TRL, Where Are You Now?

So it seems that all the critics calling Animal Collective's new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, their 'pop' album may be on to something. Their music is typically a secret pleasure in my house as some of the sounds they make don't always go down easy with the others who live here. One night there was an actual meltdown due to the incessant noise and high pitched squeaking of "Spirit They've Vanished." Let me assure you it wasn't pretty. Another time I was listening to the Panda Bear cd Person Pitch and Sebastian had a freakout, screaming and crying and begging me to turn it off. I don't even know what song was playing but my days of finding that a peaceful listen were over. Somehow, the gorgeous melodies and fascinating noises that I heard were like serrated daggers into the brains and spines of my housemates. Their albums have certainly been getting more and more "listener friendly" with each release and some have claimed that this new cd will finally launch them into the larger spotlight of public attention. While I find it hard to believe that songs as odd as "Lion in a Coma" or as dreamy as "Bluish" could catapult them to stardom, I've been wrong before and could easily be again. Tonight as I listened to Merriweather with the boys, there were no tears, no complaints, no repeated, panicky requests to turn it off. "Who is this?" Sebastian asked during "Guys Eyes." "Animal Collective" I told him and he merrily went back to drawing. Later, final track and colossal mindblower "Brother Sport" came on and he asked again who we were listening to. I told him again to which he replied, "This is the first album of theirs I've liked all the way through. I like every song." As the music blared through the house, I smiled. Dorian then shouted "Yeah! I like every song too!" Watch your back, Lady GaGa.

Open Up Your Throat

Years ago, when I lived in Baltimore, I worked with a woman who was taking a year off between high school and college. I was working in the AV department of a college library where the summers are typically dreadfully slow, except when the horrid Montessori student teachers would descend on us for their multi-week training session. It was great having her around because she was pretty out of the loop when it came to pop culture so I got to introduce her to masterpieces like the final episode of Freaks and Geeks and this insanely bizarre collection of Survival Research Labs videos that we had in our collection. She repaid this cultural education by telling me interesting stories about going to a Waldorf school where they banned tvs and did knitting as part of their course work. Coming from my media-saturated suburban upbringing, this was a world I never knew existed and I love hearing about it.

Our conversations eventually turned to music and she told me about her brother who went by the name Panda Bear and recorded odd, experimental music that she respected but didn't really get. There was a local bookstore which featured avant garde musicians every once in a while and one night her brother and some friends put on a show there that got them banned from the performance space for good. Something involving fake blood and/or chicken feathers leading to a horrible mess in the bathroom. At the time, I was obsessed with experimental music and I wanted to know more about this guy but she soon left for college in Vermont, he went back to Brooklyn and I went back to managing boring student workers and helping the jocks fulfill their Spanish video requirements.

Years later I met up with her again and by this time, her brother's group Animal Collective was starting to get a bunch of good press and become a pretty big deal in some music circles. Sung Tongs and its surprising melodicism had brought them a whole new audience. She gave me a copy of Feels saying that she still didn't fully understand where it all came from but it was her favorite so far. I found, and still find, this fascinating. To have a sibling who you are close with but who creates music that puzzles you and causes you to wonder, at some level, who is this person? By making this music, it allowed her to see a part of her brother she was not privy to otherwise. Listening to songs someone wrote is always a way of peeking into that person's soul but to have such a close realtionship with the author adds a whole other level that intrigues me as you are no longer simply a passive observer but someone with a more intimate knowledge of the creator which colors the whole experience.

Listening to their albums, I can only imagine what it must be like for her to hear this musicas it is so personal and mysterious and emotional and unlike anything else out there. Animal Collective just released their latest album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and it's stunning and brilliant and makes me love them even more. So who are these guys making these insane albums full of whimisical madness and crushing joy? They seem perfectly normal in interviews but they certainly have touched on something otherworldly and ethereal. Animal Collective's songs are strangely timeless and timelessly strange and right now they are one of my favorite things in this world.

Brother Sport.mp3 - Animal Collective

What a Bunch of Swell Guys

I thought it might be helpful to explain the somewhat odd last option on this week's poll. It's from a Fugazi show at Fort Reno where they stopped to admonish some overly testosterone fueled meatheads in the middle of their set. It's one thing to yell at your audience to calm down and it's quite another to call them out for eating ice cream earlier in the day. "You eat ice cream, everybody knows it." I'm pretty sure this clip is from a show that Listmaker and I attended. We found it hilarious then and I still love it today. Here's the (unsafe for work) audio of the scene from the wonderful documentary "Instrument" with stills from said film. I miss Fugazi.

