Why Does This Exist?: "Modernization" by Sons of the Kingdom

Detail from a woodblock print titled Hamamachi Park in the Spring Snow by Koizumi Kishio, July 1931

The Sons of the Kingdom were part of the "Black Hebrews" movement of the '70s, in which African Americans traveled to Israel (often by way of Liberia) from Detroit and Chicago to establish a new Zion. The center of the movement, Ben Carter, was a steel worker and theologian who encouraged many to make the exodus, including many musicians and singers. The Sons of the Kingdom formed from a group of American singers who all landed in the same kibbutz in 1974. Carter (who was calling himself Ben Ammi at this time) gave them new names - Mahtsahel, Tsadekiel, Zahkahriel, and Khazriel were soon touring Israel with the other groups of emigrant musicians, including the Soul Messengers, the Tonistics, and the Soul Expressions.

In 1976, the Sons of the Kingdom recorded a 45 single - "Hey There"/"Modernization", showing the two sides of their philosophy. "Hey There" described the idyllic life in a tent community in rural Israel - "Modernization" depicts the life the Sons had escaped from in the US in decidedly less glowing terms. Starting with the sounds of sirens and honking horns, "Modernization" makes its message clear right out of the gate with a jumble of lines about the absurdity of living in a skyscraper. It's like a Tower of Babel, get it? The song goes on to complain about dirty tap water, the space race, preservatives, and doctors with their PhDs. How you get from these problems to the annihilation of mankind that the Sons of the Kingdom prophesy is a little bit of a mystery. But you have to admire their commitment to the message.

If this puzzling brand of Judaic funk appeals to you, go get the Numero Group's Soul Messages from Dimona, where both sides of the Sons of the Kingdom single can be found.

"Modernization" by Sons of the Kingdom

It's New to Me: Incidental Music 1991-95 by Superchunk (1995)

Illustration by Henry Sharp from Vern Fearing's "The Sloths of Kruvny", originally printed in Amazing Stories magazine, October 1953

I think I've mentioned that I've had a renewed interest in the back catalog and history of Merge Records, largely as a result of reading Our Noise: the Story of Merge Records. For one thing, I've started listening to Superchunk again, for the first time in several years. My first Superchunk experience was hearing 1993's On the Mouth, and I have all the albums they put out after that. But I need to acquaint myself with the earlier stuff, and a good place to start is with Incidental Music, a collection of singles and non-album tracks from that era.

The collection, as admitted by Mac McCaughan in the liner notes, is bloated and uneven. Some of the tracks don't have much value - "Makeout Bench" is actually from 1990 and would have shown up on the band's first singles collection Tossing Seeds if it was any good. "Connecticut" has a lead vocal from guitarist Jim Wilbur, and it's not a good look. The cover of Motorhead's "I'll Be Your Sister" is also kind of pointless.

But there are a good dozen songs on here that I like as well as anything Superchunk's done. I love the missing title tracks "On the Mouth" and "Foolish" enough to wonder which song they should have replaced on their respective albums. "Cadmium" from the Australian EP Hit Self Destruct may just be my favorite Superchunk song EVER. With a chugging tempo and guitar interplay rubbing up against Mac's yelping vocals, it's the kind of song that Superchunk did best. And, with a great chorus and lyric that take it to another level, "Cadmium" alone justifies the existence of the hodgepodge of songs that is Incidental Music.

"Cadmium" by Superchunk

In Stores Now: Stroke - Songs for Chris Knox by Various Artists

Detail of the cover illustration of Murray Leinster's The Black Galaxy, 1949

When Chris Knox suffered a serious stroke last summer, he wasn't really on a lot of people's radar. But the outpouring of attention and sympathy in the wake of the incident showed that people hadn't completely lost appreciation for the New Zealand musician who did so much to shape the kiwi-pop scene over the years. Rumored plans for a benefit album of Knox covers were circulating before long, and the two-disc collection Stroke was released in New Zealand before the year was out. The album was a mix of local New Zealand musicians old and new, as well as big Knox appreciators from other parts of the world. Unsurprisingly, it was a little more complicated to figure out the rights required to release Stroke in the US, but Merge Records sorted it out and recently released the album stateside.

The split between the two discs of Stroke is a little odd and is a natural result of putting the songs in chronological order as they appear in Knox's discography - the first disc is composed almost entirely of NZ artists, the best known being the Chills. If you're looking for big indie names, though, you'll find Jay Reatard, Stephin Merritt, and Portastatic. Of those three, Jay Reatard's track is the only one that's really worthwhile - sadly, it is probably one of the last things Jay recorded before his passing. Merritt's track is an old cover from the vaults that predates the Magnetic Fields, which I found a little disappointing. However, the New Zealand artists who love Knox's early material turn in some great songs on this disc, especially the Mint Chicks, the Checks, and the Bleeding Allstars (the latter featuring David Pine, formerly of Wires and Waves favorites the Sneaky Feelings).

The second disc of Stroke, covering the more recent years of Knox's work, features more big names. The Mountain Goats, A.C. Newman, Bill Callahan, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Lou Barlow, and Yo La Tengo all contribute songs to this half, and the biggest coup of the set may be a new recording from Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum. These covers, as well as ones from NZ bands like the Bats and the Verlaines, are uniformly excellent. More importantly, they are a great showcase of Chris Knox's songwriting and make a convincing argument that he is a first-rate songwriter and storyteller. The end of Stroke's second disc is a bit of a bummer, though - it features two post-stroke recordings by Chris Knox, and his incoherent vocals are a little unnerving and sad. Which, I guess, is the point. Stroke is a bit uneven - I'll probably listen to the second disc a lot more than the first as time goes on - but I'm enjoying it a lot, and it makes me want to track down many of the Knox-related albums I don't have (many of which are out of print!)

"Ain't It Nice" by Bleeding Allstars

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Never Talking to You Again" by Elf Power

Illustration titled "Pusillanimite" by Alexandre de Saillet from Les Enfants Peints par Eux-mêmes, 1842

Elf Power's 2002 covers album Nothing's Going to Happen is one that I like to put on every once in a while because there is something very "zen" about it. It takes songs from very different-sounding groups from the Bad Brains to the Tall Dwarfs, and it distills them down to their essential components. It doesn't have jarring dynamic shifts like some covers albums, but it doesn't become monotonous by smoothing down all the songs' rough edges, either.

Husker Du's classic acoustic punk number "Never Talking to You Again" is an odd pick for this treatment because the original is already elemental in its simplicity. But Elf Power takes a stab at it anyway - they keep the song's chugging tempo and rolling drums almost exactly the same, but they change a few key things. They strip out the crazed backing vocal that Bob Mould contributed in the original and replace the aggressive acoustic guitar with the kind of generic electric guitar sound you'd expect the song to have. Both of these changes are steps in the wrong direction, in my opinion. The one thing they do add makes the song worthwhile, though - the put a great acoustic solo in the middle of the song, where the Huskers' original just had an empty-sounding eight bars of strumming. It might not be a good enough reason for this cover to merit inclusion on the Probabilistic Jukebox, but I like that it doubles the odds of me hearing one of my favorite Grant Hart songs when I turn it on.

"Never Talking to You Again" by Elf Power

It's New to Me: A Date with the Everly Brothers by the Everly Brothers (1960)

Detail of a movie poster for Hal Roach's Bungalow Boobs, 1924

So, after familiarizing myself with the Everly Brothers' early work on Cadence Records, I was curious to see how they made the transition to their new label Warner Brothers in 1960. So I ordered a copy of the twofer CD with the brothers' first two WB records, It's Everly Time and A Date with the Everly Brothers. I'm glad I did - these two LPs are great! Both recorded during 1960, they are packaged with a couple additional singles that were recorded at the same time but released the following year - there's a baffling number of classic songs here, all recorded within the space of a few months.

It's Everly Time was a huge success right out of the gate, released at the same time as their big single "Cathy's Clown" (which, oddly, was not included on this LP). But they made an even better LP just a few months later when they released A Date with the Everly Brothers - the second record was superior because it contained songs almost exclusively from the brothers' two best sources, (a) the songwriting team of Boudleaux & Felice Bryant, who had written the Everlys' big hits for Cadence, and (b) the Everlys themselves.

A Date with the Everly Brothers has the great singles "Cathy's Clown", "Lucille", "Always It's You", and "Stick With Me Baby". But the craziest thing about the record is the number of amazing songs were never even released as singles. The Bryants turned in one of their best-ever compositions, "Love Hurts", for the record, and the Everlys hit it out of the ballpark with their amazing harmonies. But the song wasn't selected as a single - the label gave it to Roy Orbison the following year, and his version made the Top Ten. Equally baffling is that the album's amazing lead-off track, Phil Everly's "Made to Love", was not selected as a single. Its bouncy pop sound may well have been a bit ahead of its time - it almost has a British Invasion sound to it. With an amazing chorus and an evocative lyric in which Phil's father sits him down and tells him to see girls as sexual objects, it has "hit single" written all over it. The Everlys did fine with their singles in 1960 - "Cathy's Clown" was a #1 smash - but the omissions show the wealth of great material the Everlys were working with at the time. I definitely recommend seeking out these albums!

"Made to Love" by the Everly Brothers

Title Fight: "Red Light"

Cover illustration of a menu from the SS President Hoover cruise ship, 1932

This might seem like a pretty fair fight - a fairly obscure early track by U2 versus the closing track of the underwhelming third Strokes record. But, for me, this isn't a fair match-up at all. I have dutifully refused to forgive the Strokes for not living up to the hype of their first EP. And I resent them for not setting Robert Pollard up for life by recording "My Kind of Soldier" and making it a smash hit. But I have unconditional love for the closing tracks of each of the Strokes records - all three of their LPs are mixed bags, but, in my opinion, the band know just how to close an album. With a *bang* of memorablw pop. From the howling chorus of "Take It or Leave It" to the relentlessly bouncy "Red Light", the Strokes' closers were all winners.

Also, even though I have this U2 song on my computer "jukebox", I actually have no memory of their song called "Red Light". I've listened to War plenty of times over the years, but, listening to it now, it's not ringing a bell at all. What is that intro? Is that a chorus of women? I'm checking Wikipedia for clues, and all it's telling me is that the song is about prostitution and that there is a trumpet on it. The prostitution thing I'm hearing, but where is the trumpet? Oh, there it is. Wow, this song is just. NOT. VERY. GOOD.

