I Saw a Movie: In the Loop (2009)

Illustration from The Slant Book by Peter Newell, 1910

Forgive me for starting this little ramble like an old-school Ain't It Cool News movie review (I'm try to build a tenuous parallel here to pad a review of a movie that I'm having a hard time writing about.) On the way to the theater on Saturday night, my special lady friend and I passed some skeevy little shop that had a couple patio chairs out in front of it - a grubby young dude was sleeping (or passed out) in one of the chairs. As we approached, the shop's dreadlocked proprietor came out and started to shout at and jostle this guy, telling him that the chairs aren't for homeless drunks to sleep in (raising the obvious question - what ARE the chairs there for?) The guy in the chair was completely non-responsive.

The shop-keep was growing progressively more frustrated and animated, which I found quite amusing right up to the point where he tipped the man out of the chair. The passed-out man collapsed forward in sitting position and landed forehead-first on the sidewalk with a loud crack. He let out a pitiful little groan and rolled over slowly. A couple passersby stopped to see if they could help (the guy from the shop looked a little embarrassed), so we kept walking - we should have stopped to help too, but we were late for our movie. We enjoyed Armando Iannucci's new comedy, In the Loop and, walking back to our car afterward, we ran into the guy we'd seen hit the sidewalk a couple hours earlier. He was standing in the doorway of the same shop, eating a slice of pizza, and he gave me a big smile and a thumbs-up as we passed.

In the Loop is a very modern and very British movie, but it's a great comedy for an American audience that likes a bit of a challenge. Director Iannucci has had a series of semi-successful shows on the BBC in the UK, but he's been completely under the radar to most Americans until now. In the Loop is an extension of a frenetic, foul-mouthed political TV comedy that Iannucci has been making since 2005 called The Thick of It. That show uses a variety of colorful and profane characters to illustrate the quiddities of UK bureaucracy and petty squabbling found in British government. In the Loop takes this approach to political comedy (and some of the show's key players) and applies them to an entirely fictional scenario in which the US and UK governments are contemplating a military intervention in the Middle East.

The brilliant cast revolves primarily around the film's "villian", the ruthless Malcolm Tucker, played by Peter Capaldi. Tucker is the UK's Director of Communications, and he is willing to manipulate UK government ministers (Tom Hollander), US State Department big-shots (Mimi Kennedy and David Rasche), and US military leaders (James Gandolfini) to get to the result the Prime Minister wants. Tucker is also a wielder of one of the most creatively foul mouths ever gifted to mankind, and every second word out of his mouth is one that would get you slapped across the face at Sunday dinner. Tucker sets the pace, but the entire cast keeps up with an Altman-style dialogue pacing that has a joke-per-minute ratio that will baffle even dedicated followers of fast-moving US comedies like 30 Rock.

In the Loop is a funny in an awkward, high-energy way, like a store-owner growing increasingly frustrated with a sleeping vagrant. But, like that scenario, In the Loop has its tipping-out-of-the-chair moment as it draws to its finale. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but it involves a shift in tone that is worth being aware of in advance. It was intentionally jarring, though, and didn't sour the overall experience for me.

In the Loop is not entry-level comedy for American audiences - the copious creative swearing may be a problem for some, and the plot is easier to follow if you know a little about how British government works. For instance, some people might be confused that a cabinet-level Minister has a home jurisdiction where he is responsible for very mundane governmental issues. But it is a comedy with enough good jokes that it merits two viewings if you want to catch the jokes you missed while laughing. Basically, like the guy who hit the sidewalk, I'm giving this one a big thumbs-up.

"The International Language of Screaming" by Super Furry Animals

Ellie Greenwich (1940 - 2009)

Illustration titled "And the Dead Came to His Banquet" by M.H. Squire and E. Mars from Charles Lamb's The Adventures of Ulysses, 1902

It's only due to my own sheer ignorance that I didn't know I was a huge fan of Ellie Greenwich. A master-class songwriter with an embarrassing number of hits under her belt, Greenwich passed away this week in Manhattan at the age of 68. I recognized the name when I saw it in the news, and it only took a little digging to realize that Greenwich has long been one of my favorite songwriters. You've probably seen the "Barry/Greenwich" writing credit attached to classic pop songs like "Be My Baby", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Chapel of Love", "River Deep, Mountain High", "Hanky Panky", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Look of Love", and "Then He Kissed Me". She also wrote, with husband/ex-husband collaborator Jeff Barry, some of my favorites by the Monkees ("She Hangs Out") and the Beach Boys ("I Can Hear Music"). And Ellie Greenwich was a singer, producer, publisher, and arranger in addition to being a songwriter - her 1965 single "You Don't Know" should have been a huge hit. Not finding success on her own, she was instrumental in the success of the Ronettes, Neil Diamond, and the Shangri-Las.

Greenwich's work with the Shangri-Las, one of my favorite bands, may have been the pinnacle of her songwriting career. She co-wrote three of their best-known songs, "Leader of the Pack", "Out in the Streets", and "The Train From Kansas City". She also penned some of my other Shangri-las favorites, like the single "Give Us Your Blessings" and its beautiful b-side track, "Heaven Only Knows". "Heaven Only Knows" is probably my favorite Shangri-Las song - Mary Weiss sings the crap out of the lyric, and it has a rich, lovely arrangement. I think I hear Ellie Greenwich bolstering the girls' backing vocals as well. Do yourself a favor and listen to something by Ellie Greenwich today.

"Heaven Only Knows" by the Shangri-Las

We Love the Beatles: "Pauline" by the Minders

Photo of Dave MacDonald by Margaret Bourke-White from the LIFE magazine collection, 1955

I think I said I wasn't going to do any more "We Love the Beatles" entries, but I keep hearing songs that remind me of the Beatles. And, coincidentally, these entries are only two paragraphs long and convenient to write when I'm busy doing other stuff. So....

The Minders were an indie-pop band from Portland led by UK-transplant Martyn Leaper - they were involved in the Elephant 6 Collective somehow. I'm not sure quite how - I don't have the E6 flowchart in front of me at the moment. "Pauline" is a McCartney-ish song from their first album, Hooray for Tuesday. "Pauline" had the bad luck of coming second in the album's tracklist, right after the title track - "Hooray for Tuesday" is probably the best thing the Minders ever recorded, so "Pauline" doesn't really stand out. But it has a great, bouncy early-Beatles sound, and the double-tracked vocals do a decent job of mimicking John Lennon's use of the technique. The chorus and backing vocals are nice too.

"Pauline" by the Minders

It's New to Me: Oceans Apart by the Go-Betweens (2005)

Detail of a photo titled "New Trier High School" by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1950

It seems like I've written too many times about the Go-Betweens, Australia's best band ever (sorry INXS!), on this blog. But I just bought another Go-Betweens record, and I'm going to write about it, damnit! So bear with me. After a run of excellent albums in the '80s, the Go-Betweens broke up, and its two principle songwriters, Grant McLennan and Robert Forster, each had decent solo careers. They decided to start working together again under the Go-Betweens name in 2000 and recorded three "post-hiatus" records. Oceans Apart is the last of these records, released in 2005, just a year before Grant McLennan's passing.

Oceans Apart got mixed reactions when it came out, but I get the sense that it is gaining stature in the Go-Betweens discography - a lot of people now say that it is the best album from the band's second run. I had heard about the album's mastering problems (which are probably responsible for some of the negative reactions it got when it came out), but they still really bothered me on first listen. I read somewhere that the mastering issues had been corrected since the initial release, but the CD I'm listening to doesn't sound good. It is mastered very VERY LOUD. Which is an odd choice because (a) these songs don't really call for such a harsh and aggressive sound, and (b) some of the album's best songs suffer from bad distortion because they have been mastered so "hot".

Once I got past the sound issues and started to get acquainted with the songs themselves, I was really impressed. When Forster and McLennan got back together, they were really two solo artists putting songs on albums together, but Oceans Apart sounds like them coming together as a band again. The songs have a collaborative feel and high quality that comes from friendly competition - McLennan's delicate "Lavender" and Forster's evocative "Darlinghurst Nights" are among the best things they've written in their careers. One of my favorite songs on the record is Forster's "Born to a Family", which has a light-hearted pop feel that people usually associate with McLennan's songs. That Forster could pull it off so perfectly shows that the band's two songwriters had learned some important lessons from each other. I don't love Oceans Apart as much as 16 Lovers Lane, the band's last "pre-hiatus" album, but I'm starting to appreciate it as a culmination of the two friends' maturation and songwriting prowess.

I strongly recommend Oceans Apart to fans of good songwriter-pop (not a real genre, but whatever), but if you're going to buy it, it might be worthwhile to do a little research on the album's mastering issues to see if you can find a version that sounds better than the one I got.

"Born to a Family" by the Go-Betweens

Title Fight: "No Easy Way Down"

Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley from Arthur Symons' The Savoy, 1896

I've been interested in the "Paisley Underground" scene of LA in the early '80s for a while. But I put off listening to one of the standout bands of the scene, the Rain Parade, based on reports that they were too sleepy-sounding and lacking pop hooks. I recently bought Emergency Third Rail Power Trip/Explosions in the Glass Palace, which collects their first album and the follow-up EP, and I regret having waited so long. Most of the "Paisley Underground" bands (the Bangles, the 3 O'Clock, Game Theory) were not really that psychedelic, but Rain Parade managed to connect with the things I love about the original psych-rock bands while doing their own thing entirely.

I was particularly drawn to "No Easy Way Down", the closing song of the Explosions in the Glass Palace EP, which was recorded after the departure of David Roback, who had founded the band and would later continue purveying sleepy psych with Mazzy Sar. At almost seven minutes, a guitar epic like "No Easy Way Down" is not the kind of thing I'm usually drawn to, but it drew me in the first time I heard it. Evoking the most acid-drenched psychedelia of the '60s and the drones of '70s krautrock, it also foreshadows the rise of shoegaze rock in a more-than-passing similarity to Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine. But mostly it sounds like itself - the guitar lead starts out in an easy Eastern-sounding riff but wanders into uncharted territory as the song stretches and flexes. The whispered backing vocals, pulsing rhythm guitar, and keening organ are classic psych touches, but they are combined with an impressive and relaxed clarity here.

It's an excellent song and worth the seven minutes that it takes to listen to, but it has an unfortunate name when it comes to participating in a Title Fight. It's title puts it up against one of the best Goffin/King compositions of the late '60s. Performed originally by Jackie DeShannon, and later by Barbra Streisand, Scott Walker, and Carol King herself, the original "No Easy Way Down" was interpreted best by Dusty Springfield. Recorded in her Memphis sessions, this version features the Sweet Inspirations on backup vocals and the music of the famous Memphis Cat, including legendary guitarist Reggie Young. A perfect melody sung perfectly, flawless arrangement, and a couple tons of sheer classicness from Dusty Springfield crush the competition here.

Winner: DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

"No Easy Way Down" by Dusty Springfield

"No Easy Way Down" by the Rain Parade

In Stores Now: Watch Me Fall by Jay Reatard

Polaroid from a collection of family photos by Mark Hooper (neonbubble), c. 1970

Jay Reatard is the one-man band of Jay Lindsey, a punk rocker on the verge of turning thirty. He's been putting out records since his mid-teens, though, so the "big three-oh" may not mean much to him. In the last couple years, Lindsey's music has started to reach a wider audience, following the breakthrough Blood Visions album and the string of excellent singles he's put out since 2006. One of his Matador singles from last year (the No Time 7") had an overtly non-punk kiwi-pop sound to it that Lindsey had only hinted at in earlier recordings with an increased use of organ and acoustic guitar. Lindsey said that his fascination with New Zealand's indie pop scene would be the biggest influence on his next record, and now we have that record, the new Watch Me Fall on Matador Records. Is this really a twee pop record from Jay Reatard?

Yes and no. On the first few spins with Watch Me Fall, the big thing that struck me was that there was an early-'80s power-pop feel to a lot of the songs. And there's definitely plenty of nods to NZ bands like the Clean, the Chills, and the Bats here as well. But these influences are hardly incorporated seamlessly - Lindsey is still writing punk songs, but now he's grafting other things on to them ex post facto. Opening single "It Ain't Gonna Save Me" is straightforward pop-punk with Lindsey showcasing both of his "punk" vocal styles (throaty bark and sneering whine), but it ends with an unexpected extended organ coda. "Can't Do It Anymore" has an excellent chorus hook with a new-wave bounce, but it gets cut off by an irritating squealing guitar solo. "Before I Was Caught" and "Faking It" also feature great pop pegs that have been hammered into punk holes.

Halfway through Watch Me Fall, we start getting some songs that incorporate these parts better. "I'm Watching You" is a fleshed-out version of the twee-pop sketch appended to last year's Matador Singles '08 - a martial drumbeat gives it some needed oomph here, and it has no traces of punk attitude. "Wounded" starts with a la-da-da-da hook and acoustic guitar riff that seques awkwardly to a stupid shouted chorus, but the two halves are brought together nicely on the outro. A few unremarkable songs toward the end of the record mess up the momentum a little, but the overall feel of the record is very nice. The songs that are roughly stitched together keep you a little off-balance, but they have a charm of their own that goes nicely with the less "punk" numbers.

Watch Me Fall's last song - "There Is No Sun" - blows away just about everything else I've heard this year. I know that a lot of people aren't looking for huge dynamic swings and moaning cellos from Jay Reatard - I didn't think it was what I was looking for, either. But it is really great, and it shows that Jay Lindsey's fifteen years of recording experience have given him a real ear for song structures and layered sounds. If that's true, then the mismatched arrangements of Watch Me Fall must not be accidents. Maybe this record is purposefully transitional in its sound - I will be very happy if "There Is No Sun" is an indication of where Lindsey is going next with his evolving and maturing take of punk and pop music.

"There Is No Sun" by Jay Reatard

Probabilistic Jukebox: "The Rainbow" by the Apples (in Stereo)

Illustration by N.C. Wyeth from John Hay's The Pike County Ballads, 1912

There's a weird synchronicity in "The Rainbow" coming up on the jukebox this week. Actually, there are two different synchronicities. The first is that this song is found on the new Apples (in Stereo) "greatest hits" collection that comes out in two weeks. The Apples aren't really a guilty pleasure for me, but I enjoy them with the understanding that their helium-filled bubblegum pop isn't for everyone. And a lot of their albums are considered to be uneven - "The Rainbow" comes from their 2000 album The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone, which is a favorite of mine even though it's considered spotty by some Apples fans. But their new collection, #1 Hits Explosion, is a very solid run-down of their best songs that would be a fun listen for even jaded pop-haters.

The other weird coincidence in "The Rainbow" showing up today is that it's on a tentative playlist I've been working on. I have some friends and relatives whose kids are getting to the age that their picking up on their parents' musical tastes. I thought it would be fun to make a mix of indie-friendly songs for kids that parents can enjoy too. It's a balancing act because it's easy to let things get really saccharine really fast, but here's a few things I've come up with so far:

"The Rainbow" by the Apples (in Stereo)
"Sloop John B" by the Beach Boys
"Everything Will Be All Right" by Andy Partridge
"Why Does the Sun Shine?" by They Might Be Giants
"Mr. Songbird" by the Kinks
"I Saw Cinnamon" by Dressy Bessy
"You Can't Hurry Love" by the Supremes
"Ride a White Swan" by T. Rex
"Be Nice to Animals" by the Salteens
"1 2 3 Red Light" by 1910 Fruitgum Company
"Black Balloon" by the Minders
"Yellow Balloon" by Jan & Dean
"All Together Now" by the Beatles
"Elephant Candy" by Fun & Games
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by R.E.M.
"Broccoli" by the Association
"Walking My Gargoyle" by the Gothic Archies
"Kites Are Fun" by the Free Design
"Sugar on Sunday" by Tommy James & the Shondells
"I Want Candy" by the Strangeloves
"A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" by the Monkees
"Tally Ho" by the Clean
"Sweet Baby James" by the Pooh Sticks

Looking at that list, I'm starting to have my doubts. Also, I think my blood sugar may be spiking. It needs some work, obviously - leave a comment if I'm missing something obvious.

"The Rainbow" by the Apples (in Stereo)

In Stores Now: Perfect Waves by James Rabbit

Frontispiece of Gulliver the Great and Other Dog Stories by Walter A. Dyer, 1916

Santa Cruz songwriter Tyler Martin is back again with his gang for another James Rabbit album. Tyler has been recording under the name James Rabbit since 1999, although I'm guessing that he was in his early teens when he started making these home recordings. The band has put out a dozen or more albums in the intervening years, and Martin's songwriting talents have grown in tandem with the project's scope and participants. They recently released Perfect Waves, and it contains all the components that I was excited about when I wrote about James Rabbit (and their last release, Coloratura) last fall: "the ramshackle charm, the borderline pretentious whimsy commonly found in college freshmen, the kitchen-sink-on-a-budget instrumentation, the gang/glee-club vocals and scatting."

Perfect Waves is an impressive accomplishment, an overstuffed pop extravaganza that's almost seventy minutes long. It's a challenging listen - I've been listening to this album for weeks, and I feel like I'm still just beginning to know it. This is because the song's structures are mostly non-linear, taking weird detours and seldom visiting the same territory twice. This means that you can't expect the band to revisit any choruses, so you better enjoy every hook as it comes along. The album has no shortage of hooks, though, so you won't miss any section too much when it gets abandoned in the album's exhausting headlong rush from start to finish. Tyler Martin listens to a lot of music and absorbs a lot of ideas, resulting in some excellent sounds here - tribal drum intros bump up against horn flourishes, and the hoe-down fiddle hook of "A Closer Look" has little in common with the highlife-by-way-of-Graceland guitars of the next song, "In Love with the Idea". But it all fits together like a complex puzzle only Tyler Martin understands.

Perfect Waves does have a few problems. Martin's lyrics have always been unironic and confessional, but they reach levels of upbeat can-do sloganeering here that border on the grotesque. It's hard to pin down what makes it more off-putting, but I find myself cringing at the lyrics more this time around. Do they really need two different tracks that contain lists of their favorite artists and albums? Okay, you like Shuggie Otis - we get it. Also, the album is a little longer than it needs to be - in particular, it ends with a three-track coda that doesn't contribute anything new. I'm hoping that the wild experimentation here indicates that Martin is about to turn a corner in his songwriting - he's still young, and we may see better lyrics and more disciplined songwriting from him before too long.

The song "W.I.L.D." is not indicative of the songs on the album, in that it packs the James Rabbit craziness into a concise, well-structured pop song. I love the exuberant group vocals all over this track, and it captures the album's energy and sense of fun in a bite-sized portion. Perfect Waves is available at Insound, and I highly recommend it for fans of under-the-radar kitchen-sink pop music.

"W.I.L.D." by James Rabbit

I Saw a Movie: District 9 (2009)

Detail of a cover illustration from The Saint Sees It Through by Leslie Charteris, 1951

Is a movie a success if it makes you feel a combination of giddy excitement and crushing disappointment? Is it a good movie if you enjoy every minute of it but spend a couple hours after it's over untangling the inconsistencies and unanswered questions that were central to the plot? District 9 is a mess and one of the most unlikely blockbuster hits in years, but I'm pretty sure I like it a lot. Who would guess that a low-budget (for a sci-fi thriller) half-mocumentary/half-action-movie set in South Africa, with heavily accented dialogue and a thinly-veiled allegory for Apartheid, would unseat G.I. Joe, a movie with surprisingly good buzz for a brainless action-figure movie, as the number one movie at the box office?

Part of the reason for District 9's initial success must be its creative ad campaign, which pushes the documentary aspect of the movie and includes a lot of footage not found in the movie at all. Peter Jackson's involvement may have been another factor. Late-summer ennui may have contributed as well - after Transformers 2, Terminator Salvation, and G.I. Joe, people were probably looking for something different. And not different in the way that The Time Traveller's Wife is different.

District 9 really is different, and it has a really intriguing set-up. A giant flying saucer has been floating over Johannesburg, South Africa for two decades. When it arrived, it just sat there in the sky until an exploratory team went inside and found it filled with starving, malnourished aliens - tall, long-limbed aliens with a crustacean-like carapace that led the them receiving the derogatory nickname "prawns". The people of South Africa settled the aliens in a camp called District 9 on the outskirts of the city, but in the intervening twenty years the camp has become a shanty town and haven for illegal activities. Our hero is Wikus van der Merwe (worst action hero name ever?), a mid-level bureaucrat at MNU, the private company that has been put in charge of managing the aliens. MNU is planning on moving the aliens to District 10, a new camp far out in the desert, far from any city. Wikus is in charge of delivering eviction notices to the aliens, a dangerous job that requires good diplomatic skills and armed backup. Things begin to go horribly wrong during Wikus' work in District 9, and he ends up with his life in peril, on the run from MNU, Nigerian terrorists, and the aliens he finds that he doesn't really understand at all.

Whoa - I didn't mean to write such a long plot summary. It speaks to how compelling the concept of District 9 is, I guess. Which is where the disappoint comes into the picture. See where my plot summary trails off there? That's exactly where the movie shifts gears and becomes a different animal - the after-the-fact interview segments with experts and news footage from the first third of District 9 disappear in favor of a very linear fugitive-on-the-run plot-line. I knew it was coming, so it wasn't a jarring disappointment to me, but it was still a little big of a letdown. Some things in the second portion of the movie are quite good, including a creepy homage to Cronenberg's The Fly, some pretty impressive special effects, and a decent ending that brings back the high-concept structure of the movie's first portion. Sharlto Copley, who plays Wikus, is quite good in his transition from "Toby from The Office" to a Bruce-Willis-style "man with nothing to lose", and first-time director Neill Blomkamp pulls off some impressive tricks with the tools he has to work with.

I'll admit that District 9 doesn't hang together too well in retrospect - the plot is a mess of holes and problems. I'm kind of surprised that I wasn't rolling my eyes at certain obvious problems at the time, but the plot moves at a pretty fast pace. I'm still excited about District 9, though, and I'm happy that it's doing well, simply because it has ambition and character. If District 9's success means that some original and interesting scripts get green-lit this fall, that makes me happy. Ironically, though, District 9's big opening weekend also means that we'll be seeing District 10 before too long. Look for it in theaters in 2011.

"The Day the Aliens Came (Hawaiian Feeling)" by the Mountain Goats

In Stores Now: It Feels So Good When I Stop by Joe Pernice

Photograph titled "Olympic Hurdlers", depicting Marian Fitting and Anna V. O'Brien, from Vogue magazine, May 15, 1932

I'm not a big fan of movie soundtracks under the best circumstances, so no one was more surprised than me to find myself buying the soundtrack to a novel. And not even a novel by a respected novelist - this is a novel by alt-pop crooner Joe Pernice (of the Pernice Brothers and the Scud Mountain Boys). Why did I rush out to buy this CD then? Simply put, it's the first full-length anything that Pernice (one of my favorite songwriters) has released since 2006. It's understandable - he's been working on some other project - a novel or something.

It's a bit of a stretch to call It Feels So Good When I Stop a full-length album. Of the album's thirteen brief tracks, three are excerpts read from the novel by Pernice, and one is an instrumental that is somehow related to the book's plot. So that leaves us with nine cover songs - that's what this album amounts to. There was a time when that would be plenty - Joe Pernice was a "I could listen to him sing the phonebook" vocalist for me. But his voice is aging, and he no longer has the sweet falsetto from the days of Overcome By Happiness.

Luckily, Pernice's voice still has a compelling quality to it that makes his singing interesting, and he interprets a variety of songs well here. Except for a very flat version of Todd Rundgren's "Hello It's Me", which ends the collection on a flat note. The other eight covers are excellent, though, and range from loyal versions of pop classics ("I Go to Pieces") to smooth R&B ("I'm Your Puppet") and '70s AM cheese ("Chevy Van"). Two of the covers are songs I like a lot - Sebadoh's "Soul and Fire" and the Dream Syndicate's "Tell Me When It's Over". The latter song may be my favorite on the record - Pernice keeps Steve Wynn's original riff and melody, but he removes some of the original version's Neil-Young-isms and heavy drumbeat to make the song into something more delicate and refined.

"Tell Me When It's Over" by Joe Pernice

I Saw a Movie: Ponyo (2009)

Detail from one of the "wallpaper cat" paintings by Louis Wain, c. 1935

Pixar VP John Lasseter has been trying for over a decade to get Americans to watch the films of Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki. And it's been an uphill battle - three Miyazaki films have received theatrical releases in the US since 1997, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl's Moving Castle, and none of them have been box-office blockbusters (even though two of them were Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature). All three of these features were large-scale fantasy epics, so it was interesting to see if Miyazaki's new film, Ponyo, would be any different. Ponyo is a more playful, intimate story for kids, along the lines of earlier Miyazaki movies like My Neighbor Totoro. Unsurprisingly, Ponyo has been under-promoted, and it only made $3.5 million in its opening weekend (less than the farting guinea pigs of G-Force but, happily, more than my least favorite movie of 2009).

