There is a fundamental tension in life between consistency and improvisation. Improvisation is fun and lets the improviser experiment with new tricks and ideas. On the other hand, no matter how talented the Improviser, delivering a usable product is going to require leaning on some stock tricks to hold the entire edifice together, and these stock tricks tend to be clichés. Consistency allows a more finely grained exploration of the structure of the product at a fundamental level, but the continued production of the same thing, no matter how innovative its intrinsic structure, can get staid and emotionless with time.
This is, I think, a fundamental truth of life often lost in our immediate gratification era, and it is certainly true in music. To take the examples to their most extreme examples, we can see the use and abuse of consistency in the latter years of the Beatles, where they abandoned touring and essentially locked themselves in studios. They were conducting experiments to be sure, but as the end goal had ceased to be performance and had become the production of a single, jewel-like album, the end result was a number of albums that, whilst largely brilliant, could probably never have been improvised into existence. Some commentators have additionally criticized these albums as lacking energy, and some of these albums contain some, ah, poor choices (Usually ringo-derived but moving on). On a broader scale, every band with any successful single inevitably ends up complaining that they are a bit tired of playing it live. Such is the nature of the beast.
The flip side of this coin of despair are the purely improvisational styles. Almost all traditional genres started as improvisational, from Irish Folk to Southern Folk to Blues (not folk?), each has at its base periods where the only entertainment for a poor group of people was to get together and jam in public, often whilst drunk. Inevitably clichés would form that would serve as the basis for the performance. After a while outsiders would look in on these performances and find that what were cliché props for those involved had become unique musical tricks for the uninitiated. On the other hand, for those who had to listen to Uncle Ned play the same song, with minor variations, every Saturday for years on end, the opportunity to escape to a place with more than ten performers in a 100 mile radius inevitably exerted a strong draw, becoming one of the contributing factors of urbanization and the depopulation of the countryside.
These two aspects of musical performance are inevitably necessary. I personally tend to favor song writing over performance tricks, and so I tend to be biased towards consistency at a certain level, but that is true only because we live in an age of recorded media. Without improvisation behind the scenes the music would never have any kind of energy, and I need energy in my music like meth-heads need to find someone willing to get a gum-job in exchange for Sudafed.
All my problems with Jam Bands can really be found in how I relate to experimentation and improvisation in my music. Jam Bands tend to prefer live performance as their medium, and favor free experimentation and improvisation in their music. Worthy goals, but as I am not of the type to go following bands around some of the magic is certainly lost when I listen to these performances on a recorded medium. Some Jam Bands manage to make the best aspects of improvisation shine through on the recordings I have heard, which is worthy of praise, but too often jam Bands bore me. For all their improvisation and virtuosity their song structures are staid rehashing of blues song structure, padded out with reggae rhythms and decorated with endless noodling like some kind of bizarre Italinate saint procession.
It would be entirely unfair to say this album brings all the weaknesses of Blues Traveler to the front, but it does bring all their Jam Band elements out into the sun. Song writing is more staid and traditional in structure, with more focus on the decoration than the basics. There’s a lot of noodling, funky bass playing, and weird strum patterns that do not add overly much to the song. And there are some seriously embarrassing moments here. In particular the song “Business as Usual” features the band’s experimentation with late 80s style rap. Imagine Run DMC’s collaboration with Aerosmith, except featuring Popper doing the rapping and you’ll be 90s percent there. This is very much in line with the band’s open, Jam Band roots, and at the time it probably made sense for Popper to go that final step from singing really fast to rapping, but the result is not really very good.
On the other hand, this album isn’t awful. There are some fun songs on here; in particular Canadian Rose is a very nice song, if a little too reminiscent of Run Around for comfort. Even on the average songs on this album you still have the killer combination of Popper’s incisively cynical lyrics, awesome voice, and harmonica. There is nothing particularly unique or stunning, but the songs are fun and energetic and undertaken with good humor. Even on “Business as Usual” it sounds like the band is having fun with a new idea, even if the idea was a total failure.
By far this album’s greatest weakness is that it came out right after “Four.” I spose this was always going to be an issue. It’s a fun little album when taken on its own but it doesn’t transcend its genres like its illustrious predecessor. As someone who is uncomfortable at best with the structural ineptitudes of Jam Band this puts the album in dangerous territory. I am probably going to hold onto this until I buy another Blues Traveler album and see how I feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment