Good Boys In The Wrong

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whoa.

OK, that's better. Hi. Anybody here? Well, we'll just get started, and see if anybody trickles in. We don't expect the traffic of, say, Happy Furry Puppy Story Time or Blue Girl around here. Heck, we don't even get the traffic of Libertoonian Bookworm! Wide open spaces, fling your arms out and dance about!!

If anybody cares, Sorry about the lack of posting. The NSA wiretaps and AT&T's secret tracking software have DRASTICALLY reduced available bandwidth. Besides, you should have been watching Justice being served up hot and steaming to ken Lay, rather than reading this tripe.


Zelmo sends along this image:




Hey, you know me: always willing to nitpick and start an argument. I would point out that unless you drink that cheap-ass Miller Lite piss (How is Lite beer like making love in a canoe?) beer is still more expensive. 16 oz of Sprecher is at least $1.50, so a gallon is at least $8.

It's not until you get into REAL volume that you can get close. A half barrel is 15.5 gallons; a half barrel of Sprecher costs about $85. So even there, you're paying about $5.50 a gallon. Still a ways to go, but I'm sure the mismanagement of Jorge and the Repubs can get us there. Drill in Alaska! Yeah! won't even affect gas availability and pricing for at least 6 years, and then minimally at best, but we get to despoil some of America's last wilderness!! Fuck Yeah, take that hippies! Pointless, stubborn, greedy and pigheaded. What a great description of a run-of-the-mill Republican.

Some recent good, politically oriented music releases have been making the news. Not being part of Pajamas Media, I have actually LISTENED to the music in question before giving this little capsule run down.

Green Day, American Idiot. I've been hooked on this album since it came out. The album apparently took forever to record, and mead the band nearly nuts trying to get it in sync with Billie Joe's vision, but the result is completely idiosyncratic: A highly produced, rock-operatic concept album, punk masterpiece. It takes all the facets of punk, removes the cynical nihilism, and focuses it through their anger.

The songs take on the decay of American life attributable to greedy, shortsighted policies by the powerful, the disregard for people at the lower end of the social scales, and mixes with tempered rage that this continues.

Several of the songs clock in around 9 minutes or more, even verging into Prog territory if not for the buzzsaw guitars and punk sneer. They incorporate healthy doses of acoustic guitar to leaven the sound, maybe inspired by their breakthrough hit 'Time Of Your Life' The longer songs are two and three part mini-epics.

Surprising songwriting depth from a band that had started to be written off. They are deservedly winning music awards,it is one of the best albums of a couple of years. Highly listenable.

Dixie Chicks, Take The Long Way. At this point, everybody knows the story; Chick makes extremely mild remark of disapproval of George Bush, the mindless fans howl in protest, and Clear Channel vows they'll never work again. The Dixie Chicks, since they're obviously not ones to knuckle under, go to work with Rick Rubin and Tom Petty, and go toward a country rock crossover.

The result is an album that has a lot in common with the Eagles. These songs could be played on MOR, adult-rock, classic rock, or country stations easily. The Chicks are very talented, and the harmonies are quite well done. Rubin is maybe a bit wasted here, as the material is maybe aimed more at a full band sound rather than the stripped down, DIY punk aesthetic of his work with Cash.

Overall, the album really doesn't present any surprises or outrages, regardless of the hoo-rah. The big FU song, Not Ready To Make Nice, isn't so much a slap in the face of their critics as a musical way of basically saying, We're Americans, we have the right to say this, and you're wrong. Otherwise, the songs, as I said, are straightforward, well done country rock. Hey! Here's an idea! They oughta do a collaboration album with the Eagles! If they could find a studio that would accommodate the massed egos, it would be a massive hit.

Neil Young, Living With War. This one pisses off the wingnuts the most. Maybe it's because Young, although married to an American, has never renounced his Canadian citizenship (and still has the temerity to criticize the American God-President). Maybe it's because one of the song comes out and says Impeach the President. Maybe it's because it's probably the highest profile and most widely programmable, thus has the greatest potential for widespread distribution.

Anyway, it's an interesting slab of very simple, direct songs. The formula, although straightforward, works: grungey guitar, Neil's warble, some brass and a hundred voice hippie choir. The songs are pretty well announced by the titles: Living With War, Flags of Freedom, The Restless Consumer; and the lyrics are also direct.

But the record suffers, I think, a bit from it's quick production. It was recorded in four days, I would guess in an attempt to impart urgency to the recording But ironically enough, the haste made them rely on a bit too much of the formula, so the album may be a bit repetitive. Strident, no. Everything in the album is more regretful and sorrowful than angry.

The album strives for urgency. But the irony is that the more lushly produced and long in development American Idiot really comes across as more immediate and urgent, by being less direct and more of a chronicle of how failures at the governmental level have impacted normal people.

It seems to have taken so much before musicians have responded with topical songs, but I think that is a reflection of the stranglehold large corporations have on the music industry. In the sixties and seventies, radio stations could grab even a locally released song and play it into popularity. But with the nearly impenetrable mass market programming prevalent today, no music gets produced for radio without corporate approval, and only established artists are able to make statements without fear of repercussion. even the Dixie Chicks are taking a chance on the crossover, since Country Music Authority has decided they are Evil.



Otherwise, we're back to the Friday Music Blather:

1. Baby Blue from the album “Ultimate Collection” by Aimee Mann

2. Dignity from the album “Robyn Sings” by Robyn Hitchcock A few years ago, Robyn released this album which is a cover of the acoustic portion of Dylan's famous Albert Hall 'electric' show. It's a compelling reproduction, here's a good review. It's especially fun to listen to the Dylan version and the Hitchcock versions for compare and contrast.

3.,. Leila from the album “Six Pack (Disc 3) [Tejas & El Loco]” by ZZ Top Hmph. Mellow (?!?) from the blues-boogie trio. Forget those high notes, guy. Can't say I like it.

4. I Confess from the album “Special Beat Service” by The English Beat The Beat is gonna be at the Miramar Theatre on the 3rd. It'll be a great Wayback Show.

5. Shadows on the Barley from the album “Clutching At Straws” by Marillion Just found that Marillion is podcasting the development of their new album. It's a cool way of keeping your fans active and involved. For a band that Clear Channel has no interest in, they've been tremendously inventive and effective at creative uses of new technologies. Rah.

6. Rain In the Summertime from the album “Eye of the Hurricane (Remastered)” by The Alarm Another Wayback Track. In retrospect, I'm liking the Alarm better than U2. Good anthemic alt-rock, but much less pretentiousness.

7. Freedom's Waiting from the album “Free” by Negativland Negativland trashes the American Fascism Movement, otherwise known as Law'n'Order Republicans.

8. A Mission In Life from the album “Mosquitos” by Stan Ridgway Very nice, melancholy song about hiding from life in bars.

9. Every Breath You Take from the album “Live! (Disc 2)” by The Police A live version of a song that has never impressed me. Slow down, guys.

10. Stay Free from the album “Story of the Clash, Volume 1 (Disc 2)” by The Clash One of my most favoritest Clash Songs ever. by The Mick.


The Bonus Songs:

11. Sunday Morning from the album “Under the Covers Vol. 1” by Matthew Sweet Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles do a cover album. Not essential.

12. The Great Intoxication from the album “Look Into the Eyeball” by David Byrne What? He's still around?

13. The 11th Hour from the album “...And Out Come The Wolves” by Rancid Clash-influenced SoCal punk. Rancid has taken heat for being derivative, but my feeling is, every band starts from some pint of inspiration-why not be inspired the best?





34 days till Bummerfest. At least they've largely confined the jam bands to the Marcus this year, so there'll be less tripping over hack sack players.