4.2.13

On April 2nd I listened to Jimmy Eat World Clarity, Failure Fantastic Planet, and The Black Angels Indigo Meadow.

Spending all your free time listening to music sometimes will give a person a musical sixth sense, if you will. It’s like a combined sense of hearing, comprehension and intuition. You can listen to a band’s first couple of recordings and make a really solid educated guess as to where they’re going. My music sixth sense used to be sharp and pointy, now it's a little bloated and dull. But, I definitely remember in 1999 listening to Clarity and thinking that Jimmy Eat World was poised for greatness. That’s not saying that Clarity isn't a great record in its own right, because it is definitely something special. The songwriting from Static Prevails to Clarity had really taken a giant leap, the sound of the recording, and the growth of the arrangements all pointed in one direction. Up. Yet, Capitol records dropped them anyway because nobody bought Clarity. Stooopid!

In 2001, I was working for a shitty little radio industry rag and I swear to God we were sent an advanced copy of Bleed American from Capitol records. (I just emailed the guy I shared an office with, but I can not confirm this.) Regardless, Dreamworks scooped up Jimmy Eat World and Bleed American (later named Jimmy Eat World after 9/11) became one of the greatest albums of the new century… so far.

And I saw their whole arc of greatness coming with my musical sixth sense. I’m like a Disco Jedi.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Adkins in the summer of 1999. Jimmy Eat World was playing an outdoor mini-festival for my radio station and I was broadcasting live from the venue. We started talking about Emo, because it was a Hot Topic (Hi-Oh) in the late 90’s, but I could tell he really just wanted to change the subject. “Would you consider Jimmy Eat World an Emo band?” I asked. “No,” he said quickly. I pointed out that the band’s fans would disagree and he agreed with that. “Well, what is Emo music?” I asked to try and find a common ground. He very quickly said, “What do you think it is?” I paused for what seemed like forever. I was trying to clean up what I was thinking which was “Crybaby Rock,” but I said, “I think it’s Rock music with very sensitive lyrics.” I just remember the look that he gave me, as if to say that he knew what I was thinking, heard what I said and would you want your band labeled that?  He gave a very polite response about music being subjective, and whatever someone takes away from Jimmy Eat World… blah blah blah. I've run into him a handful of times during my radio career and he's always been a nice guy. 

It's been way too long since I listened to all of Clarity. I forgot all about the Christmas jam! Every Christmas I always listen to Jimmy Eat World’s cover of “Last Christmas,” when I could have been listening to “12.23.95” too! “A Sunday,” and “Blister” were always two standouts. And then there’s “Lucky Denver Mint.” One of my all-time favorite songs!

The joke with the band Failure has always been, “you don’t name your band Failure.”

Fantastic Planet was released right before I got my first real job in radio and after I was hired “Stuck On You” was being worked as a single. Check out the CD single they sent out. The shape of that guy’s helmet is the shape of the CD. It was the only time I ever remember getting a weird shaped CD like that and it worked in almost any CD player. So, I listened to that song a lot showing my friends the weird CD I just got for free at my new job down at the radio station!

I know many people that love the main guy behind this band, Ken Andrews. I’ve talked about him in this blog already. He’s been in a few other bands and has produced a lot of albums. He’s a musician’s musician. There are countless amounts of music heads that will tell you that Fantastic Planet is one of the best albums ever recorded that nobody has heard! Meaning that if given the chance, the masses would have eaten this record up and it would be as big as that President’s Of The United States Of America album that three million people bought and then sold back for two bucks because they realized when the listened to "Lump" and "Peaches" they looked like drooling wieners. Mr. Average Radio Listener would have kept his copy of Fantastic Planet and it would have become a cherished possession. There's a WHOLE other reason that atrocities like that happened, but I'm not even gonna go there right now. I'm talking about good old payola and I'll broach that topic somewhere down the road.

Feeling adventurous? Go listen to three songs from this record. “Saturday Savior,” “The Nurse Who Loved Me” (A song that A Perfect Circle fans should know.), and “Stuck On You” should have you wanting more from Failure. If they don’t then you’re a douche bag. Sorry, but it’s true.

I loved “Telephone” from The Black Angels' last album, Phosphene Dream. I hated the name of that album. I also hate the name Indigo Meadow. Fucking hippie dirtbags.

This is another one of these records that I don’t know what to do with. I like it. As I’m listening to it I think little parts, here and there, are cool. But, I know me, I’m never going to throw this record on and listen to the whole thing for the rest of my life. I’m not in the market for a band that thinks Jefferson Airplane is the shit. I just want to find the good song or songs I can take away from this album. A trophy or a participation badge that says I listened to Indigo Meadow and I although I'm not down with their whole thing, I like this song.  

Music is such a strange gift. Sometimes it’s opening up an Atari 2600 in 1980 on Christmas morning, with two games! It’s instant and euphoric. Sometimes it’s like your first beer. It’s awful. But all the cool guys are drinking beer, so you stick with it. Sadly, I don’t see any cool guys listening to The Black Angels right now and I don’t feel like drinking this album 20 times to get it.

This is the biggest conundrum of my 2013 Year Of Music. Some of these new records I’m listening to just suck a monumental amount of dicks, and I’m pissed I wasted my time listening to them. I’m looking at you Dirty Projectors! But then there is something like Indigo Meadow that I feel has some potential, I just don’t have the time to give it to find it.

I’m almost as guilty as those awful singing asshole shows, where douche bags tell nice people they suck and millions of people grow strong on the broken souls of the innocent. You know, American Idol, The Voice et al.

I did like the single “Don’t Play With Guns.” “The Day,” “Evil Things,” and “Always Maybe” were pretty OK, I guess. I think I just liked “Always Maybe,” because I’m Brad Maybe. “I Hear Colors” was kind of fascinating because I saw sound a couple of times while using LSD. It’s not quite the same thing, but I get it. Fucking hippies.

Tomorrow is "What The Fuck Happened To You" Day! I will listen to Bush Sixteen Stone, Lenny Kravitz Mama Said and the new turd The Strokes just dropped. 

Check out my second month of 90's music April Playlist!

1.5.13

On January 5^th I listened to The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones, The Cure Three Imaginary Boys and Tame Impala Lonerism.

I watched Crossfire Hurricane, the new Stones documentary, right before the holidays and was still high on the band when I threw on their self-titled debut. For the most part it’s all cover songs with one jam written by Mick and Keith. 

I guess some of the covers are kinda cool, but Depeche Mode’s cover of “Route 66” is better. The blues tracks they cover don’t have the howl and passion of the early Beatles cover band days and I doubt I’ll ever listen to this album again.  Did I just dismiss The Rolling Stones introduction to the world?

The song Mick and Keith wrote, “Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)” definitely shows the potential for what The Stones were to become, but it’s really simple and has that right-before-the-60s-got-cool twang. If I take one track away from this album, this is it. I also liked "Little By Little" and "The King Bee." 

Right after “Tell Me” they romp into Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get A Witness” and from the intro I swear to Christ I thought Mick was going to start singing “Ooo wah, ooo wah, cool cool kitty. Tell us about the boy from New York City.” It’s a rather unfortunate arrangement, but not too far from Gaye’s version.

Having watched Crossfire Hurricane I can’t wait to dive into the rest of the band’s discography throughout this year of music. It seemed to me that the band really was shaped by the environment they were born into and they turned the adversities they faced into an endless string of anthems.

I don’t get England and all their “compilation” releases. Here in the states, we do the Greatest Hits thing, but over there, especially back in the day, they really fucked ya with all their different bullshit repackaged releases. I just spent 30 minutes on Wikipedia trying to figure out The Cure’s true discography. It’s a fucking nightmare.

Boys Don’t Cry was the American version of this album but five songs were different.  And then they have like three or four other compilation releases that came out from 1980 to 1986, plus five proper albums and I’m realizing right now why I wasn’t a Cure super fan. It was exhausting! I’m pretty sure the first thing I owned from the band was Standing On A Beach. Which I always thought was called Standing On A Beach, Staring At The Sea. But that’s not the case. I’m so confused.

But, Three Imaginary Boys is The Cure’s debut album released in 1979! I was eight!

I’m pissed I never listened to Three Imaginary Boys before. I’m pretty sure I have never even seen the album cover until I listened to the album. The only real hit on the disc is “10:15 Saturday Night,” but I definitely found some forgotten gems here. Their cover of “Foxy Lady” is a novelty, but tracks like “Grinding Halt,” “Object,” and “It’s Not You” gave birth to The Cure “sound.” If I was more of a rock journalist I could describe that sound, but all I can think of is “tiny toy Rock,” which I think I whipped up while looking at the album cover. (I’m really an idiot.)

Tame Impala are Australian and it’s one of those one guy deals. Kevin Parker basically is the band, I guess. I liked their debut, 2010’s Innerspeaker. It really has a Beatles psychedelic era sound to it. Songwriting wasn’t as strong, but the sound was there. When they put out Lonerism last year, I listened to it right away and it’s more of the same stuff.

The first track starts off super annoying, then nicely makes its statement, but annoying. I would say they should punch their producer in the dick for letting them start off with such a grating track, but Parker produced the thing himself. Figures.

Who’s that fucking guy everybody loves? They call him the musician’s musician. Was in and produced a million bands. Ken Andrews! I refused to Google it. Andrews was in Failure, ON and Year Of The Rabbit, plus he produced stuff from NIN, A Perfect Circle, Pete Yorn and more. Guy’s a genius. The problem is, unless you’re a musichead, you don't know who he is. I would put Kevin Parker’s work with Tame Impala in the same ballpark. (That's me not looking at the camera in a picture with Ken after a Year Of The Rabbit gig.)

“Apocalypse Dream,” from Lonerism, is right out of the Ken Andrew’s offensive playbook with an enormous lush and layered sound. But, Tame Impala add a more distorted chaos to an otherwise squeaky clean mix. (I have publicly bashed rock critics for writing sentences like that one… and here I am.)

The only problem with a record like this is that you can’t connect with it on one listen. It takes some time. Give it a chance if you can.

I dunno, maybe.