Ponyo may not be the kind of movie that kids in this country like anymore, but I think I can safely say that it is what they should like. It's the story of two five-year-olds who are in love. Sosuke lives on the coast of Japan, on a cliff overlooking the sea - his father is a sailor of some kind and his mother works at the local senior center. Ponyo is a goldfish with a human head who lives beneath the sea - her father is an alchemist/hermit who hates humanity and her mother is - no, not a fish (ew!) - she's actually a major plot point that shouldn't be ruined. Ponyo, wanting to be "part of our world", swims to the ocean's surface and meets Sosuke when he catches her and puts her in a bucket. They form a quick bond and, although Ponyo's father acts swiftly to return her to the sea, she decides that she will use her family's magic to become a human so that she can be with Sosuke.

The magical element of this movie is like the magic of most Miyazaki movies - it's very Japanese. That means that it can be a little insrutible and even counter-intuitive, and Miyazaki's films never do a lot of explaining. You just have to go along with it and wait for the inevitable one-sentence explanation that some character will blurt out in the last third of the movie. If you can stop your brain from asking a lot of questions and just go with it, Ponyo can be a visually-arresting and original trip involving tsunamis, hordes of prehistoric fish, tides gone wild, and shape-shifting goldfish with human faces. The movie's pacing will seem very deliberate to American kids, and they might have a hard time getting into the movie's mundane first half-hour, but things pick up pretty quick after that. And the movie's different sense of timing results in some very rewarding moments, like Ponyo's face-off with a sullen baby, which is delivered in a series of hilariously long takes.

The voice acting was a concern for me - there is no legitimate reason for casting a Jonas and a Cyrus in this - but it is pretty good overall. "Good" here means functional and non-intrusive, with the exception of the very distinctive Liam Neeson and Betty White. The animation is a thing of beauty, with the fluidity and hand-drawn look that people love in Miyazaki's work. The translated script by Melissa Mathison is quite smooth and funny, thanks in part to the supervision of John Lasseter - his love of this material is quite clear. He may never find the huge audience for Miyazaki's movies in the US that they deserve, but Ponyo and Up (Lasseter's other big project of 2009) are probably the best kids movies being released this year.

"Oceans in the Hall" by the Ladybug Transistor

It's New to Me: Indian Winter by the Green Pajamas (1997)

Detail of a photo titled "New Trier High School" by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1950

So I wrote about the new Green Pajamas record a couple months ago. I stand by my opinion that it's in their top tier of albums, but something about it is just so "mature" sounding. This makes sense considering that the band didn't start recording on a consistent basis until 1997 - at that time, the band had been together for thirteen years, including a several multiple-year hiatuses. A key part of their resurrection in that year may have been the release of Indian Winter, a collection of their non-album singles and other tracks from the band's intermittent incarnations of the '80s and early '90s. The collection starts with the band's first single, the immortal "Kim the Waitress", a college radio hit at the time that became a minor hit again when Material Issue recorded it in 1994. "Kim the Waitress" and the other early singles found on Indian Winter demonstrate that the Green Pajamas emerged from the womb more or less fully formed with an arsenal of musical ideas.

Granted, their biggest idea was to make psychedelic rock - not too original. But they have a recognizable approach to the genre, with a folky poetic bent and Jeff Kelly's excellent vocals. At six minutes plus, "Kim the Waitress" is an unlikely hit, and some of the other early tracks on Indian Winter are definite should-have-been-hits. "Peppermint Stick" does the dirty/innocent thing will with a bubblegum bounce, "If I Lived in a Picture" jangles nicely and has a nice yearning lyric, and "My Photographs" is great acid-folk-pop. The key to these early tracks is the youthful energy and enthusiasm that really comes through, putting them in a different category from latter-day Green Pajamas albums. One of my favorite songs is the sole contribution on the collection from band co-founder Joe Ross, who was the original driving force in getting Kelly to record in a band. "I Remember Love" is a simple sing-along pop number with some psychedelic touches, including a fun bridge with swirling vocals that drops right back into the chorus.

It would be nice to see all the early Green Pajamas recordings back in print - some of the songs were only ever issued on cassette, but the Indian Winter collection is a good start.

"I Remember Love" by the Green Pajamas

Title Fight: "Hold On"

Woodblock print titled "The actor Ichikawa Sadanji II as the priest Narukami" by Natori Shunsen, 1926

I'd like to tell you that today's Title Fight is the epic showdown between John Lennon and Wilson Phillips that the world has been waiting for. Both those artists wrote good songs called "Hold On", but we all know that everything on this blog is a thinly-veiled excuse to talk about some lesser-known bands I've been listening to lately. And two of those bands had great songs called "Hold On".

One is a 1968 single by Sharon Tandy, the first white singer ever signed to Stax Records. The interesting thing about Tandy's singles from this period is that they were not the blue-eyed soul you'd expect from a South African singer signed to Stax. They were recorded with UK freakbeat band Les Fleur de Lys, and it's easy to see why the songs are now often credited to "Les Fleur de Lys with Sharon Tandy" - Tandy's voice matches the band's music well, but this is heavy, R&B-influenced psych-rock. It starts with a scorching riff and has an impressive solo in the middle section that effectively draws the spotlight entirely away from Tandy. It's a great song, and I like the spacey reverb on Tandy's voice, but the truth is that the b-side to Tandy's "Hold On" single is a superior track. "Daughter of the Sun" also features Les Fleur de Lys, and it has an even better psych sound that moves away from the primitive freakbeat approach.

My other preferred "Hold On" is by Dutch twee-noise band the Nightblooms, from their '93 album 24 Days at Catastrophe Cafe. I bought this album not long after it came out, expecting (for some reason) that it would sound like the Pooh Sticks. I was unpleasantly surprised to find the album smeared with huge, fuzzy guitar sounds and muted, baby-ish vocals - it was my first encounter with shoegaze rock. I've come to love this sound, but I was hoping for something a little more "pop" at the time. The one track that I loved from the start, though, was "Hold On", a brief, harmony-heavy number with the familiar Nightblooms handclaps and a nice vocal hook. And I have to admit that the solo in this song is more concise and melodic to my ears than the craziness by Les Fleur de Lys in their "Hold On", so I've got to give this one to the Dutch kids.

Winner: THE NIGHTBLOOMS

"Hold On" by Les Fleur de Lys with Sharon Tandy

"Hold On" by the Nightblooms

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground

Oil painting titled "Staffordshire bull terrier belonging to the Rev. John Gower" by J.M. Crossland, 1851

At a recent panel discussion led by some of the most well-known music bloggers around, it was more or less agreed upon that music blogs are a disappointment. Just a few years ago, music writers and fans had high hopes for music blogs - they represented a new outlet for creative writing about music, a place where ideas and opinions could be shared, elevating the level of music discourse to new heights. As it turns out, though, music blogs are mostly being used to recycle the latest snippets of music news - the most recent album leaks, promo tracks, Youtube videos, and gossip stories are posted with a brief caption and a link to the source. Today, the big thing will probably be the cover of Fleetwood Mac's "I Walk a Thin Line" that Bradford Cox of Deerhunter has posted on his blog. Maybe I should just give up and link to it as well - it's a pretty sweet cover of one of my favorite songs.

Of course, these negative thoughts about trying to come up with original content for a music blog are fueled by "Sweet Jane". When "Probabilistic Jukebox" day rolls around each week, I tell myself that I will write about whatever comes up first on Winamp (that's right, it's NOT EVEN A REAL JUKEBOX!) But what is there to write about "Sweet Jane"? It's one of the definitive classic rock songs and one of Lou Reed's best compositions - there's no way I can say anything about it that hasn't already been said. But this blog is about music I love and my experiences with it, so I'll give it a shot. My apologies in advance.

My first Velvet Underground album was the band's third - the self-titled album of 1968. I loved this album a lot from the start, being entirely ignorant of it's place in the band's discography. I didn't know about John Cale being replaced by Doug Yule on this album, and this probably has a lot to do with me being a big Doug Yule apologist. His "pop" influence is what makes later Velvet Underground a lot of fun for me, so I naturally have a lot of love for the band's final album, Loaded, as well. It blends some of Lou Reed's best songwriting with Yule's pop sensibilities to create a lightweight but eminently listenable set of songs.

It's unfortunate that Yule sings lead on too many of the tracks - it's more than a little shameful to admit that my favorite VU song in the whole canon is the Yule-sung "I Found a Reason". I like it better than "Sweet Jane". So that's what I have to say about "Sweet Jane" - best Reed-sung song on Loaded, second best song on the album. One caveat, though: I've never heard the full version of "Sweet Jane" from the Fully Loaded version of the album, only the version posted here, which was on the original 1970 release.

"Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground

It's New to Me: Born Sandy Devotional by the Triffids (1986)

Illustration from The Latch Key of my Bookhouse, edited by Olive Miller, 1921

The Triffids have a "hits" collection called Australian Melodrama, and I have a hard time thinking of a better term to sum up the sound of this band during their '80-'89 lifespan. I have listened to a lot of Triffids stuff casually over the years, but I recently acquired their second album, 1985's Born Sandy Devotional, to get to know the band better. When you hear the phrase "Australian Melodrama", you may think of the lofty romanticisms of the Go-Betweens or the sinister post-punk of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. And you wouldn't be too far off, as the Triffids sound like an even split between the styles of these two seminal Aussie rock bands.

The band's leader, David McComb, had worked out this sound over the course of the band's early recordings, but he had something specific in mind with Born Sandy Devotional. It's an intensely personal set of songs, and the notes that come with the deluxe re-release of the album show just how much work he put into getting it right. Excerpts from his notebooks show a variety of alternate track-listings, as well as notes on why the title should be composed of three unrelated words. He wrote that the album should be a set of unified songs, and his notes muse on the use of field recordings and sound effects to bring the album together.

McComb's focus on getting Born Sandy Devotional just right really shows - I think that it's why the album is considered by many to be the band's masterpiece. Gil Norton's production is immaculate and timeless, and the songs flow together seamlessly, even though McComb is obviously drawing from some very different sources of inspiration. The album starts with two perfect Go-Betweens-ish pop songs, "The Seabirds" and "Estuary Bed", and then it slowly descends into a more sinister Nick-Cave-inspired place with the murder-balladry of "Tarrilup Bridge" and the downright creepy "Lonely Stretch". The album's second side has several epics that evoke the wide expanses of Western Australia - "Wide Open Road" invents the feel of The Joshua Tree two years early, and "Stolen Property" might be the ultimate moment of Australian melodrama on the album.

On my first few listens, I admit that I wished Born Sandy Devotional would decide whether it wanted to be the Go-Betweens or Nick Cave. But I now see that the Triffids were doing there own thing that could incorporate both those sounds - I hardly hear the influences when I listen to the album now. This is especially true of the album's best songs, like "The Seabirds", which opens the album. The song's very personal narrative is thrown against a huge string-laden backdrop with some cool country touches from Graham Lee's pedal steel guitar. The song doesn't really have a chorus, except for the final repeated, "Where were you?" If you're a fan of Echo & the Bunnymen or the Go-Betweens, then this song will probably sound pretty good to you and the Triffids might be worth checking out.

"The Seabirds" by the Triffids

In Stores Now: I'm Going Away by the Fiery Furnaces

Illustration by Edmund Dulac from Han Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, 1911

The Fiery Furnaces have been doing pretty well since coming on the scene with their rhythm-heavy rock debut Gallowsbird's Bark in 2003 - they've released six ambitious albums and gained a sizable fan following. But there hasn't been a spate of Fiery Furnaces imitators - this is probably because their appeal is not highly replicable. Vocalist Eleanor Friedberger's throaty, rapid-fire scat-singing is a big part of their appeal, as is her brother Matthew's knack for layering sounds and building rock epics. Their collage-style live performances mix their discography into disjointed medleys. Their discography includes an album-length EP of straightforward pop songs, a bizarre cut-and-paste live album, an overstuffed rock opera about a blueberry smuggler, and a full album of songs sung by their grandmother. The Fiery Furnaces are dead set on doing their own thing, and their fans are definitely disciples of the more-is-more school.

The ever-restless Fiery Furnaces are challenging their fans once again with I'm Going Away, this time by making a less-is-more album of classic, piano-based pop. The album still has its share of chugging riffage, like the opener "I'm Going Away" and "Charmaine Champagne" (which, in characteristic Furnaces style, reappears in a different form later in the tracklist as "Cups & Punches"). But the album is dominated by mid-tempo numbers and piano ballads, a choice which doesn't seem to play to the band's strengths. It works for me, though - Eleanor's vocals are just as appealing with sultry melodies that stay within her limited range. And Matthew's arrangements are almost more interesting when they aren't causing sensory overload. The album's most normal-sounding pop songs have their quirks - "Drive to Dallas" starts slow but accelerates into a pounding rave-up at the three-minute mark, "Cut the Cake" has a very jarring, squealing guitar solo, and "Lost at Sea" somehow devolves into a bongo jam. And then there's "Even in the Rain".

My favorite song on the album, "Even in the Rain" probably has the most classic-sounding melody and arrangement. But, even though it's a piano-based number, it has at least four distinct guitar parts: the standard FF-style electric lead, a staccato acoustic strum buried in the mix, a fuzzy wah-wah that comes in on the chorus, and an ELO-ish slide guitar that appears toward the end. I'm afraid that some Fiery Furnaces fans may decide the band has nothing new to offer with I'm Going Away, but I think that this album's lighter touch is a smart way to go. I just don't count on them sticking with it.

"Even in the Rain" by the Fiery Furnaces

John Hughes (1950 - 2009)

Panel from issue #6 of Mystery in Space comic book, 1957

Director John Hughes passed away this week from a heart attack during a visit to Manhattan. He is already being called the Salinger of the '80s - that's a terrible idea, in my opinion, but it's not hard to see where the sentiment is coming from. Like Salinger, Hughes wrote a set of movies (and directed some of them) that captured and made a connection to the intensity of teenage feeling without condescending to it. In fact, at times Hughes managed to elevate teen angst into something pretty beautiful, and he will always be identified with these moments from movies like Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and Some Kind of Wonderful. His films were not without their flaws - there is some "class" weirdness going on in most of these movies (what is up with Cameron Frye's house, for instance?), but that never registered with me when I loved these movies as a kid.

Hughes was also a talented National Lampoon humorist and wrote many excellent scripts outside his canonized teen movies. His greatest work may actually be writing the scripts of Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Uncle Buck, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, all movies that came after his perceived artistic peak. His financial peak came later, of course, with Home Alone, an experiment in writing very broad family humor that included "jokes" like a barefooted man impaling his foot on a rusty nail and then walking through broken glass, as well as a person receiving severe burns to his scalp from a blowtorch. Sadly, Hughes took the success of this movie to heart and focused his later work on things he thought his kids would enjoy, line Beethoven and Curly Sue.

Hughes' use of music in movies always impressed me, particularly when he directed his own scripts. I probably heard the Smiths and Psychedelic Furs for the first time in John Hughes movies, and his use of songs like Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)", Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work", and the Beatles' "Twist and Shout" make for very memorable music-based sequences in his films. His commitment to using "college rock" in his movies made for some pretty good soundtracks as well, like the inclusion of "The Hardest Walk" by the Jesus and Mary Chain on the soundtrack of Some Kind of Wonderful. 2009 is not being a good year for me when it comes to pieces of my childhood slipping away forever. I'm going to go watch something with Molly Ringwald in it.

"The Hardest Walk" by the Jesus and Mary Chain

In Stores Now: Elephant Jokes by Robert Pollard

Photograph titled "Hare" from the Bain News Service collection, c. 1940

Robert Pollard, Ohio's one-man pop/rock encyclopedia, has released his second solo album of 2009. Elephant Jokes is a very different beast from his other recent solo efforts, though, and the difference can be distilled down to this - Pollard has finally made his fully-formed homage to Pink Flag. It's a little unfair to compare the 1977 debut album from the UK's most infamous art-punks to the thirteenth solo album from a middle-aged US songwriter, but it's no secret that Wire has long been an inspiration to Pollard. And Elephant Jokes is lively and surprising in a way that evokes the spirit of a much younger artist.

The most important thing that Robert Pollard brings to Elephant Jokes is his guitar. In the last few years, Pollard has been leaving all instrumental arrangements to collaborators like Todd Tobias and Chris Slusarenko, and the recordings probably suffer a little for it. This is evident in how different the sound is on Elephant Jokes, where Pollard contributes significantly to the record's riffage, and it's clear that his presence in the studio makes a difference in other ways as well. His fingerprints are all over this record, which is what you would hope for in an album with his name on it. A good chunk of the album's 22 brief tracks are based on sinewy Wire-esque guitar riffs - "When a Man Walks Away" has an trebly, angular hook anchoring a pretty sweet power-pop melody, "Epic Heads" has a heavy proggy intro, and "Stiff Me" is built on a bouncy rhythm guitar that is reminiscent of "classic-lineup" Guided By Voices.

I also hear Pink Flag in the Pollard's characteristic genre-hopping, as well as an unexpected willingness to try out new sounds. He tries new styles of vocal delivery on many Elephant Jokes tracks, which can be off-putting to hardcore fans at first, but it makes the album more rewarding on repeated listens. The jokey "Hipsville" is sung in a goofy hick voice, "Cosmic Yellow Children" is delivered in a thin falsetto, and the song named after brother "Jimmy" has weird, wheezing backing vocals all over it. In short, Elephant Jokes captures everything I love about Pink Flag (which has also been getting a lot of plays around here lately), and it sounds fresh and fun as a result.

It's a little odd that Pollard has chosen to push "Jimmy" in early promotion of this record. With its aforementioned vocal weirdness, jangly guitar, and ocarina, it's not really representative of the album's overt art-punk leanings. It also has one of the album's weaker chorus hooks, with the unfortunate lyric, "Jimmy get your love gun / Supersonic love gun." I don't know Jim Pollard well enough to want to see his "love gun". But the track does capture some of the album's easy-going vibe and emphasis on GBV-style concision. Robert Pollard's career may be so convoluted at this point that there is in arguing over this album's potential appeal to people who aren't already fans, but I think that you'll find a lot to enjoy in Elephant Jokes if you have any love for Guided By Voices or early Wire.

"Jimmy" by Robert Pollard

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Song for the Asking" by Simon & Garfunkel

Illustration of fox hunting from the LIFE magazine image collection, c. 1920.

It's weird that a Paul Simon song would come up on the Jukebox today - I've been listening to Paul Simon lately for the first time in years. I received a couple of his '70s solo records for my birthday this year (Hi, Gwyn!) They're the nice reissues from 2006, which are apparently now going out of print (if you believe Amazon). I enjoyed them so much that I went out and bought a copy of Graceland, the Simon album that came out that has very specific childhood associations for me. My parents are both big Simon & Garfunkel fans - one of my earliest memories is my father playing "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" on the guitar - so it's hard for me to listen to anything Simon has done with fresh ears. The Graceland reissue comes close, though, because it sounds so crisp and clear that it is almost a totally new record to me.

I've owned Bridge Over Troubled Water for years, but I've never listened to it much. It falls into the category of albums I was talking about Monday - it's the sound of a band tearing itself apart. Many of the songs on it are about Simon feeling abandoned by Garfunkel, who was more actively pursuing his acting career at the time (and, to be fair, can you blame him?) "Song for the Asking" is the last song on Bridge Over Troubled Water, and it doesn't really make much of an impression at the end of a very uneven, scatter-shot, and over-produced set of songs. It's under two minutes, and it only features Simon's acoustic guitar and a basic string arrangement. The simple lyric is one that I find affecting, though - like some of the album's other songs ("The Only Living Boy in New York", "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright"), it's about feeling left behind. Simon sings, "Here is my tune for the taking / Take it, don´t turn away / I´ve been waiting here all my life."

Don't feel too bad for Paul Simon, though - I think things turned out okay for him in the end.

"Song for the Asking" by Simon & Garfunkel

I Saw a Movie: Funny People (2009)

Illustration by Harry W. McVickar from Henry James' An International Episode, 1892

People got up early and walked out of the showing of Funny People I went to, and they have no one to blame but themselves. Some movies are better when you know nothing about them - now that I know the secret twist of the movie Orphan, I wish I could see it without knowing what's coming. But other movies are all about preparation and the management of expectations (wow - that sounds bad). Great movies don't require this kind of groundwork, only deeply flawed movies. And that's what Funny People is - a deeply flawed movie with some redeeming qualities. The people who got up and walked out of the movie did so at the two hour mark (roughly) - one of them was the guy next to me, who had fidgeted throughout the movie up to that point. I could tell that he was not seeing the movie he wanted to see - he wanted to see an "Adam Sandler" movie. He wanted The Waterboy or something, not a movie in which Adam Sandler plays a thinly-veiled version of himself who is filled with self-loathing for having made movies like The Waterboy. I don't blame him for wanting to leave.

For me, the key to enjoying Funny People was to think of it as a Cameron-Crowe-style "industry" movie that's about a kind of business first and the people in it second. Like Almost Famous, although that's not going to help if you're one of the many people that hated Almost Famous. It's about as long as the extended version of Almost Famous and has the same kind of casual pacing. And it looks at comedy the way Almost Famous looked at rock music - through the eyes of a newcomer. We see deli worker and amateur stand-up Ira (Seth Rogen) trying to find a way into the business that doesn't involve bad sitcoms or Youtube (the routes his roommates Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill have taken). He ends up working with aging sell-out and former comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler), who is dying of leukemia. George offers a glimpse into the life of a "successful" comedic actor, and Funny People tries hard to blur the line between Sandler and his character. The movie starts with some really old footage of Sandler (out of character and hanging out with friends) making crank calls. Simmons openly mocks the characteristic schtick that made Sandler famous in real life, from the comedic songs to the mush-mouthed nonsense sayings.

Almost Famous's biggest issues are largely structural - the movie doesn't use its running time very well. You know you're in trouble when you hit the ninety-minute mark and Eric Bana hasn't even appeared onscreen yet. The last hour of the movie is disjointed and doesn't connect too well with what comes before it. The writing is weak in places as well - Sandler gives two big monologues that are obvious, unnecessary, and way over-the-top. If some of the "Here's what's happening - do you see?!?" moments were removed and the third (fourth?) act was incorporated better into the overall plot, Funny People could very well have been an unqualified success.

I say that because there are some things about Funny People that are very good. Adam Sandler's performance is excellent - the best work he's done since Punch-Drunk Love (although there aren't really any other contenders in his recent performances). The supporting cast are pretty great as well - I enjoyed the scenes with Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, and Aubrey Plaza the most, and Eric Bana's performance is a lot of fun. The movie's jokes are mostly conversational and delivered in an off-the-cuff way, but I laughed a lot. The movie's humor is mostly in the "Wow, comedians tell a lot of penis jokes when they're just hanging out" vein, so your mileage may vary. If you can get in the right mood for a two-and-a-half hour movie quasi-comedy about comedy starring Adam Sandler, you might find a lot of good things in Funny People, but it's hard not to be a little disappointed in writer/director Judd Apatow for making us work that hard to enjoy it.

"Funny Face" by the Kinks

It's New to Me: Big Plans for Everybody by Let's Active (1986)

Illustration by Hal Foster from the Sing with King at Christmas sheet music collection, 1949

Some albums are best described with the words Ian Hunter used to describe the third Mott the Hoople record: "The sound of a band tearing itself apart." For Mott the Hoople, it was their third record, but some bands never even make it that far and implode (or explode) during the making of their sophomore record. It makes sense in a way - the chemistry of a first LP is often a "lightning in a bottle" thing that is impossible to recapture. I've been listening to Suede's Dog Man Star a lot lately, and it's definitely a record with this kind of sound. The same could be said of Big Plans for Everybody by Mitch Easter's band Let's Active.

Let's Active wasn't really built to last. Mitch Easter was already becoming pretty well-known as a producer because of his work with REM, and he formed the band with girlfriend Faye Hunter. The two then recruited the teen-aged Sara Romweber on drums when they recorded their first EP Afoot and the 1984 debut album Cypress. Shortly thereafter, Romweber flaked out on the band on the eve of a big tour of Europe - she'd been unhappy in the band for a while and was coerced to drop out by her mother. I don't know if Easter and Hunter were having relationship problems by this time - that could have figured into Romweber wanting out - but they were no longer a couple by the time Big Plans for Everybody came out in '86. Hunter was technically still in the band when recording began, but it was more or less an Easter solo project by the time the recording sessions wrapped up.

Big Plans for Everybody is the sound of a band tearing apart, but in a subtle way. It has all the power-pop hooks and shiny production of Cypress, but the songs have a strangely compressed and airless quality to them. I think you can kind of hear Easter withdrawing from the world as the album progresses (not that they are necessarily presented chronologically.) The first three songs on the record are excellent upbeat pop - "In Little Ways" and "Talking to Myself" our out in a rush of melody, and "Writing the Book of Last Pages" adds some drama. After that, things get a little weird - the songs start to bleed together and take on a walls-closing-in vibe, which is really odd for a power-pop record. The last song, "Route 67", is an instrumental with some heavy and emotionally affecting guitar soloing on it - I don't usually "get" emotive solos, but there's something really cathartic about the clarity "Route 67" brings at the end of a tense record.

"Fell" is not the best song on Big Plans for Everybody, but I think it captures the weird feel of the album pretty well. The hooks are there, but they are jumbled together in a song that is driven by an uncharacteristically muscular rhythm track and some pretty bitter-sounding lyrics. To me, this song is the sound of what's left after a band has torn itself apart.

"Fell" by Let's Active