Blow Your Harmonica, Son

Next week Jimbama and I get to go to the glorious Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom on the NH coast to see Zappa Plays Zappa for the second summer in a row. Last year they tore the place up. The crowd was full of old school Frank fans who looked exactly as you'd imagine a group of 60s burnouts living near the NH coast would look. Lots of long moustaches, grizzled faces and a bevy of tattooed ladies. They went absolutely insane for the entirety of the show, similar to the San Quentin inmates, and hooted and hollered long after the encore. Dweezil commented on how crazy we all were and promised to be back next year. He seemed genuinely surprised at the hardcore superfans filling the place but Frank Zappa freaks are nothing if not obsessive.

So they're returning to the same venue with a whole new set of songs from throughout Frank's long and storied career. Nothing will excite me as much as their mindblowing version of "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" from last year's show but I'm giddy with anticipation anyhow. Here's a wild clip from Frank's appearance on the Steve Allen show back in 1963 when he was only 22. This is clip 4 of 4 and you can see the others here, here and here but this is really the showpiece - Frank conducts Steve and his orchestra in a improvisatory noise piece centering around 2 bicycles. I can't believe they spent so much time on this segment (all 4 parts total over 16 minutes) and allowed such cacophonous experimentation on a popular show. Teevee sure was different back then.



Here is a clip of Frank's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which has yet to set things right and induct Rush) in 1994 shortly after his death. It begins with a fun montage of his music and philosophies and then moves on to a typically bored speech by Lou Reed, professional creepshow, and a bizarre but strangely moving award acceptance by Moon Unit.

Rat-a-tat-tat

As far as instrumental bands go, Ratatat is one of my favorites. Mothra's too, I suspect. What's not to like? Crunchy guitar riffs, awesome programmed beats and heavenly synth lines form a holy union to rock your pants right off.

Their first album kicked off with the absolutely perfect "Seventeen Years" and didn't let up from there. The first time I heard that song switch from electro-funk to a soft bed of ethereal genius halfway through, I was hooked. My son also fell hard for them and this cd is probably high on the most listened to albums in our house. 5 years later, the pleasures still haven't dulled.

For their second album Classics the duo stuck to the formula and produced another magical masterpiece. As they themselves said, highlighting the nearly Xerox-like qualities of the new batch of songs, Classics sounds like the first lp played backwards. Good enough for me. Plus there's a bad ass wildcat on the cover. Rowr!

LP3 is due out in July and they just posted the first video on YouTube. The song seems more electronic based than the earlier guitar heavy tunes but it's still got those slinky, intertwining lines and booty rockin beats. This one's for all the Predator fans out there, you know who you are.

No Self Respecting Indie Rocker Wears New Balance

It's Polvo week here at the Battle for the Earth. After a long, long hiatus, the band has renewed it's commitment to odd tunings and is bringing their unique brand of noise pop back to the aging indie rockers and new musical youth. To me, they are a very important band because along with Sonic Youth, they opened up a world of sounds unlike anything I was bred to listen to. My parents did have the best of Bread on lp but the universe occupied by Polvo was mystifying and magical. They typify the somewhat hermetic world if indie rock in the mid 90s. Polvo was a band who sounded weird, achieved a small group of dedicated followers and never really strove for more, nor were they ever likely to move out of the indie ghetto with songs as willfully obtuse as theirs. They were indie-prog in a way and are probably the cause of my love of King Crimson, Rush and Genesis. My brother Jamie loves them passionately to this day and when I found out they were playing their first show in years at the Black Cat (the club we visited countless times growing up) I got him a few tickets and looked forward to his review. I still wait for the write up on the show but until it shows up in my inbox, let's let him look back at their first ep. Bake it away, toys:

"I love Polvo," writes Jamie, "let's just get that straight off the bat. Not that it
would be hard to discern from what's to follow. I certainly couldn't be called anything like an impartial observer.

Polvo, S/T (1991) - At the time of their existence, Polvo was always lumped into the 90s Chapel Hill scene with its Superchunks and Archers of Loafs, its Small 23s and Ashley Stoves. And while in fact one of the best shows I ever say featured the Archers, Superchunk and Polvo all on the same bill, Polvo always seemed a bit separate to me. I even remember when the Archers’ “vs. The Greatest Of All Time” EP came out, a guy at the college radio station heard a snippet and said “looks like they’ve been listening to a lot of Polvo.” Yes they rocked, but something about their detuned, Asian-inflected sound seemed to put them on a different level. Further, they had a guy named “Ash Bowie” playing guitar – a great name that reflects on Rock history (and the original Bowie’s tendency to be a bit “out there” sometimes) while retaining an element of mystery. But he was the only one who looked the part. The rest of them were just a bunch of kinda-dorky white dudes wearing New Balance sneakers and shorts. It only made the sound coming out of them all the more incongruous and intriguing.

So by the time I had come to fully appreciate Polvo, it was around the time that 1994's "Celebrate The New Dark Age" had come out, full of angular momentum and quasi-eastern bombast. They were polishing their sound, getting tighter and gaining confidence. I don't remember when I even became aware that they had released a double 7" in 1990 or that it had eventually been released on CD, but there it was one day in the store and I had no choice but to buy it. Not that I'm much of a completist - I just don't have the drive to track down every stray crumb that bands tend to drop during their existences and I've never allocated large swaths of money to the pursuit of rarities and imports - but price wasn't an issue and it's likely that the used bins had been a little bit lacking that day. And so Jesus Christ Records #001 made it's way into the collection.

Listening to it in the context of knowing their work, it’s an obvious first album. The influence of shoegaze and MBV/Sonic Youth-style noise is mixed with an appreciation of 60s psychedelia and 70s arena rock. And an absolute lack of anything resembling decent singing. The opener “Can I Ride” showed up in a slightly different version on “Cor-Crane Secret”. The original retains most of the charm and drive of the first but obviously benefited from further refinement. “Leaf” gets derailed by working for a big chorus that just doesn’t go anywhere (I couldn't agree more - ed.). Moving on, the opening segment of “Lull” hints at what’s to come from this band. With it’s swinging, jazzy intro it sounds like something from Exploded Drawing, before kicking into a great riff held underwater by the looping and droning of the second guitar. More hints of the future appear in “Tread on Me” with a staccato opening giving way to loping arpeggios and conversing guitars leading into an aggro chorus/verse concoction followed by an outro that reminds me a lot of Flower (that’s a reference that about 3 people will get). And then there's “Teen Dream” - sung by which band member I have no clue, but whoever it is sounds like a redneck who has done a considerable amount of peyote. The closer, “Snake Fist Fighter” has nothing much to recommend it other than its name, which foreshadows such song titles as “Vibracobra,” “Ox Scapula,” “Stinger (Five Wigs),” and “Enemy Insects.”

In the end, I’m happy to own it as a mile-marker for a band that would go on to do more exciting things shortly thereafter. The songs have some redeeming qualities and obvious hints of promise, much the way cake batter is fun to lick off the spatula (another Chapel Hill band!), but much better after having been baked and covered in a thick layer of icing."

Let the Saxophonist Have Some

Ween has always been a band that makes people scratch their heads. Some hate them virulently, refusing to believe they are anything more than drug addled, juvenile goofballs who create music with the sole purpose of torturing listeners. Others worship them unequivocally, bowing down at the temple of the Boognish. While not quite as far gone as some, I would have to place myself in the second camp. I love Ween. I first found out about them when "Push the Little Daisies" somehow wrestled its way onto the radio. In an era where King Missile received heavy rotation, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised Ween were allowed on the airwaves too. My college roommate Jimbama later won me over completely when he introduced Chocolate & Cheese to my life. If you can fall in love with "Mr. Would You Please Help My Pony?" you are well on the path to becoming a Ween obsessive.
One thing about this band is that they consistently mystify me and the rest of their fans. They put out an album titled, 12 Golden Country Greats which seemed like a put on but was actually a compilation of country tunes. The fact that there were only 10 songs on the album just intensified the head scratching.
They have Motorhead homages like "It's Gonna be a Long Night" rub up against soft rock gems such as "I Don't Want It" and seem to think there's nothing odd about that. They used the photo to the left as a press photo. With Ween it seems like everything is thrown into a pile and it's up to the listener to sort it out. Good luck to all those willing to try.
For their latest opus, La Cucaracha, they have written a full-fledged Euro-disco club song titled "Friends." But the strangest thing about the song is that it's not even the most confusing inclusion on the album. That honor belongs to the final track, "Your Party." Months after getting the album and listening to it over and over, I still don't know what to make of the song. That's probably the complaint I hear most about Dean and Gene: Are they for real? Are they joking? Is this all some giant prank or do they take this stuff seriously? Honestly, I have no idea and that may be the point but it still doesn't help me make sense of this song. If you have not heard it, please take a listen here.
If you weren't able to tell by the perfect tone of that saxophone, that David Sanborn honking away on this track. David Sanborn! Smooth jazz master. So what's the deal here? Is this a straight faced recording? I find it hard to believe it's simply a joke because I'm sure it cost a bit to get such a marvelous guest star plus who would ask someone to join their album just to hold them up for ridicule? But who actually listens to David Sanborn anyway and do any of them possibly overlap with the demented circle of Ween fanatics? Ween seem to be voracious music addicts but smooth jazz? Everyone has their limits but I have yet to find where Ween's are. If this song is a goof, it's a wonderfully produced and lovingly crafted goof but something about it stinks of sincerity. I'm still unsure of the inspiration and intention of "Your Party" but it doesn't matter. Fans of the band are used to this kind of high weirdness and go along with each strange detour. I love the world Ween live in, one where Sade fans and paint huffers can unite as one, strapping on their jammy pacs and grooving the the sweet sweet sounds of the alto sax.

The Greatests of All Time

Recently, I was at a Neko Case/Eric Bachmann show and ran into some coworkers who were there to see Neko but didn't know anything about Eric Bachmann. I told them he was one of my favorite musicians ever if not my favorite and they said, "Really?" having never heard of him or his music. "Who are your other favorites?" they wondered. I thought for a second or two but couldn't come up with any answers. "What about Rush?" Mothra piped up. Nice guess, this was right after I professed my love for their song "Subdivisions" on this very blog after all, but not quite right. I continued to ponder this question for weeks and am determined to come up with an answer tonight.

First off, I want to set up a few criteria for this query. My goal here is to find out what artists I consider to be the most awesome over the course of their entire careers. The winners need to be unfailingly consistent, at least according to my specific tastes. I also believe that to be one of favorites I need to own everything they've ever released. Or mostly everything. I'm no completist so this condition applies to properly released albums and possibly e.p.s, not necessarily live albums, 7"s or lunchboxes. Let's first look at some almost-rans and the reasons for their losses and then we'll move on the the winners.

Burnouts and Fade Aways

This category is for those bands that started off with a string of amazing albums only to later stumble, falter and dissolve. For me, this includes Black Sabbath, whose initial five album run is consistently incredible but the plot gets lost shortly thereafter, and the Ramones, who were solid for a while and then got a bit bored and boring although there are hints of brilliance throughout their career. Bob Dylan and R.E.M. both started with a decade of wonderfulness but Dylan's later dabblings are pretty hit or miss while R.E.M. have been an embarrassment now for as long as they were a badge of honor for music geeks. A truly depressing flameout that makes me sad every time I think about it.

Late Blooming

Yo La Tengo is the perfect example of the late blooming band. Their first albums are pleasant alright, but nothing too spectacular. From Painful on, they have been one of the few bands to make extremely long albums worth listening to from start to finish. Tom Waits, at least for me, is also a late bloomer. His early drunk troubador albums have a charm but do very little for me on the whole. After his shift to the crazy junk man howler of the post-Swordfishtrombones era, I find his albums to be consistently mindblowing and exhilarating. I also banish the Beatles into this category. Their skiffle band days are fun but nothing compared to their second half that puts all other bands to shame.

Spotty at Best

Many bands have incredible highs that rise above most others but they are often coupled with crushing lows preventing them from creating a legacy of untouched greatness. As Mothra so rightly pointed out, Rush's best moments are some of my favorites in all music but their lows are so depressing (some would say they've made a career solely out of horrifying missteps) that they nearly obliterate the good feelings I have towards them. Joan Jett, Led Zeppelin, Guided by Voices and Frank Zappa all created songs that never fail to knock me out but they all have some moments that are best ignored. Some have a few and some have many and some have songs like "The Crunge."

The Final Reveal

Some bands are too new (at least to my world) for me to properly judge but Liars, The New Pornographers, The Shins and M. Ward have all put out entire discographies that I find nearly flawless. So here, in somewhat ascending order, are my top 12 most awesomest favorite bands of all time who also have nearly dud-free histories: Belle and Sebastian, Fugazi, The Smiths, Sonic Youth, The Magnetic Fields, Modest Mouse, Pavement, The White Stripes, Ween, Wilco, and Pixies. And number one is Eric Bachmann in every form he's ever taken: Archers of Loaf, Barry Black, Crooked Fingers and under his own name. For whatever reason, I'm a sucker for every album he's ever created and every song he's ever written. He played about 45 minutes at the concert but I was clamoring for at least 4 more hours. I still don't know why he's not more well known after slugging it out in the music biz for years and years but I guess even Stravinsky wasn't overly popular in his day so what do people know?