Winner: THE STROKES

"Red Light" by the Strokes

"Red Light" by U2

It's New to Me: To Keep From Crying by Comus (1974)

Detail of the cover illustration of Alaska-Yukon Magazine, May 1909

For a while now, I've been hearing great things about Comus. Emerging from the London underground scene of the late '60s, Comus was one of the original acid folk groups, arguably the most acidic of all acid folk groups. Their classic album First Utterance (1971) makes an immediate impression with its stark, grotesque cover illustration. The album's music matches its cover, a disturbing mix of keening folk melodies, guttural chanting, and instrumental interludes. It's brilliant, but it's easy to see why it wasn't a commercial success and led to Comus's premature demise - personally, I find it very hard to listen to, with the exception of the brilliant 12-minute suite "The Herald". The 2-disc Comus set I got also came with Comus's second album, To Keep From Crying, a quick cash-in reunion record the band made in 1974. But, weirdly, that's the one I find myself going back to again and again.

The brain behind Comus, Roger Wootton, had a dark musical vision but, by the time the band recorded To Keep From Crying, that vision had been heavily compromised. The original lineup had scattered after Comus's original dissolution, so Wootton got a new group together to record a set of songs that was less acid folk than folk rock. Upbeat guitar riffs, sunny harmonies, and glossy production make for a very different sound from First Utterance, but I found that the songs work really well when you don't try to compare them to Comus's previous incarnation. Wootton's quirky voice still blends well with shrill harmony vocalist Bobbie Watson, and their combined tone keeps the songs' pop hooks from sounding too conventional. Regardless, "Down (Like a Movie Star)" and "So Long Supernova" sound more like T. Rex (who Comus opened for in 1971) than the Incredible String Band. Ambient pieces and skewed, loop-heavy balladry keep things interesting without creating the dark, oppressive atmosphere that makes the Comus debut so unique and difficult.

I'm not just repping for To Keep From Crying to be contrarian - I'd never heard anything good about it. People tend to say that it doesn't compare favorably to the band's first record. But I think it's a very underrated album. "Children of the Universe" is as impressive and oddly beautiful as anything from the band's debut - it could use a better-fitting production style, but the melody and particularly the way it builds up to a layered, majestic chorus is really amazing. I think I understand and admire First Utterance for the one-of-a-kind piece of art it is, but the songs on To Keep From Crying deserve some recognition as well, even if Wootton and the band disowned the album as a mistake in the years after its release.

"Children of the Universe" by Comus

I Saw a Movie: The Ghost Writer (2010)

Illustration titled "Hunting Leopard" by Samuel Hewitt from A companion to Mr. Bullock's London Museum and Pantherion, 1812

Roman Polanski's new political thriller The Ghost Writer reminds me quite a bit of Michael Clayton - something about the wintry tones, low-simmering tension, and static but affecting performances, I guess. Oh, and Tom Wilkinson pretending to be an American. And, even though it's not totally successful as a thriller, it's still an interesting movie. The plot is not the movie's best aspect - Ewan McGregor, a writer, takes on the assignment of finishing the memoirs of former British PM Pierce Brosnan after the previous writer dies under mysterious circumstances. The ghost writer's gradual unraveling of his predecessor's death is telegraphed at several points before coming to a conclusion that isn't 100% satisfactory.

Even though story isn't anything special, the performances in The Ghost Writer make the most of the material. Except for Kim Cattrall - she's terrible and can't do a British accent, but you probably could have guessed that. Brosnan and Olivia Williams are quite good, and McGregor does a really good job with a character who is really just an empty suit. The visuals in the movie are pretty nice as well, as long as you can forget that Polanski is doing his shooting-in-Europe-and-pretending-its-America routine.

One aspect of The Ghost Writer that makes it confusing is the whole Polanski-should-be-in-jail-for-pedophilia angle. And that's harder to ignore lately with his legal issues being in the news. I've seen the documentary on the case that's supposed to make you take his side, but he still creeps me out. The various plot-holes in the underwhelming story make me think that I'm going to like The Ghost Writer less and less if I think about it, but I enjoyed it while I was watching it, and it was the best thing in the local theaters this weekend. So that makes this a kind-of rave review, right?

"When I Write the Book" by Rockpile

Alex Chilton (1950 - 2010)

Illustration from William Blake's Milton, a Poem in Two Books, 1804

Alex Chilton was a Memphis-born musician. He was an impressive singer, belting out the soulful vocal that propelled the Box Tops' "The Letter" to #1 in 1967 - he was just 16 years old at the time. He was a fascinating songwriter, moving in his career from bubblegum pop to power pop to experimentation and exploration of roots music and other traditional genres. He was one of the most underrated rhythm guitarists in pop music as well - you rarely hear praise for his inventive '70s-era guitarwork that shaped the sound of college rock in the 1980s. He was a producer, a historian, and an art-lover.

For me, personally, Chilton was a doorway into other worlds of pop music - like a lot of rock fans of my generation, I started out listening to the big names that came out of '80s college rock, like REM and the Replacements. All of these bands talked up Chilton's then little-known '70s power-pop combo Big Star. So I went looking for information about Alex Chilton. Now, Chilton's Big Star is one of the foundational pieces of my musical perspective (I wrote about them in my first week of doing Wires and Waves), and I'm still exploring Chilton's work (I wrote about the Box Tops' Dimensions two weeks ago and I'm expecting another Chilton CD in the mail any day now.)

One of the saddest things that happens when people write about Alex Chilton is that they usually include some direct or indirect reference to "squandered potential/talent". This is because people who write about Chilton are by and large, like me, HUGE Big Star fans. But I think that it's important to recognize that Chilton was something other than what people wanted him to be. From a young age, he was a restless explorer of music's traditions and potential - Big Star was a dalliance for him. He tried the "pop" thing for a couple years and was really REALLY good at it, but we may have Big Star co-founder and huge Beatles fan Chris Bell to thank for dragging Chilton in that direction. The saddest thing is that this little period in which Chilton tried the "pop direction" didn't intersect with any kind of mainstream success. Never really content to stay in one place, I don't know that Chilton would have kept making glossy rock albums if Big Star had broken through, but I don't think I'm alone in saying that he deserved that success on some level. The Replacements' Paul Westerberg captured the essence of hearing Big Star in his song "Alex Chilton": "I'm in love - what's that song? I'm in love with that song!"

"Take Care" by Big Star

Why Does This Exist?: "Porcupine Pie" by Neil Diamond

Textile samples from Farbenfabriken Bayer Aktiengesellschaft's The Application of the Benzidine Colours in All Branches of Printing, 1898

Last year I bought Play Me, a collection of Neil Diamond's six albums for Uni Records ('68-'72), and I was pretty excited about it. But it's taken me a while to actually absorb this much Neil Diamond. Some of it still doesn't make any sense to me - take 1972's Moods album, for instance. For an album with such an "easy-listening" sounding title, Moods is unexpectedly weird. The second song on the album is a two-minute head-scratcher called "Porcupine Pie".

The song starts with one of those simple-but-memorable acoustic intros that no one could do quite like Neil Diamond (except for the Everlys, who Diamond probably learned the trick from). The melody is cute/nondescript, and the lyric is a bit of doggerel about wanting to eat some unusual foods. But I think that there's a creepy undertone to "Porcupine Pie", even though it sounds like a kids' song. There's something sexual going on in it - the foods mentioned in the song are "porcupine pie", "vanilla soup", "titti fruit", "fruity blue cheese", and "chicken ripple ice cream". Am I wrong in thinking that those sound like euphemisms? And then Neil advises us not to get any of it on our jeans while we're chowing down. Ewwwww. If you're anything like me, you now have an image of Neil Diamond in your head that is even more disturbing than the cover of Hot August Night.

"Porcupine Pie" by Neil Diamond

It's New to Me: Are You Building a Temple in Heaven? by Butterglory (1996)

Baseball card of the New York Giants' John Montgomery Ward, star pitcher, shortstop, and manager, by D. Buchner & Co., 1887

My special lady-friend knows how to make a grand romantic gesture - for Valentine's Day this year, she gave me a copy of Our Noise: the Story of Merge Records. It's a great read if you have nostalgia for the '90s indie scene - personally, I had flashbacks to drooling over Superchunk t-shirts in a Singapore record store. The downside? It made me want to buy pretty much everything ever released by Merge Records (except for Erectus Monotone - even I have some standards.) I was especially interested in the full chapter dedicated to the non-rise and total fall of Butterglory, one of the first bands that Merge tried to push in a big way.

I'm only really familiar with the early Butterglory singles (not for any elitist reason - I just picked up a copy of their well-reviewed singles collection Downed at some point). I decided to try one of their proper albums, which got some guarded praise from critics while being constantly accused of riding Pavement's coattails. I purchased 1996's Are You Building a Temple in Heaven?, and I've got to say that it's a stretch to say that these kids from Lawrence, Kansas were ripping off Steven Malkmus's jangly slack-rock style. It's true that vocalist Matt Suggs does under-enunciate, and there's some similarity in the timbre of his voice. And it's true that a couple songs on this record ("The Halo Over Your Head" and "It's Still Raining") have those lazy-genius guitar riffs that Pavement traded in circa Crooked Rain Crooked Rain. But the band's use of boy-girl vocals, groaning organ, and their pure indie-pop style really sets them apart from Pavement.

Are You Building a Temple in Heaven? has two obvious singles, "She Clicks the Sticks" and "She's Got the Akshun!", but every song on the album has its charms. When Debby Vander Wall takes the lead vocals on the stomping "Sit in the Car" and the sleepy "The Captain Stood Sturdy", the Pavement comparisons evaporate completely, and the C86ish guitar sound of "You'll Never Be (As Good as That)" and "Edward Brown" shows that Matt Suggs was a connoisseur of his indie-pop forbears. But my favorite song on the album is easily "Rivers", which adds an insistent plinking piano to the buzzing organ and guitar strum to create a sound I can only describe as a "bouncy drone". It's a sound that I found in those early Butterglory songs (my all-time favorite being "Better Gardens, Better Homes"), and I have some kind of epiphany when those handclaps come in after the guitar solo. It doesn't get much better than that.

"Rivers" by Butterglory

Title Fight: "Don't Look Now"

Illustration by H. Gerbault from Mac-Nab's Chansons du Chat Noir, 1890

So, you can glance at the bottom of this post and see what looks like an uneven match-up. CCR versus who? Well, it's the Moth Wranglers, a little-known drama-pop combo from NYC composed primarily of Magnetic Fields vocalist LD Beghtol and Chris Xefos of King Missile. In 2001, these two oddballs got a bunch of friends together to record an excellent album of skewed Vaudevillian pop called Never Mind the Context. I was initially interested in this record because of guest lead vocals by Stephin Merritt and Ken Stringfellow, but I ended up enjoying some of the other tracks just as much. One of my favorites was "Don't Look Now!", a song with a tremendous dramatic build from a scratchy-turntable intro to a soaring chorus by LD Beghtol.

The problem with the song, though, is that it inevitably reminds me of Donald Sutherland's penis. If you've seen the 1973 thriller Don't Look Now, you probably know the scene I'm talking about - they even have a shot of it on the movie's Wikipedia page! The movie's title warns us not to peek at Sutherland's weiner, but we all did it. My point, I guess, is that if a song is going to remind me of that, it had better be sung by John Fogerty.

Winner: CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL

"Don't Look Now" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

"Don't Look Now!" by the Moth Wranglers

In Stores Now: The Winter of Mixed Drinks by Frightened Rabbit

Watercolor from a collection called "Korean Games" collected by Mary A. Shufeldt at Ch'oryang, 1886

The weirdest thing about the "sophomore slump" accusations being slung at Frightened Rabbit in relation to their new album is this - THEIR LAST ALBUM WAS THE SECOND ONE. It's as if you can sleep on a great album and give it a mediocre review, and then give the next album a mediocre review as well, saying it doesn't live up to the greatness of its predecessor. Sorry - I'm a little frustrated because I think that all three albums that have been put out by Scottish indie-pop group Frightened Rabbit have been great. The other thing that's frustrating reading some of these reviews is that The Winter of Mixed Drinks isn't indicative of any kind of real "slump". It doesn't have the visceral "breakup album" feel of 2008's Midnight Organ Fight, and it doesn't have that album's allegorical connection to actual viscera, but it stands well enough on its own merits.

The Winter of Mixed Drinks sets a decent pace with its first three songs, all mid-tempo rockers, and it pretty much holds that tempo over the album's length. It would actually be a really good record to jog to - its dynamics aren't in the tempo. The variation is in the addition and subtraction of sounds as the songs take shape and shift shape. Handclaps, chanted backing vocals, and catchy guitar riffs drop in and out of the songs' arrangements with a detail-oriented approach that somehow avoids sounding fussed over. For instance, "The Loneliness and the Scream" seems to paint itself into a corner at its halfway point when it hits a nice crescendo of layered guitar parts, and then it takes a left turn into a second section built on a chorus of yelping vocals. The one part of this approach that gets tiresome is how most of the songs rely on an ambient-sounding introductions.

The Winter of Mixed Drinks is anchored by two really strong singles, the spare and jangly "Swim Until You Can't See Land" and the buzzing and guitar-heavy "Nothing Like You". These songs underpin the album's theme of putting things right in one's life. Beginning with the abandonment of all baggage in its opening track, "Things", the album focuses on themes like breaking out of old patterns and examining priorities more carefully. That makes it sound like a "feel-good album" from a band that's lost its edge (and some may see it that way), but, for me, this is an album that you can have in your headphones on the day when you step out your front door for a jog and then just keep on running.

"Nothing Like You" by Frightened Rabbit

In Stores Now: Done In Taurus by John Shough

Archive cyanotype of a book from the Smithsonian collection by Thomas Smillie, c. 1890

It was only a couple months ago that I was marveling over John Shough's 2000 solo album Utra Vega. Now the follow-up record, Done In Taurus, which Shough has been working on for the last decade, is suddenly here. And it's quite a record - 75 (!) minutes of meticulously-crafted homemade pop music. Shough wears his influences on his sleeve - as the number-one indie producer and hired-gun musician in Dayton, Ohio, he's worked with Guided By Voices and the Breeders, and he loves the same skewed pop sounds that drove those bands.

For an album that has come together over a period of years, Done In Taurus is surprisingly cohesive without becoming boring over its marathon length. The sound of the record is most similar to the whimsical pop of fellow GBVer Tobin Sprout, but with the overt Syd Barrett influence replaced with the glossy '70s pop of Badfinger and Wings. Done In Taurus takes a couple songs to get going, but it definitely hits its stride with its third song "Oh To Stay". This is the song where Shough really starts to employ his reedy tenor to excellent effect, layering harmony vocals expertly and adding a purposefully hilarious yell to punctuate the end of the post-chorus.

The humor of "Oh To Stay" is representative of the album's playful side, which comes up in the sunny-psych numbers like "Good Ship Fireball" and in little instrumental flourishes like the tinkling piano of "Sunday Saloon" and the wheezing, clumsy accordion of "Rooting for Rain". This playfulness is balanced by atmospheric snippets like "Electrical" and "Shatterday", as well as some lion-cub ferocity on songs like "Shoot Him with an Arrow". Done In Taurus is definitely a non-mainstream album that inhabits its own little world, but for people that enjoy visiting the pocket dimensions of eccentric songwriters like John Shough, there's a lot of good stuff to explore in this album's 28 songs.

"Oh To Stay" by John Shough

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Sugartune" by Sloan

Cover of an Indian book from the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library, c. 1960

I'm so glad that Sloan popped up on the ol' Jukebox today, and I'll explain why in a minute. At first, I wasn't so excited because, like a lot of people, I wouldn't pick a song from the band's first album, Smeared, to showcase what Sloan is all about (and yes, I know that this song was originally on the band's debut EP, but I associate it with the album). Not that "Sugartune" is a terrible song - it's just that the band's early work is commonly and rightly seen as inferior, a band toying with big guitar sounds inspired by Sonic Youth and shoegaze instead of admitting that they are really just power-pop kids. And they turned out to be among the best purveyors of power-pop in the '90s, sadly occupying that weird void that Canadian guitar-pop bands used to sit in.

The thing about "Sugartune" is that it gives a great glimpse of what was to come - to a point. Being a song from a band with four distinct songwriters, this song can only predict the progression of Patrick Pentland, who wrote it. First, it features that double-tracked vocal sound that I think of as being Pentland's "signature" - on the chorus, a harmony vocal is added to the mix. The only real poseurish touch on the song is the wordless cooing after the first chorus - sounds like something from a Lush record. Oh, and the repetitive 1-4-5 guitar outro. But the ingratiating melody and not-quite-conventional structure are elements the would take center stage on all the Sloan records that followed (except for 2001-2003, a dark time that I won't discuss here).

Oh, and the reason that I'm glad this song popped up? I went to the band's website for the first time in ages and found out that they've finally released (digitally) a B-sides collection! Finally, songs like "D Is for Driver", "Same Old Flame", and "Step On It, Jean" are compiled in one place - Sloan is a band that has been sitting on some great non-album tracks, so this is very good news. I wonder why I didn't read about this release anywhere, when I saw plenty of promotion for their new EP.

"Sugartune" by Sloan

It's New to Me: The House of Love [The German Album] by the House of Love

Photo of J.H. Allred from High Point College's Zenith yearbook, 1960

Sorry Prefab Sprout - this is how I like my pre-shoegaze Britpop! In 1985, Guy Chadwick of the band House of Love had a pocketful of songs that would chart the path of late-'80s and early-'90s guitar pop, and Alan McGee of the to-be-legendary Creation Records decided to give the band a chance. In '87 and '88, Creation put out several House of Love singles, as well as a self-titled album. Creation also released a compilation of the band's singles for the German market (also, somewhat confusingly, called The House of Love, although fans call it The German Album). Arena Rock Recording Company recently reissued the two long-out-of-print The House of Love records, and I've been enjoying them immensely.

Armed with wiry post-Television guitar lines, some cool sound ideas, and Chadwick's Bono-esque baritone, the House of Love's early singles make for an especially intriguing collection. I know that their first single, "Shine On", was an NME Single of the Week, but these songs are hardly well-known, which is too bad. Sequenced nicely and with inclusion of the "Destroy the Heart" single, which Arena Rock has added to the original tracklist, The German Album is as good as or better than the band's impressive debut LP.

The blazing "Shine On" and melancholy "Loneliness Is a Gun" are highlights, but the songs from the "Destroy the Heart" 12" are my favorites. The A-side is super-catchy, and the B-sides are just as good. "Blind" is one of the gentlest and most emotive songs from the House of Love's Creation-era period, and "Mr. Jo" is definitely the "shoulda-been-an-A-side" of the collection. With a jangly intro that the band later reworked into their single "Beatles and the Stones", the song has great guitar-work from Terry Bickers, including an out-of-nowhere solo that takes the song to a revved-up second section. The outro is great too, slowly releasing the built-up tension, with Chadwick delivering a startling punchline to cap it all off. I haven't heard much of the House of Love's post-Creation stuff, but the popular opinion is that they never matched the highs of their first singles, and, based on how blown away I am by The German Album, I can believe it.

"Mr. Jo" by the House of Love

It's New to Me: Jordan: The Comeback by Prefab Sprout (1990)

Panel from House of Mystery comic book issue #56, November 1956

Jordan: The Comeback is, in theory, like catnip for a music fan like me. First, it's a sprawling, nineteen song pop album. Second, and even better, it's a concept album about the parallel lives and deaths of Jesse James and Elvis Presley (supposedly). Third, it's by post-new-romantic sophisti-pop group Prefab Sprout, a band that is just outside my comfort zone of zone with its Cole-Porter-esque melodies and keyboard-heavy sound. So I grabbed a used copy I ran across, expecting an album that I could take my time getting to know, gradually getting past the glossy Thomas-Dolby production to enjoy the first-rate songs beneath.

Yeah, I'm still not there yet. I like about half of the songs on Jordan: The Comeback, but, after a dozen-plus listens, I was hoping it would have "clicked" with me better and sooner. I love Paddy McAloon's willingness to experiment with different songwriting traditions (my favorite Prefab Sprout song is the chugging country number "Faron Young"), and there's a lot to be said for the audacity of putting the songs "Jesse James Symphony" and Jesse James Bolero" back to back. But a lot of the experiments don't work well - McAloon should have stayed away from obvious doo-wop and samba pastiches. They don't work well with his smooth crooning and synthesizer-based arrangements.

It's too bad that I don't feel drawn back to Jordan for more listens because I really like the songs that have "clicked". As usual, I find myself fixated on a couple great songs tucked away toward the album's end. The uptempo and more conventionally poppy "Scarlet Nights" is one I loved right away - it may have something to do with the jangly guitar being so prominent in the mix. But I also love the song's soaring chorus with harmonies by Wendy Smith, and it has one of McAloon's characteristically excellent and poetic lyrics. And, with some of the grating circa-1990 elements removed, I can enjoy the melody and lyric without it feeling like a chore.

"Scarlet Nights" by Prefab Sprout

Mark Linkous (1962 - 2010)

Detail of watercolor titled Trained Dogs by Lawrence W. Ladd, c. 1880

I'm really not sure what to say about the passing of Mark Linkous, who committed suicide over the weekend. Like a lot of people my age, vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, the debut record of Linkous' band Sparklehorse, meant a lot to me when I was younger. Released by Capitol Records in '95, at the height of the post-Nirvana alternative-music bubble, the record was promoted extensively by the label. I remember that it seemed like promo copies of vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot were everywhere at the time - the thing that set Sparklehorse apart from the rest of that "next big thing" crowd was that Linkous was a true eccentric and an exceptional talent. Sparklehorse's debut is a fuzzy, downcast, lo-fi set of songs - it's bizarre that Capitol ever thought it would be a hit.

Mark Linkous didn't deal with the major-label push all that well, as evidenced by the fact that, the following year, he was crippled in an overdose incident in the UK. But Linkous carried on, releasing three more major-label LPs, including the amazing Good Morning Spider, written about his overdose, surgeries, and rehabilitation. Linkous' tendency to mess with "the system" showed through in how he sabotaged "Happy Man", the most obvious hit single he ever wrote. He swathed the song in AM-style static and weird carnival-music interludes. Luckily, he didn't feel the need to tear apart "Ghost of His Smile", the best song on that album and one of my all-time favorites.

I'm just as floored by Linkous taking his own life as when his good friend Vic Chesnutt did the same thing a few months ago. It's a shock to the system when people you respect for "hanging in there" decide that they just can't do it anymore.

"Ghost of His Smile" by Sparklehorse

Probabilistic Jukebox: "I Got This Feelin'" by Mates of State

Image from a poster for Riri brand zippers, 1950

I know it's not cool to be into Mates of State - they don't really rock, they're too upbeat, they're a happily married couple, their band doesn't have any guitar, etc. And, even though they are generally seen as critics' darlings, they never really had a record that was an Album of the Year contender. Somehow they went straight from "too annoying" to "not annoying enough". Something to do with the difference between being on Polyvinyl Records (too annoying) to being on Barsuk Records (too boring).

Even though I basically agree with the perceived evolution of the band, I really like most of the Mates of State records. I like how they've always built their songs out of little hook-filled snippets instead of verses and choruses - it's oddly appealing. And I think they made a near-perfect album with 2003's Team Boo. It's an underrated LP, definitely in the sweet spot between "too annoying" and "too boring". Team Boo is full of great songs, and "I Got This Feelin'" is one of my favorites, hidden deep in the album's tracklist. Built out of three choruses (no verses) and a series of bouncy organ interludes, it's most memorable moment is probably the third chorus, where Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel yell, "This couldn't be more ghetto!" repeatedly.

"I Got This Feelin'" by Mates of State

It's New to Me: Dimensions by the Box Tops (1969)

Cover illustration from the Serbian magazine Beekeeper, 1951

When Memphis soul-pop band the Box Tops released their fourth album, Dimensions, in 1969, the band's lead singer Alex Chilton was 18 years old. As you might expect from a young band, the Box Tops had largely been puppets for an older producer, Dan Penn, who picked all the songs for the band's early albums and even coached Chilton on how to make his singing voice sound like Penn's own. On Dimensions, the band was taking some of the control back, using a different producer (Chips Moman) and giving more input on the songs going on the record. Chilton even contributed several songs to the album - this was what prompted me to pick up the album, as I'm a huge fan of Chilton's post-Box-Tops band, Big Star. Also, the cover art on this album is pretty awesome (see sidebar).

The Box Tops are mostly a "singles" band, and their albums are well-known for being a mish-mash of covers and styles. This is totally true of Dimensions as well, but I still find it to be a very satisfying record. The album's two singles, the minor hit "Soul Deep" and the non-hit ode to prostitutes "Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March", are both excellent bubblegum-pop pieces that benefit from Chilton's soulful-beyond-his-years delivery. He actually sounds a bit like Neil Diamond on these songs, which might be why the album also includes a cover of Diamond's "Ain't No Way". The Bob Dylan cover ("I Shall Be Released"), though, is not as easily explained, except for the fact that everyone was covering Dylan at the time. It's not bad, though. And the album's one real soul cover (other than the interminable 9-minute closer "Rock Me Baby") is a great song called "Midnight Angel".

The surprise for me was that the Chilton compositions on Dimensions aren't that great. "Together" is an unimpressive organ ballad and "I Must Be the Devil" is an unconvincing and undistinguished piece of piano blues. His best contribution to the album is actually a trifle called "(The) Happy Song", which was the b-side to the "Soul Deep" single. A lighthearted folky number, it starts out sounding just like a Dylan cover, but picks up momentum as it goes, turning into a pretty, bouncy singalong. My recent posts about Paul Revere & the Raiders and 1910 Fruitgum Company are probably good indicators that I'm a total sucker for lightweight pop from 1969, but Dimensions is sounding pretty good, especially considering its dubious reputation.

"(The) Happy Song" by the Box Tops

In Stores Now: Odd Blood by Yeasayer

Illustration from a poster for the Phillips Climation magic show, c. 1900

It was a show on La Blogotheque that first got me interested in Yeasayer. I'd heard the band's first big single "2080" from their debut album, and I'd liked it, but I'd heard that the album was just so-so overall. It was the mostly a capella performances on a subway car from their "Takeaway Show" that convinced me the band was doing something really interesting. So I bit the bullet and bought Odd Blood, even though it immediately shot to the top of the "Ugliest-Looking Albums I Own" list (see sidebar for details). This album of artsy dance-rock is obviously very different from the improvised live performance that initially caught my interest, but the enthusiasm and creativity I was looking for are abundant and infectious.

Odd Blood's opening track, "The Children", is a the biggest oddity on the album, with a creepy vibe and heavily processed vocals, but I don't mind it because (a) I don't typically like albums' opening tracks anyway, and (b) it serves as a great contrast for the album's second song, the amazing "Ambling Alp". The demented gospel sound of some of their early songs is not a big factor in what makes the new songs like "Ambling Alp" great - there's a wider mix of influences here, from the Canto-pop hooks of "Madder Red" and vague Eastern flourishes of "Strange Reunions" to the Chariots-of-Fireisms of "I Remember". The album's momentum builds nicely as well, only ebbing occasionally as it leads up to the album's danciest number, the blazing "Rome".

After "Rome", Odd Blood slowly comes down from its giddy highs, with the hiccup of "Mondegreen", the album's only poor composition. It's not the terrible lyrics of the song that bother me (although I've heard plenty of criticism of them from others) - the lyrics on all of Odd Blood are pretty simple and often even dumb, but in a harmless way that actually emphasizes the band's sense of fun. The problem with "Mondegreen", for me, is that it brings in an unwanted influence - *ska* - and the sleazy-sounding horn section that comes with it. Funnily enough, it's like the evil twin of the album's best song, "Ambling Alp". But that song uses its horn flourishes for good, not evil, and its gentler reggae inflections work better with the band's shiny-happy approach to music. I also read somewhere that "Mondegreen" is intended to invoke the feeling of Glenn Beck's tear-stained rants, and that's not something I look for in pop music. One weak track is not enough to dampen my enthusiasm for this album, though.

At this point, I think that the only way that Odd Blood won't end up as one of my favorites of 2010 is if I spend too much time looking at its terrible packaging and not enough time listening to its contents.

"Ambling Alp" by Yeasayer

We Love the Beach Boys: "Salty Water" by Mark Wirtz

Detail of Something in the Air by Jack Vettriano, 1992

The name of British producer-musician Mark Wirtz is usually invoked in connection with his ambitious psych-pop experiments in the late '60s, particularly the unfinished Teenage Opera project (which spawned the Keith West hit "Grocer Jack (Excerpt from A Teenage Opera".) In the '70s, Wirtz moved to Hollywood to find solo success on Capitol Records. Surprisingly, things didn't quite work out, and Wirtz's solo work - excellent records full of "plastic pop" evoking ABBA and 10cc in equal measure - barely made a dent in the charts. These records, Hothouse Smiles, Balloon, Cartoon, and Lost Pets, were out of print for years but were recently re-released in a neat two CD set. Except for the inclusion of a couple more recent compositions and the fact that the four records are shuffled together pretty randomly, I am very happy with this collection of psych-tinged '70s-style pop.

Wirtz's last record of the '70s, Lost Pets, was an unfinished project that got shelved when his collaborators got called away to tour with Toto (I'm not even kidding!) A few years later, Wirtz's daughter had a close call with her severe allergies and Wirtz, deciding that his priorities needed to be changed, gave up making music. Which brings us to "Salty Water", one of the completed songs from the Lost Pets project. It's a great piece of late-1970s "We Love the Beach Boys" pop - at first, it just seems like generically pleasant harmony-heavy pop, but the bridge at the 2:50 mark momentarily recreates that Surf's Up vibe I love.

"Salty Water" by Mark Wirtz

I Saw a Show! The Magnetic Fields at the Town Hall, 24 February 2010

Illustration from the cover of Home Notes magazine, 1913

So I'm back from my little vacation to an undisclosed location and, while I was away at this undisclosed location, I saw the Magnetic Fields at the Town Hall in Seattle. My current lifestyle doesn't allow me to get out and see many shows, but I've been making an effort to see bands that don't tour often. We'll see if I make it to the Pavement reunion this summer. Spoiler alert: I probably won't! But the Magnetic Fields have been a higher priority because they've been threatening to quit touring permanently for a while and, unlike most whiners, they have a legit reason. Frontman Stephin Merritt's hearing-related condition (hyperacusis) is getting worse with time, and it makes live performances difficult.

On the Magnetic Fields' current tour, in support of their new record Realism, they're performing as an acoustic five-piece (Merritt on eight-string uke, Claudia Gonson on keyboard, John Woo on acoustic guitar, Sam Devol on cello, and Shirley Simms on autoharp [I think?]) They are also pulling in a variety of great opening acts - we saw Mark Eitzel (of American Music Club) and he did a spirited but brief set of meandering torch songs - he even did his cover of "No Easy Way Down" (one of my favorites!) After that, the Magnetic Fields took the stage, looking a little something like this:

The Magnetic Fields' set was almost thirty songs long and included selections from all their LPs, except for 1994's Holiday. Perhaps in keeping with the so-called "folk" theme of their latest work, they did several of their older folky tunes, like "Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget" and "The One You Really Love" from 69 Love Songs. They also did excellent new arrangements of favorites from the band's early synth days, like "Falling In Love with the Wolfboy" and "100,000 Fireflies". Another excellent surprise was that the set featured four of the lesser-known songs from the Magnetic Fields side project, the 6ths.

Considering that it was probably my one chance to see Stephin Merritt perform live, I couldn't have been happier with the length and quality of the show. A couple little things could have been better - some of the songs from Realism did translate well to the live setting, but some of them didn't. Also, the band's limited enthusiasm for performing live was exhausted well before the end of the set, even though the band took a 15-minute break halfway through. As a result, some of the could-have-been-great songs at the end of the show were just passable. Overall, though, the Town Hall show was a showcase of some of the best pop songs written in the last two decades, and the stage banter was fun, if you're into that kind of thing. And I can check off one more item on the list of my favorite bands from my college days - you're next, Galaxie 500!

"Falling In Love With the Wolfboy" by the Magnetic Fields