, and the music is advocating causes you support in a really fucking obnoxious way, it tends to make it that much more grating when you disagree. However, it has been several years since I forced myself to stop hate-reading Morrissey interviews, and I really do love Panic oh so much, so this weekend I finally forced myself to invest in another Smiths album. Meat is Murder is supposed to be one of their best so that is what I picked up.

And it is awesome. Musically. But I had hoped, I had really hoped, that somehow in this, one of their most classic works, from before he had a reason to be such a dick, his lyrics would somehow be more subtle and nuanced. They were not. For most of the album, wherein I agree with him, I was able to ignore him and enjoy the music, which really is awesome and neigh revolutionary. But the last song, the title track, drives me up the wall it is so fucking ridiculous. Its not that I’m not sympathetic to his standpoint, but he undermines it violently by being such a dick. There is really no way to explain myself except by taking him apart point by point.

So here goes.

Meat is Murder

Heifer whines could be human cries
Closer comes the screaming knife

 [Knives scream? Anthropomorphism error anyone?]

This beautiful creature must die

This beautiful creature must die

 [cows kind of scare me. They are pretty big and I am pretty sure my highschool kickboxing moves wouldn’t impress them. But there is no accounting for aesthetics, go on.]

A death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER

 [ok yes, that would be true, but the definition of “no reason” is heavily socially constructed. I know Morrissey is unlikely to be a fan of the just war concept, but if you permit the moral justification of any kind of deadly force in society, and you basically have to at some level, then you have to admit that there is a possibility of someone killing for a reason that you disagree with without it being murder. I do not consider the Iraq war justified, but I do not consider the soldiers involved murderers so long as they exercised appropriate care to avoid civilian casualties. Calling it such would serve to unjustly lay blame on people who are a part of a much larger phenomenon and really do not deserve full blame.]

And the flesh you so fancifully fry
Is not succulent, tasty or kind

 [ok no it is pretty tasty. I disagree based on first hand sensory perception. I suppose that is still an opinion based disagreement.]

It's death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER
 

And the calf that you carve with a smile
It is MURDER

[The calf is, itself, murder? Well fuck what’s the problem! I too would smile as I dispatched a physical embodiment of the act of murder, thereby assuring no being was unjustly killed ever again!]

And the turkey you festively slice
It is MURDER

Do you know how animals die?

[I do, and some of it is very unpleasant. But you probably aren’t going to be presenting any researched evidence or anything in this pop song.]
Kitchen aromas aren't very homely

[What if the aroma is fruit pie? Is he against meat or all home cooking here?]
It's not "comforting", cheery or kind [opinion]
It's sizzling blood and the unholy stench
Of MURDER


It's not "natural", "normal" or kind

 [I will buy that it is not kind, but unless you have a very different definition of “natural” or “normal” you are just wrong here. 

Sure, humans can survive without eating meat. But we also evolved so that we would be able to. I’m not sure how much more natural you can get than being genetically programmed to do something. Dogs and cats also can survive on vegan diets, but I really challenge you to tell me how it is natural. Just in terms of dental construction. Canines hold flesh while incisors cut it. Molars grind plant fibers. I am not saying genetic programing is a real reason for undertaking a moral choice, but he is! AND HES WRONG! 

As far as normality, I agree that most cultures do not eat AS MUCH meat as us in the West, but it is also very rare to find an entirely ethically vegan society. Most people will eat meat if they can. Some african societies are so desperate for meat that street vendors have started selling deep fried blood, which they get essentially free from city abattoirs. Of course, I dont need to list ouot all the implied hygenic concerns with this practice.

International statistics are hard to find, but given that only 0.5% of Americans self identified as vegan, and given that “vegan” is defined as “had not used animals for any purpose in the previous two years,” you are going to have a hard time telling me strict vegan-ism is normal. In any way.]
The flesh you so fancifully fry
The meat in your mouth
As you savour the flavour
Of MURDER


NO, NO, NO, IT'S MURDER
NO, NO, NO, IT'S MURDER
Oh ... and who cares about an animals life?

AND THAT’S FUCKING IT. Cruelty of industrial slaughter practices are referenced but not described, cruelty of gathering animal products is ignored completely, health benefits of veganism are entirely ignored as are environmental ramifications. There are serious discussions to be had here, but they are ignored in favor of “No No NO. Murder.” There's no justifications here. Not even an I Feel. Just a fuck you and anyone who looks like you.

Which is fucking ridiculous and divisive. Assholes like Morrissey are why most people flip out if you tell them you are vegan or vegetarian. This song is intentionally inflammatory without actually producing concrete arguments or leaving any room for compromise. As a meat eater I am honestly troubled by the conditions in which my meat is raised, and the persistent lack of effective controls from the government makes me more alarmed every year. I am not going vegetarian anytime…well...ever, but I would vote and protest based on my convictions, and I would like to see some serious discussion of food issues. I do think this is beginning to happen, given the pink slime fallout, but there is a ways to go.

As far as convictions that any form of food based slaughter is wrong, I am totally ok with other people holding to that conviction, and I am totally ok with discussing it or hearing a song about it. So long as the arguments are even vaguely well constructed. This would be like a labor movement song where the verse was

Demanding work for money

And buying stuff with money

And seeing benefits from said purchase

IS MURDER

I have my problems with capitalism, but the above poem is insane. On the other hand

You make me work hard

And don’t give me enough

My kids are all dying

Because we cant buy food stuffs

AND THAT’S MURDER

Would be perfectly acceptable to me. There is a cause and an effect. There is a logical progression. I don’t even mind the implied judgment of the rich because there is a argument here.

One that I agree with.

So.

So feel free to accuse me of bias.

But the rest of the album is pretty rad.

So.

Fun.