I Saw a Show! The New Pornographers at the Twilight Concert Series, 29 July 2010

Crate label for Request Brand fruit, c. 1920

If there's a free show playing in the park in your town, and the headliner is the world's best power-pop band, the question of whether to attend is a no-brainer. The New Pornographers are not really an exciting band, but they're musicians who understand their strengths and perform with consummate professionalism - they have a deep songbook of excellent pop songs, and they're touring on (possibly) the strongest record of their career. They have five strong vocalists, including the elusive and eccentric Dan Bejar, who has figured out to tour with his more easy-going bandmates, chilling out offstage with a beverage until he's coaxed onstage to provide a lead vocal on one of his compositions. If any show is a sure thing, it's this one.

Openers the Dodos played a decent set - for me, their songs don't really translate well to a live show, with the obvious exception of their best-known tune "Fools". The New Pornographers took the stage at twilight (appropriately), and launched into one of my favorites, "Sing Me Spanish Techno". I knew it was coming because there have been several good write-ups of the band's current tour that have made it evident that their shows are not varying much. Bejar wanders in and out, Case and Newman banter a little, and the band plows through a set of fifteen to twenty perfectly-composed and perfectly-played tunes. I've seen them play four (maybe five?) times, but it was fun to see them play a huge show in the park to a crowd of 500+ - they seemed to be having a great time as well.

Only a couple tunes got into the setlist that I would have cut ("Twin Cinema" and "It's Only Divine Right"), but they hit all the high points in their discography with a only couple exceptions. "Silver Jenny Dollar", "Adventures in Solitude", "Mass Romantic", and "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk" were all surprising standouts for me, but I was waiting to see if they'd drag out "Letter From an Occupant" for the encore. I was actually excited to see how a huge crowd reacted to the song (the best power-pop song ever written), but when they announced they had one last song, they tried to drag Bejar back on stage one more time. He sauntered out, huddled with the band, shrugged and left - what was going on? The band then launched into "My Rights Vs. Yours", which I guess is their new "go-to" song for a hit closer, but for me it just demonstrated that the song is the weakest of the New Pornographers' singles. They redeemed the show's finale, however, when Bejar then reappeared and ended the show with another of my favorites, "Testament to Youth in Verse", leading the huge crowd in the song's "no no no no" coda as the stars came out. Overall, not an exciting show per se, but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.

"Testament to Youth in Verse" by the New Pornographers

We Love the Velvet Underground: "Demons" by Yo La Tengo

Detail of the cover photo of LIFE magazine, May 16th, 1955

I realize that these "We Love..." posts are never revelatory - in fact, they are rarely even insightful. Most of the songs I pick are obviously influenced by the cited progenitor, and I admit that I have no talent for analysis when it comes to the connection between the two. In my mind, the sole value is in celebrating good songs inspired by good bands. Which brings us to "Demons", a song by Yo La Tengo from the I Shot Andy Warhol soundtrack. Yo La Tengo made a brief appearance in that movie as the Velvet Underground, so there's your ipso facto on the whole "We love the Velvet Underground" thing. "Demons" is an excellent song, though, and under-appreciated in the YLT canon. Most people focus on the Ira Kaplan/Lou Reed vocal comparison in Yo La Tengo's vocals, but Georgia Hubley handles the lead vocal on this Velvet Underground & Nico-era pastiche, with a languid delivery and a melody that falls somewhere between "Femme Fatale" and "All Tomorrow's Parties". The opening riff is really nice too.

"Demons" by Yo La Tengo

In Stores Now: Accept the Mystery by Graham Smith

Photo titled "Convair XFY-1" from the San Diego Aero Space Museum Archive, August 1954

Graham Smith released his tenth album recently, not under the Kleenex Girl Wonder moniker this time - I recently heard that he has limited his use of that name because of legal threats from a certain tissue company. For Smith, it's just been another setback in a songwriting career that has had plenty of ups and downs - through it all, though, he has continued to deliver first-rate pop music with a lyrical bent. I've belabored the similarities between Smith's music and hip-hop in previous write-ups on this site, but Accept the Mystery continues this trend with some new twists.

This time around, nine existentialistic tales are set to rhythm-based backing tracks to create a feel kind of like a rapper's mix tape. Where Smith's last two albums, Yes Boss and Mrs. Equitone, were filled with anxious rhythm guitar and long verses sung at a mile-a-minute pace, these songs stretch out and breathe by comparison. They are till far more verbose than the average song, though, and Smith seems to have continued his practice of using Wikipedia's Random Entry function to bring interesting people and places into his songs. As a result, you get a song like the invective-filled "Jeff", in which Smith addresses a person who is either Catholic folk figure Prester John or Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro about the difference between the way things seem and the way things are.

"The Will of John Roach" is the rapped recitation of a dead man's will that will catch the ear of anyone with an interest in estate planning, and "High Touch Consumer Wizard" goes back to the "relationship song" material of Yes Boss in a digression from the album's theme. Shout-outs to locales like Ctesiphon, Thessaloniki, Paramaribo, and the Orinoco are matched by beats and sounds that give some of the songs an exotic feel, while references to Papa Roach, Hudson Hawk, and About Last Night... keep the songwriting connected to pop culture.

I have two gripes with Accept the Mystery: 1) it could use a tenth song - even with the songs having a fleshed-out and relaxed feel to them, the album almost feels incomplete, although this may be attributable to my phobia of nine-song albums; and 2) Smith is only making this album available as a digital release through kgw.me, which is why it took me a couple months to getting around to reviewing it. My favorite track on the album is probably "These Things Are Nice...", a song that marries the album's mystery-oriented theme to a perfect pop structure. "Life’s a bit like a burn victim: we see its
Harsh reality, and yet we prefer fiction." Check it out.

"These Things Are Nice..." by Graham Smith

It's New to Me: Band on the Run by Paul McCartney & Wings (1973)

Illustration titled "There's No Better Place Than This Cloud" by Clare Victor Dwiggins by John Kendrick Bangs' Andiron Tales, 1906

I usually avoid discussing "classic" albums in my "It's New to Me" posts, simply because I probably don't have anything new to say about these much-discussed records. I do have a couple things to say about Band on the Run, though, because I ordered it from Amazon while reading Geoff Emerick's book about working with the Beatles, Here, There & Everywhere. One of the last chapters in the book is about the making of Band on the Run, and it made me curious - up till now, my only solo McCartney CD has been the Wingspan collection, which I bought when it came out because Border's had accidentally marked the 2-CD set at five bucks! I never really connected with the collection, though, so I thought Emerick's fascinating book might give me a way into McCartney's solo work.

As you may or may not know, Geoff Emerick LOVES Paul McCartney - many of the chapters of Here, There & Everywhere read like a sloppy tongue-kiss from Emerick to McCartney. I didn't know this when I started reading the book, and, while it's a fascinating view into the way the Beatles recorded their albums, I found the book's bias more than a little off-putting. Emerick pays lip service to the other Beatles, but the general tone of his narrative runs Lennon, Harrison, and Starkey down in a variety of little ways. He goes on at length about Harrison's lack of competence as a guitarist and Lennon's inability to express his musical ideas, while portraying Ringo as disengaged from the musical process almost entirely. I had to grit my teeth when Emerick opined that McCartney was as passionate about politics as Lennon but with more intelligence and subtlety, calling "Blackbird" a masterpiece while deriding Lennon's "Revolution". He praises almost everything McCartney touched (with the exception of "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da", which EVERYONE hates) - he even talks up McCartney's goofy throwaway "All Together Now" from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, while basically calling Harrison's "Only a Northern Song" from the same release a piece of garbage.

Which brings me to Band on the Run. It's actually really good - the first half is pretty much flawless, beginning with the oddly-structured but note-perfect title track and "Jet". Over its length, though, it starts to sound like an album falling in love with itself and it ends quite messily. The last two tracks, "Picasso's Last Words" and "1985" are overlong and uninteresting - notably, each of them also contain reprises to earlier songs on the album ("Jet" and "Mrs Vandebilt" on the former and "Band on the Run" on the latter"). It comes across as self-indulgent. Of course, I've heard most of these songs before, but my favorite new discovery on Band on the Run is the second side's strongest track (not counting "Helen Wheels", which was added to the track list later). "No Words" is interesting in a couple ways - for one, it is the only track with a Denny Laine co-writing credit. It's also the album's shortest song, but there's a lot going on in it, including a crazy high-pitched chorus that only comes up twice before a great guitar solo that fades out a little abruptly.

Oh, and "No Words" is a total ripoff of George Harrison's songwriting style to my ears. The slide guitar, the melody, and the sound of the harmonies all borrow from the sound of All Things Must Pass, which came out three years earlier. I wonder if Emerick would acknowledge that the great McCartney might have learned a thing or two from his "lesser" bandmates in the Beatles.

"No Words" by Paul McCartney & Wings

In Stores Now: Disconnect from Desire by School of Seven Bells

Detail of the cover illustration by Robert Stanley from Raymond Jones' The Deviates, 1959

When School of Seven Bells released their first album, Alpinisms, it seemed to exist in a world of its own. It was produced by known musicians (the Deheza sisters of On!Air!Library! and Ben Curtis of the Secret Machines), but they created something that departed dramatically from their previous work. The album was grounded in a thick, shoegaze-rock sound, which has a trademark otherworldly sound, but there were many things about this particular record that sounded extra-alien. From the Dehezas' strange phrasing of words and the unexpected mixing of layered sounds and exotic rhythms to the album's mystical lyrics and concept (having something to do with a secret school for pickpockets), Alpinisms was just different. The band has now returned with a second album, Disconnect From Desire, an excellent album but one that seems to have been made with the real world in mind.

Maybe it's just me, but I had trouble pinpointing influences on School of Seven Bells' debut record (apart from an obvious love for My Bloody Valentine), but part of Disconnect From Desire's more grounded nature is connecting to its forebears more directly. In the first section of the record, an '80s-pop influence frames the album's least interesting songs - the opening blast of "Windstorm" is quite effective, but "Heart Is Strange" and "I L U" have almost banal lyrics about being in love that are a little bit of a letdown after the grand mysticism of Alpinisms. These songs almost get by on the strength of their vocal hooks and Alejandra and Claudia Deheza's harmonies, but they lacks that "something".

Two excellent songs right in the middle of the Disconnect From Desire perk things up, though - "Babelonia" and "Joviann" bring back the best aspects of the band's debut album, but this time the arrangements have a sense of "space" that improves on the airless, claustrophobic production style of Alpinisms. The album's superior second half also features a better use of musical reference points, with the Germanic pulse and Stereolab vocals of "Dial" leading into the New-Order dance-pop of "Bye Bye Bye". The latter song executes on the promise of the album's earlier songs, abandoning sonic textures and odd lyrics to deliver a simple perfect pop song.

In the end, School of Seven Bells proves that they have been able to expand on the promise of their debut by producing an album that is more grounded but still gives the listener plenty of what the band delivers best - songs with great vocal harmonies and layered guitar sounds that don't sound much like anything else that's being done right now.

"Windstorm" by School of Seven Bells

I Saw a Show! Beirut at the Twilight Concert Series, 22 July 2010

Painting titled Final Chance by Tony Bevan, 1983

The Onion headline says it all: "Nation's Boyfriends Dreading 'Free Event in the Park' Season". Some free events are actually worth attending, though, and there are worse ways to spend a July evening than at a free show in the park by indie-oompah band Beirut. They brought dream-poppers Twin Sister with them, who opened the show with a decent set of tunes that relied heavily on their Color Your Life EP, their only major release to date. In a live context, Twin Sister's music lost some of its otherworldly charm, stripping their songs down to simple Slumberland-style indie-pop. This wouldn't be an issue if not for the fact that they look SO YOUNG that the whole performance took on a "high school talent show" feel at times. Still, they've got decent songwriting chops and really shine in a studio context - I hope they get a chance to put together a full-length release before too long.

The sun was going down as Zach Condon and his Beirut cohorts appeared, and the stage was bathed in a warm glow that matched set of rich, folk-inflected tunes they played. I was a little surprised that Beirut's strong points on record don't all translate well to the stage, though. For one thing, Condon's warbling baritone sits right in the middle of the horn arrangements instead of rising above it, and many of his chanson-style melodies got lost in the brass-heavy songs. On the other hand, the trumpet duet sections were great every time (I say "trumpet" even though Condon was playing a cornet or flugelhorn, I think) - Kelly Pratt's trumpet combined with Condon's horn to punctuate each song and get the crowd excited. Pratt also provided excellent harmony vocals throughout the set.

The show's setlist covered the highlights of the Beirut discography and covered a good portion of the Flying Club Cup album and the key songs from their debut and EPs (including "Elephant Gun", "A Scenic World", and "Mimizan" from the Dark Was the Night comp). For me, the key moment in the show was when Condon came onstage alone to start the encore with just his six-string uke - I knew it meant he'd be playing my favorite Beirut song, "The Penalty". Unfortunately, he flubbed the lyric multiple times and, at one point, even conferred with his bandmates to figure out how the song is supposed to go. Like most Beirut songs, the lyric of "The Penalty" is a very simple one, so it must have been nerves - he was playing to a very large crowd. Once he got it sorted out, the song came together beautifully and the band finished on a strong note.

I'd thought the show might be a mob scene, but the crowd was civil (if heavily hipster-ish) and the stage and sound were quite good. This is encouraging, as I am definitely going to next week's free show: the New Pornographers!

"The Penalty" by Beirut

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Doledrums" by the Chills

Image from an advertisement by the Onehunga Company, c. 1930

By the time the Chills released their third single "Doldrums" in 1984, the New Zealand pop band had already been through seven lineup changes, including losing drummer Martyn Bull to leukemia. And they were still three years away from recording and releasing their first full-length album. The struggles the Chills went through create a funny counter-current to their whimsical pop style, adding a weird energy to the band's early singles.

"Doledrums" is a song that illustrates this contrast well. The song starts with a goofy approximation of clock chimes and an insistent keyboard riff, but the song's melody and lyrics are decidedly downcast. Martin Phillips sings about being young and unemployed, punctuating his ennui with lines like, "The face in the mirror looks withered and old/my skin is gray - I can't go out - I'm always cold". The chorus melody would be downright funereal if not for Martin Kean's backing vocals, which give the refrain a hymn-like feel instead. Toward the end of the song, the moment when the dole check comes in the mail is represented by an uptick in the song's energy as Phillips sings, "The benefits arrive and life goes on!" He doesn't really sound happy, though, letting the listener know that this moment of relief is just part of the "doledrums" cycle he's stuck in.

"Doledrums" by the Chills

Andy Hummel (1951 - 2010)

Etched plate titled On the Balcony by Adrian Feint, 1922

Big Star bassist Andy Hummel passed away this week after a lengthy battle with cancer. His passing comes almost exactly four months after the death of Big Star frontman Alex Chilton, leaving drummer Jody Stephens as the band's only surviving member.

Hummel, a high school friend of Stephens and guitarist Chris Bell, started the process of putting the band together during college and helped bring Chilton in. He assisted in arranging the songs that Bell and Chilton brought to the studio for the recording of the band's debut, the highly influential commercial flop #1 Record. Hummel's only writing contribution to #1 Record, "The India Song", is a much-maligned piece of lightweight pop that sits oddly in the middle of Chilton's bluesier numbers and Bell's Beatlesy power-pop. I think it provides a nice counterpoint to the heavy mood of much of the album and reveals Hummel's love of folk guitar, which is paired well with a Mellotron flute part that sticks in your head.

Chris Bell dropped out of Big Star after #1 Record, but Hummel hung in there with Chilton and Stephens for the band's second record Radio City. His contributions were a much bigger part of the process this time around - he has a co-writing credit on four songs and wrote "Way Out West", one of the album's stronger ballads, himself (although the song is still considered second-rate by many because it's not a Chilton song). Oddly, "Way Out West" was one of the Big Star songs I took to right away, and it was one of the first things I learned to play on the guitar. For years, though, I thought it was written by Jody Stephens, who sang it on the live album Columbia - like a lot of people, I underestimated Andy Hummel's contribution to the Big Star records. After Radio City flopped as badly as the first record, Hummel decided to focus on finishing college and left the band, leaving behind a two-LP legacy that must have seemed ignominious at the time. Over the years, though, the Big Star records have been life-changing for a lot of people, and Andy Hummel was a big part of making that happen.

"Way Out West" by Big Star

It's New to Me: Portrait by the Fifth Dimension (1970)

Cover Illustration of the science fiction collection No Limits, edited by Joseph W. Ferman, 1964

I didn't really know much about soul-pop group the Fifth Dimension when I picked up Portrait a couple weeks ago. I don't think I even knew that the group's five members were all vocalists, not musicians or songwriters. I guess that makes them a "vocal group", although they apparently had a loyal group of producer/arrangers and studio musicians that they worked with, and they had access to some of the best songwriters around. After their initial spate of hits, including "Aquarius", "Stoned Soul Picnic", and "Wedding Bell Blues", the band switched labels, taking their studio crew with them. 1970's Portrait was the first album they released for their new label, Bell Records.

Portrait is a solid pop album with a gaping hole in the middle of it (which I will discuss in a minute). It had three solid singles - the first was a groovy take on Neil Sedaka's "Puppet Man", followed by Laura Nyro's "Save the Country" and the Bacharach/David song "One Less Bell to Answer". The last song, featuring a crazy-good solo vocal from Marilyn McCoo, was the album's big hit, going to #2 on the US pop charts. The album also includes a cover of Traffic's hit "Feelin' Alright", Jimmy Webb's "This Is Your Life", and a couple songs from the 5th Dimension producers, "A Love Like Ours" and a cool wordless vocal jazz piece calld "Dimension 5ive". The album's centerpiece, though, is a 10-minute medley that was obviously intended by the band as a political statement but pretty much derails the album completely.

The medley begins with "The Declaration", a musical reading of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence taken from the stage play Bread, Beans and Things. It's hilariously bad and goes on and on and on. The lines have no meter or rhyme to them, and they are set to a meandering melody that gets tiresome really fast - imagine a group of talented vocalists trying to make a decent song out of a line like, "Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." When the medley hits its next section, it's a like a breath of fresh air because "The Declaration" is over... until you realize that they are trying to pull off Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come". It doesn't quite work. The medley's last section, a cover of the Rascals' "People Got to Be Free" is the only part that's really decent, almost dragging the medley back into the realm of respectability, but not really.

Apart from that medley, I have nothing but love for Portrait. Much of the album, for me, sits in a made-up genre I call "Godspell pop". Like the Free Design, the Cowsills, or Eternity's Children, it's upbeat pop with a vaguely Christian feel to it. "Save the Country" is a great example of this, with its toothlessly feel-good political lyrics, handclaps, and awesome harmonies. For me, though, the song is almost ruined by the fact that, in the second verse, it sounds like they are singing, "Fury's going to take me to the glory hole!" I think the line is supposed to end with the phrase "glory goal", but I wasn't hearing that the first few times I listened to the song.

"Save the Country" by the Fifth Dimension

In Stores Now: A Coming of Age by Lucky Soul

Pro-temperence sketch titled "The Gin Juggarnath" by George Cruikshank from My Sketch Book, number VII, 1835

I first took a look at London retro-pop combo Lucky Soul a year ago when I was tasked by my special ladyfriend to find another group "that sounds like the Pipettes". The band's 2007 album The Great Unwanted seemed to fit the bill, being a slightly more sophisticated take on British-style girl-group pop and northern soul. I ended up taking to the record more than she did, so I was excited to see earlier this year that Lucky Soul was releasing a second record, A Coming of Age. Like a lot of smaller UK bands, it looks like Lucky Soul has decided against a big US release of their album, as it's easily available through online stores or as a download. I finally just ordered a copy of the CD directly from the band's site (it wasn't that expensive, even with trans-Altantic shipping!)

A Coming of Age was made under different circumstances than the band's debut. Sometime between the release dates of the two records, singer Ali Howard and guitarist/songwriter Andrew Laidlaw became a couple, which obviously affected the band's dynamic. Lucky Soul worked in seven different studios while making the record, including sessions with the Stockholm Strings and the Killer Horns. The recording process was reportedly torturous at times, with Laidlaw admitting that he was getting a little "Brian Wilson" at times. The results were worth the effort, in my opinion, as A Coming of Age is a smart and immaculate pop record, showcasing a variety of retro-pop sounds delivered with the fresh energy of Ali Howard's coy, girlish vocals. I was also surprised at the maturity and wit in the lyrics - many of the recent girl-group-revival groups haven't been able to match the fun wordplay of the sound's originators, but Lucky Soul nails it.

A Coming of Age begins with two breathless singles with repetitive choruses, upbeat tempos, and peppy handclaps - back to back, "Whoa Billy!" and "White Russian Doll" are almost too much to swallow. After this initial salvo, though, the album hits a better rhythm, with songs like "Love³" and "Our Heart", which have a lighter pop touch and room to breathe. I was let down a little by the album's ballads at first - in comparison with the northern soul ravers, songs like the tepid "Warm Water" seem slight at first, but they sound better and better on repeated listens. The highlight of the album, though, may the title track. With its spy-guitar riff and references to a "coming of age, come too late", it confronts the problem of the difficult second album head on by throwing the band's growing pains right into the spotlight.

Not surprisingly, A Coming of Age hasn't gotten a lot of press stateside, but it's worth seeking out if a British resurrection of the Holland-Dozier-Holland style sounds appealing.

"A Coming of Age" by Lucky Soul

It's New to Me: Victorialand by the Cocteau Twins (1986)

Photo from Guilford College's annual The Quaker, 1961

Whoa - it's been over a month since I did an "It's New to Me" post. How did that happen? It's not because I've stopped buying old albums. Just last week I picked up two old Cocteau Twins records in my continuing quest to understand one of the most unique bands in pop history. I bought Victorialand (1986) and Blue Bell Knoll (1988), and, predictably, the latter album was much more accessible. However, Victorialand is the more interesting album of the two, and I'm liking it more and more as I spend time with it.

In 1986, the Cocteau Twins had (appropriately) been reduced to just two members, guitarist Robin Guthrie and vocalist Liz Fraser. As a result, it was only natural to make a different kind of record, with spare, atmospheric guitar-and-vocals arrangements. Even if you don't know that Victorialand is a region of Antarctica, there are enough hints in the album's song titles to reveal that album's arctic/antarctic theme. This theme is never expressed lyrically, of course, because of Fraser's inability to sing a comprehensible English phrase, but the album's arrangements are pure permafrost and twilight. The album has been described as ambient or even "new age", probably because of the minimalist washes of the album's opening track, "Lazy Calm". Calling it "new age" is just insulting, really, and it's even unfair to call the album's first track ambient - it opens with a three-minute instrumental section, consisting solely of washes of heavily treated guitar and a moaning saxophone, but the song's second half has a distinct vocal melody, pushing it from "ambient" into the more accurate category of "ambient-pop".

Can we talk about the saxophone for a minute? Played by guest musician Richard Thomas of dub band Dif Juz, the sax is the single weakest component on this album - it's just way too '80s-sounding on an album that otherwise exists outside of normal time and space. Luckily, it only pops up on the opening and closing tracks (the album's most ambient moments), and Thomas redeems himself by playing a cool tabla rhythm on "Feet-Like Fins", one of the album's strongest tracks. The album is most engaging when Fraser's vocals are focused into some kind of concise melody, as on that track and the poppy "Fluffy Tufts". The middle of Victorialand loses me a little - my attention wanders for a while, but the album's best track, "Little Spacey", always snaps my focus back to the music. It's a peppy number with a sing-song melody from Fraser, but it never strays too far from the album's cohesive sound.

One music writer described Victorialand as "cocaine candyfloss", and it's an apt phrase for this kind of sweet and dreamy pop music. It's a little too unfocused to hit me just right, though - I think I need to finally break down and buy the Cocteaus' (supposedly) two best albums, Treasure and Heaven or Las Vegas. I'm certain they'll live up to the hype, and I've enjoyed sampling some of their other work as an introduction before getting to the really good stuff.

"Little Spacey" by the Cocteau Twins

We Love the Velvet Underground: "Here Comes Alice" by the Jesus & Mary Chain

Illustration from the cover of Red Star Weekly issue #967, May 19th, 1951

Here's another obvious entry in the "We Love the Velvets" canon - any summary of the Jesus & Mary Chain's career is guaranteed to mention the Velvets in the first paragraph. They're one of those bands that is considered to have been groundbreaking innovators, while always being described in the context of their influences. You'd think that the JAMC would quickly become tired of hearing the VU call-outs and would distance themselves purposefully from such comparisons, but their third album, Automatic, starts with one of the most direct VU pastiches they ever recorded. Even the title "Here Comes Alice" comes from the Velvet Underground Magnet Poetry set (that's right - I'm making magnet poetry references in 2010!) I'm a fan of the underrated Automatic album, though, and "Here Comes Alice" is a great song - how can you argue with a lyric like, "Get your lips 'round a cool black Pepsi Coke"? Nice.

"Here Comes Alice" by the Jesus & Mary Chain

Title Fight: "Don't Go"

Illustration from Making Puppets Come Alive by L. Engler and C. Fijan, 1973

"Don't Go" is a phrase of pleading, ripe for various interpretations. Brit-indie band Hefner went, unsurprisingly, with a mixture of lewdness, desperation, and wistfulness. The opening line, "Put on your underwear," is promising enough, but the bare arrangement of the song's first verse leaves me wondering if Darren Hayman was certain what key he was singing in. Like a lot of the songs on the We Love the City album, the arrangement takes some time to come together, but it's quite nice when it finally does, with a catchy descant on the chorus and some junkyard percussion.

On 1991's Girlfriend, Matthew Sweet revealed an unexpectedly masterful combination of high drama and pop hooks, and his "Don't Go" is an under-appreciated song from that album's second side. The way he wails the title line at the end of the chorus is great, and it serves as a perfect lead-in to an equally wailing guitar solo from former Voidoid Robert Quine. Quine's lead guitar on this song is great, although it's always bothered me that all the songs in the first half of Girlfriend feature Richard Lloyd on lead, and Quine is relegated to the album's second half. Also, it's a little creepy that Sweet appears to be addressing a dead woman - is it creepier than when he's singing to an anime character a girl who reminds him of Winona Ryder? Hard to say.

On Pleasant Dreams, my favorite Ramones album, the original bubblegum punks go totally old-school with their "Don't Go", showcasing a chorus melody that borrows heavily from late-'50s pop. It works great, evoking the naivete and sexual frustration of that generation's teens. The track's punk energy, while toned down a bit from the band's usual frenetic pace, provides a nice contrast to the throwback hook - that balance is handled well by Pleasant Dreams producer Graham Gouldman, who also had an appreciation of sock-hop music. By virtue of not having any noticeable flaws at all, I think the Ramones' "Don't Go" wins this match-up.

Winner: THE RAMONES

"Don't Go" by Hefner

"Don't Go" by Matthew Sweet

"Don't Go" by the Ramones

In Stores Now: B Sides Win by Sloan

Cover photo from New York Magazine, October 20th, 1969

I think I may not be the most observant person in the world, based on how often I find myself saying, "When did THAT happen?" Case in point - Sloan released a 26-song b-sides-and-rarities collection way back in February, and I didn't know about it for months. In my defense, I think the release was not especially well promoted - I didn't see anything about it on the usual music news sites/blogs. Maybe it didn't get much attention because it's a "digital-only" release available from their website. On the other hand, it's an AMAZING COLLECTION OF SONGS that Sloan fans have been wanting to get their hands on for years and years - there is even an old fan-circulated collection that the hardcore fans call "the thing that shall not be named" or something (referencing the band's famous reticence to give their second-rate songs a second airing).

And it's true that, by strict definition, there are some second-rate songs on B Sides Win. But this is Canada's best power-pop band we're talking about - well, the New Pornographers fan in me says "one of Canada's two best power-pop bands". Over sixteen years and nine albums, this band has amassed a considerable collection of excellent non-album tracks, and they are now available in lossless format for under ten bucks. Not bad. Of course, the "chronological b-sides collection" format creates the awkward situation of putting their ugly baby photos up front - in the early '90s, the band let their love of shoegaze and grunge color their songs in less-than-flattering ways. However, the Smeared-era songs on B Sides Win aren't terrible, with the exception of Chris Murphy's interminable "Sleepover" - in the collection's digital liner notes (which make for a fun read), Murphy pokes fun at the song by saying, "I'm certain we were happy that our guitars had whammy bars."

Once you get to the songs from post-1992, it's smooth sailing for the rest of the collection, showcasing excellent tunes from each of the band's contributors - Murphy's "Stood Up" is an excellent track from the Japanese release of 1996's One Chord to Another, Jay Ferguson's "Pretty Together" is a great ballad that should have made it onto the album of the same name, and Patrick Pentland's two b-sides from Never Hear the End of It are among the best things he's written. Even the band's least prolific contributor, drummer Andrew Scott, shows up here with the rough-and-ready "Helen", with lyrics showcasing the band's trademark cleverness. It's been a while since we've seen a new album from Sloan, probably because Murphy got hit by a car last year and has spent some time convalescing. The band managed to put together a first-rate EP last year, cheekily titled Hit & Run, and it is also available on the band's site. So you can put B Sides Win and the EP together and you have 31 songs to tide you over until Sloan's next full-length release. Not bad.

"Stood Up (Studio Version)" by Sloan

In Stores Now: The Five Ghosts by Stars

Illustration by Frances Beem from Charlotte B. Herr's How Freckle Frog Made Herself Pretty, 1913

Canadian synth-pop combo Stars has released a string of excellent but flawed albums over the last few years, and The Five Ghosts continues the streak. The difference this time around is that reviewers seem to be dropping the cumulative weight of the band's past sins on their heads - the responses to the album have been disproportionately negative, as if critics are piling on after giving the band a free pass for too long. Personally, I think the band deserved some backlash after their last album, 2007's wildly uneven In Our Bedroom After the War. The Five Ghosts is uneven in its own way, but I think it's a more interesting album overall.

Where In Our Bedroom... seemed scatter-shot and unfocused, The Five Ghosts is too consistent, almost monochrome by comparison. The album's songs focus on the realm of spirits, and the thick, glossy production is a good match for this theme. The first five songs on The Five Ghosts are excellent, with the surging "Fixed" (a sequel of sorts to their "hit" song "Ageless Beauty"), "Wasted Daylight", and the borderline-tacky "We Don't Want Your Body" being highlights. The latter song does have some unappetizing lyrics like, "You flash your trash to turn me on," and "Your soul is searching ecstasy so you could have some some sex with me." Mmmmm - who doesn't like to have "some sex"?

The second half of the album sags quite a bit, with limp numbers like "He Dreams He's Awake" and "The Last Song Ever Written" weighing it down. These songs suffer from Torquil Campbell's colorless vocal performances that are the album's other weak point. After my first few listens, I thought he wasn't contributing much to the vocals. Then I realized that he just wasn't making memorable contributions to the album's best songs - his singing lacks the edge and personality that gave the band an interesting dynamic on previous albums. On the other hand, Amy Millan sounds great on this album - her voice fits the atmospheric sound of the songs better than I thought it would. This is clear on songs like "Wasted Daylight", where she nails one of those huge choruses that make Stars' flawed albums more than worthwhile.

"Wasted Daylight" by Stars

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Pretty Girl From Cedar Lane" by the Avett Brothers

Photo entitled "Parade 1981" from the Rock Springs History Archives, January 1981

It's funny that a song from the Avett Brothers' Mignonette popped up on the Jukebox today - it was almost exactly a year ago today that I purchased the CD. Over the past year, though, I'll admit that Mignonette has been my most neglected Avett Brothers album. I listen to the ones that followed it more often - this is probably attributable to (a) the fact that Mignonette is an intimidating 75-minute concept album, which I'm not always in the mood for, and (b) I tend to think of the older Avetts' albums as more "bluegrassy" than the recent releases. Listening to Mignonette now, though, I don't think the latter factor really holds any water.

Take "Pretty Girl from Cedar Lane", for instance. Sure, it's all about that strummed banjo, but that's no bluegrass banjo - it gets attacked with a savagery that can only be compared to the percussive banjo used by proto-punks the Monks. The song also has a fuzz-guitar solo and some nice, shouty vocals. There's a little twang to he chorus melody, but "Pretty Girl From Cedar Lane" is really just a big fuzzy pop song.

"Pretty Girl From Cedar Lane" by the Avett Brothers

Harvey Fuqua (1929 - 2010)

Illustration from the Alumni Bulletin of the University of North Caroline School of Medicine, 1974

R&B legend Harvey Fuqua passed away from a heart attack earlier this week. Fuqua was an immensely talented singer, songwriter, producer, and businessman. He founded the Moonglows doo-wop group in the '50s and took them to major success, singing their big hit "Ten Commandments of Love". He launched the career of Marvin Gaye and was a big contributor to Motown Records in the early '60s. He worked with the Spinners, Etta James, Tammi Terrell, Jr. Walker, and Shorty Long and was responsible for writing and producing several classic Motown hits.

I would have little appreciation of Fuqua's work if not for the fact that I've recently started collecting the Complete Motown Singles collections. His Motown work has a lot of impact because he was associated with acts I was less familiar with. I know all the big songs by the Supremes, Temptations, and Miracles, but many of the early Marvin Gaye singles are new to me and SO good. The Tammi Terrell and Jr. Walker material is top-notch as well. One of my favorites is Terrell's first single for Motown, "I Can't Believe You Love Me". Terrell was just twenty when she recorded the song, written and produced by Fuqua. The song has a very contemporary arrangement, with lush strings and backing vocalists - my favorite moment comes at the end of the chorus, where Terrell sings, "I can't believe that you love me ... anymore!" and all the instruments go silent for a moment. It's just one of many classic contributions to modern pop music by Harvey Fuqua.

"I Can't Believe You Love Me" by Tammi Terrell

In Stores Now: Moses on a Snail by Robert Pollard

Illustration from The Dogs and the Fleas, Illustrated, 1893

When you've been buying Robert Pollard's solo albums for a decade and a half, you get a sense of what he's aiming for with each one. Often, a new Pollard album will be a selection from his recent songwriting, representing the songs not set aside for other projects (like Boston Spaceships or the Circus Devils). We All Got Out of the Army, which came out earlier this year, was one of those - it's simply a great set of tunes. Sometimes, though, Pollard gives indications of having crafted a particular batch of songs with something specific in mind - you need only look at the cover of Moses on a Snail to see that Pollard is setting this one apart from the others. The cover is a laugh-worthy parody of a five-buck "easy listening" collection of the kind you find in truck stops, with a photo of Pollard silhouetted in front of the sunset, watching boats in the harbor. The caption under the title (which appears in a terrible serif-heavy typeface) says, "featuring 'Arrows and Balloons', 'Each Is Good in His Own House', 'It's a Pleasure Being You', 'Teardrop Paintballs' and 8 more."

It's not like Robert Pollard to call out the album's four "pop hits" on the front cover, but I think it's meaningful because it's the "8 more" that tell the real story on Moses on a Snail. The first two songs on the album, "The Weekly Crow" and "A Constant Strangle", set up the album's two dominant moods, weariness and frustration - the album opens with a melancholy cello line and Pollard singing in his lower register, which he does for much of the album. This moody vocal style matches the dark lyrics of many of the songs - references to family relationships pop up repeatedly, and problems with interpersonal relationships are a dominant theme. However, the album's concept never creates a leaden feeling - the album keeps a brisk pace through it's fairly brief run-time, and the "pop" numbers provide a nice counterpoint to the weightier emotional tracks like "How I've Been in Trouble" and the final, epic title track.

"It's a Pleasure Being You" is one of the highlights of Moses on a Snail, with a vocal hook that is mirrored nicely by a chirping keyboard riff. And "Arrows and Balloons" provides another nice break in the clouds with a peppy melody and an elegiac lyric that could be interpreted as Pollard looking back on his career arc as a songwriter: "I have made a run - catch the Beatles too - arrows and balloons - send pigeons to the moon." I don't think that Pollard is in a real serious funk here - I mentioned earlier this week that he's getting the boys back together from the classic GBV lineup for a quick reunion tour in the fall (he's reportedly said that he wanted to do it before the guys get too old to put on a good show). He's just indulging his dark side a little with a downcast concept album that makes for a surprisingly fun listen.

"Arrows and Balloons" by Robert Pollard

I Saw a Movie: Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Detail of the cover illustration of Mystery In Space comic book issue #50, March 1959

Since the initial release of Exit Through the Gift Shop in April, there has been a variety of speculation on the "street art" documentary and its questionable veracity. Any time a movie is being made by and about high-concept artistic pranksters, people are going to suspect funny business, but I don't know enough to make a call on whether the whole thing is an elaborate hoax - like Roger Ebert says, that question is part of the film's charm. But I'm stick with describing my initial impressions of the film on seeing it over the weekend, and these impressions were largely based on taking its content at face value.

Exit Through the Gift Shop introduces itself as a documentary by Thierry Guetta, an LA-based store-owner (selling overpriced vintage clothes) and fan of the modern graffiti known as street art. It becomes clear before too long, though, that Guetta is no documentarian - like Jesse Friedman, Daniel Johnston, Mark Borchardt, and others, Guetta is simply an interesting guy who likes to film what's going on around him. His fascination with subversive street artists like Shepard Fairey and Banksy takes him some interesting places, but he is not the storyteller as much as he seems to be at first. So who is telling Guetta's story? I guess it would be the notorious Banksy, the film's listed director, and this is a big reason why people are questioning the movie on a lot of levels.

Without giving too much away, the greatness of Exit Through the Gift Shop is how it introduces a cool subculture in its first half and then takes a weird turn that changes the viewer's perspectives and sympathies, revealing a lot about artists and art. The facts that can be pulled from LA Weekly and other sources reveal that Thierry Guetta did indeed launch an immense art show under the name Mr. Brainwash in 2008 with thousands of attendees. How did this admirer of street art become an artist himself? This is where things get a little murkier, and you have to piece it together from watching the movie yourself.

Easily the most compelling documentary on art I've seen in the last few years, I was still a little disappointed that Exit Through the Gift Shop didn't live up to the "uproariously hilarity" attributed to it in a lot of reviews. It has its funny moments, and the absurdity of the film's last half hour puts everything that came before in a different context, but it's definitely more of a thought-provoking documentary than breezy comedy. It's not just a documentary for people who love documentaries, though - it's accessible to everyone and is a good movie for sitting with some friends and talking about its content for hours afterward.

"Art Song (Something Good With Your Life)" by Andy Partridge

"Watch me jumpstart at the first light of day"

Detail of the cover illustration of Red Cross Magazine, January 1918

Wires and Waves isn't really a "music news" blog. Sometimes I wish it was - it's a lot easier to aggregate the headlines from Pitchfork.com than write about actual music every day. But Wires and Waves is about my experiences as a fan of music, so I'm making an exception today for a big news story that relates to my formative years as a music fan. In my late teens, a couple of my favorite bands, Guided By Voices and Pavement, were on Matador Records - for the first time, I realized that some record companies had an "identity" and "personality". I could buy an album released by Matador Records with some degree of surety that it would be interesting to me. I took chances on Helium, Bailter Space, Chavez, and Silkworm without being dissapointed.

Last week, Matador announced that they will have a 3-day concert bash in Vegas this fall, featuring many of the great acts from their glory days. The reunited classic lineups of Pavement and Guided By Voices will be joined by Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, and some later-period favorites like the New Pornographers and Belle & Sebastian.

For me, the real news here is the Guided By Voices reunion, featuring the lineup that played on those first albums for Matador (Robert Pollard, Mitch Mitchell, Tobin Sprout, Greg Demos, and Kevin Fennell). These guys represented a unique incarnation of GBV - they were the original basement heroes that churned out lo-fi masterpieces on 4-track and then turned them into arena-rock anthems in concert. Seeing Pollard lead these guys through a set of '90s GBV classics will be worth the price of admission alone at Matador At 21 in October.

"Watch Me Jumpstart" by Guided By Voices

In Stores Now: Reservoir Songs II by Crooked Fingers

Illustration titled "Selkirk Amusing Himself with his Cats" from John Howell's The Life and Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe : A Narrative Founded on Facts, 1841

I don't review a lot of digital releases on Wires and Waves - this is mostly due to my own review policy that has, as far as I know, not ever really been explained. With very few exceptions, I only review things that I have purchased and have listened to at least five times. The problem with digital releases is that, unless I take the time to burn a CD of it to put in my listening rotation, it rarely gets the listens it needs. The same is true of vinyl releases, sadly. EPs get forgotten too often as well, because they're just too short to make it into the regular rotation. So I've obviously gone out of my way to review the new Crooked Fingers EP, the vinyl-and-digital-only Reservoir Songs II.

Crooked Fingers is primarily Eric Bachmann, whose unexpected transition a decade ago from frontman of the alt-spazz band Archers of Loaf to a rootsy/folky songwriter is one of the most unexpectedly rewarding career moves in recent history. All of the Crooked Fingers full-lengths are solid (with the self-titled debut and Red Devil Dawn being definite out-and-out classics!), but one of the group's best-loved releases is the original Reservoir Songs, an EP of covers released in 2002. Bachmann carefully selected songs that were right in his wheelhouse by Springsteen, Kris Kristofferson, and Neil Diamond, and then mixed things up a little with songs by Queen and Prince. It all worked. For me, the only problem was that it sounded like half of a great "covers" album. Bachmann must have been picking up my vibes of psychic dissonance because he's finally delivering the missing half of the project.

Reservoir Songs II is almost as great as the original, with slightly less adventurous choices but consistently solid results. The EP starts with "Shelly's Winter Love", a song from Merle Haggard's '71 record Hag. Like many of the songs on the EP, it starts with a mix of acoustic instruments and loops, with vocals by Bachmann and Elin Palmer (I think it's her, anyway). Like a couple songs on this EP, it's not a song I'm too familiar with, and it's absolutely lovely - makes me want to go buy some Merle Haggard records. They pull off similarly excellent covers of Moby Grape (the great, lesser-known, late-period track "I Am Not Willing") and the Kinks' "Strangers", as well as much-covered songs by Billy Joe Shaver and John Hartford. The Kinks cover in particular is a favorite of mine, rivaling the great version done recently by Wye Oak on the AV Club site. The only number that doesn't really work for me is a piano-ballad version of Thin Lizzy's "Wild One" - Bachmann leaves the vocals to Palmer on this one [Actually the lead on this is by Liz Durrett - ed.], and it doesn't really stand up to the quality of the other songs.

The best thing about getting the high-quality download of Reservoir Songs II from PortMerch is that you can append it to the end of your original Reservoir Songs to make a really nice full-length covers album.

"Gentle on My Mind" by Crooked Fingers

In Stores Now: Before Today by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

Illustration from the article "Fighting Coach" in Boys' Life magazine, September 1951

I'm not an avid fan of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - I only own The Doldrums, his first album that got a wide release - but I've been interested to see him develop as a songwriter and performer. He's one of those real oddball talents - his music makes such a forceful impression that it's hard to just file away under "too strange/not worth the effort". When he signed to 4AD Records late last year, I started to hear chatter that he was going "mainstream", which I found hard to believe. Like a lot of people, I felt that Pink's throwback, lo-fi production aesthetic and murky, reverb-heavy pop sound were keys to making his music - you know - listenable.

Before Today is the alleged move to the mainstream, but I am happy to report that it is still totally weird. Ariel Pink hasn't ditched his off-the-wall style - he's just shifted things around a little. Like his hero R. Stevie Moore, he's a restless eccentric, willing to change his sound as new opportunities make themselves available - Before Today shows his commitment to doing his own thing, all the way down to the strange sequencing of the album. Pink starts us off with "Hot Body Rub" a slight intro track that heavily features the sleazy horns of jazz combo Added Pizzazz, and this leads into "Bright Lit Blue Skies", an obscure '60s garage-rock number. A core of three excellent pop songs anchors the middle of the album before the album briefly spirals into questionable territory with the one-two punch of "Butthouse Blondies" and "Little Wig". Those songs don't really go anywhere and take too much time to do it (reminiscent of some of the longer tracks on The Doldrums), but "Menopause Man", a great track right at the end of the album, is worth waiting for. It's got some great pop hooks that take just long enough to sink in, and its goofy lyrics are right in Pink's wheelhouse.

But, honestly, Before Today is all about its centerpiece single, "Round and Round", a song that requires two listens. The first time, the unexpectedly creamy '70s-AM-pop chorus will knock you off your feet. The second time, that chorus will knock you off your feet again because the song is cleverly structured so that you can't anticipate its appearance. Delayed gratification is a game Ariel Pink plays well, and Before Today, the album that delivers on the potential of his earlier lo-fi work, was worth the wait.

"Round and Round" by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti