Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Ian Love - S/T



Ian Love - ST
(2006 - Limekiln Records)

You may not know is name but Ian Love has been on the NYC music scene for quite a while. He's been in hardore bands and emo bands and toured Europe a few times and been addicted to heroin and essentially lived a colorful and storied life. With his first solo effort however he shows himself as a family man who has finally settled into a life worth holding on to.
Being in a band is great. Being in several bands is also great. Trouble is that musically you can never really know much about youself until you sit down alone and at home with the recodring device of your choice to see what comes out. That's what love has done here, writing and recording these ten songs in the private company of his wife and daughter. He understands how many times he's almost thrown his life away to hard living. These songs mean to bury that old life for good and show the greatfulness he has to still be around for the life of a family man.
But what does it sound like? For one thing it doesn't sound for one second like it was recorded at home. The sound quality is crisp and clean. Love's gentle, family man vocals intimately glide across a tasteful blend of acoustic guitar, piano, mellotron and whatever else he decides to embellish with. When I say gentle vocals I don't mean weary, dour and self-indulgent. I mean a gentle with a spark of excitement, kind of like he's singing these songs directly to his daughter. Musically he keeps things well clear of of folkiness favoring straightforewaryd melodies with subtle and occasionally intricate embellishments.
This is not a perfect album. It's not intended to be. It is in fact a personal act of catharsis embracing beauty along with the blemishes. Love has come through a period of searching and self-destruction to find himself safe, happy and in love. Those previous life experiences are recounted along the way and incorperated into the albums overall theme of joy to have finally found a life worth living.

Monday, April 24, 2006

What’s the world coming to, when a man can’t mutilate the genitals of another man in the privacy of his own home.

By Philmore McSnaggin

Some people might call me crazy, even old-fashioned, but I thought I was living in the United States of America. Am I right? I just read in the Citizen-Times that two local men were arrested for nothing more than cutting the penis off of other men. I'm sorry folks, but that's not the America I grew up in.

There use to be a time when one man could be another man's man-whore in the privacy of their home and that was okay. I remember the days when you could have gerbil spelunking nights and gag-ball tea parties and that was just fine and tootin'. I grew up with the typical barnyard antics, if you know what I mean, and my neighbors nary raised an eye. What happened to those days? Now a man goes to jail simply for mutilating the genitals and penis of another man? Outrageous! I guess if I dressed another man in leather, kept him in a cage and fed him only raw meat I'd be thrown in jail for that too?

Well folks, the terrorists have won. I was told 9/11 changed everything, but I didn't think it mean that I couldn't castrate a man in my kitchen with a Henkle without fear of prison time. For shame, America, for shame. Tonight, my man-whore and I will shed a tear in the dungeon before I start spanking him with a mounted squirrel ... in the privacy of my own house.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Westside Daredevils - Twilight Children



Westside Daredevils - Twilight Children
(2006, Self Released)

Knoxville's Westside Daredevils want to be your new favorite bubblegum-pop band. They've got alot going for them too; they've got three part vocal harmonies, melodious guitaristry and enough knowledge about how to put a song together to fill several books. They can indeed build a song. They can put all the parts in the right places and execute them flawlessly. Real fancy stuff too with all the frills and fun. The only problem is that is does feel like these songs have been constructed out of tried and true parts instead of being written to express a point of view.
When I say these boys know all the tricks, I mean, DAMN! If there were an MIT class about writing pop music then Brett Cassidy, Jeff Caudill and Gray Comber would be teaching it. They've got it down to a science. The problem is that the proceedings feel acedemic rather than resonant. After listening to their second album, Twilight Children, three times I couldn't readily recall a single song on it. I remembered thinking, "This reminds me of The Young Fresh Fellows or The Gin Blossoms."but couldn't really remember why. It just didn't stick with me.
Something of that may have to do with the impeccable clenliness of the album. The production is so clean as to be completely steril. Even the frequent distortion and occasional dissonance are squeeky clean, radio ready and pruned of the rough edges that would make them stand out.
Westside Daredevils have alot going on, good pop songs by excellent musicians.However there's no real identity. Twilight Children comes across like bar-bq chicken eaten with a knife and fork. The ingredients and flavor are there but it would be more satisfying if it were more messy.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Wes McDonald - 1:50 In The Furnace



Wes McDonald - 1:50 In The Furnace
(2006, Skybucket Records)

Wes McDonald is a man refreshingly in tune with his own sensibilities. He's had plenty of time to find his voice with three long-playing releases already under his belt. The songs on his new album 1:50 In The Furnace come across as impulsive, confident and natural, attempting to please no one but their creator. The results are enjoyably worthwhile only with a few missteps.
A couple decades ago Wes McDonald would've been a collage radio king. He'd be in heavy rotation on 120 Minutes and be a darling chick in a nest weaved by Paul Westerberg, Bob Mould and Michael Stipe. Although he seems to be lumped in with the Americana crowd these days , 1:50 In The Furnace is in fact just good old twangly jangly alternative rock from way back when it was still hip and novel to be labeled "Alternative". Listen to "Day One" and try to tell me I'm wrong.
"I Would Never" is an odd choice as a first track although it IS in tune with the individualistic, curve-ball nature of the album. However, it neither sets the stage nor launches you into the rowdy rawkus. It's a decent song, but it's place in the album makes it just be kind of...there with no sequential purpose. Things pick up quickly with the jangly rock of "Shot Stered" which springboards into the shining kinetic strength of "Chinese Rug".
McDonald's music is what we in the industry call "Badass". Songs meant to be mouthed with head nodding in time to the music and hand firmly clutching the working man's beer of your choice. Blue collar indie rock if you will. Catchy guitar riffs set to body moving beats and memorable vocal melodies delivered with raspy twang, damn good stuff.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Lylas - Lessons For Lovers



Lylas - Lessons For Lovers
(2006 - Ficticious Records)

Another exanple of an album coming out at just the right time of year. The days are longer. The sun is warmer. The evenings of hammocks, front porches and block parties are just beginning. In this lithe atmosphere, brimming with frivolity, the festively baroque chamber-pop stylings of Nasheville's Lylas seem as natural as the emerging greenery.
Referring to their first full-length release as unobtrusively pleasurable may seem condescending but it's not meant to be. Most of the songs on Lessons For Lovers jauntily drift by like a spring breeze and packing 16 tracks into a mere 35 minutes, it never wears out its welcome. Ignoring the frequently tragic nature of the lyrics, Lylas' music bounces by with an entrancing mix of Americana, Old English and 60's English pop stylings.
Delightful as it is as a background piece for those Springtime evenings on the porch, Lessons For Lovers also offers much to the attentive listener. Thoughtfully intricate arrangements showcase delicate melodies born of a plethora of various instrumentation. The results are memorable melodies, beautiful musical twists and at least two pop masterpieces; "His Master's Merriment" and "Years and Years".
Lylas seems like a band with alot of spark and hopefully long life. The constant associations with the likes of Donovan, Belle and Sebastian, The Kinks, The Clientele and The Ladybug Transistor are 100% warrented. Their music is very familiar and easily peggable but at least they're making an effort to bring something of their own to the table. It's not likely to bowl you over from the offset but there's alot of fragile beauty on Lessons For Lovers. Another nice addition to the New Nasheville rennaisance.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Listing Ship - Time to Dream



Listing Ship - Time to Dream
(2006 - True Classical CD's)

The first thing that I couldn't believe about Listing Ship was that they come from LA. They may possibly be part of a larger punkish, avant-folk-pop scene but I haven't heard sounds like these coming from that particular city in many a year. The second thing I couldn't believe was the discovery that Mike Watt plays bass on most of the album. If nobody told you, you'd never know. The third thing I couldn't believe was that this is their fourth album and yet I'd never heard of them. The internet, music journalists and even my friends in Southern Calli had failed to bring such a wonderful band to my attention.
Listing Ship is fronted by dual songwriters Lyman Chaffee and Heather Lockie and backed by an assemblage of friends and colleagues. Lockie's sprightly vocals carry an exquisitely sweet melodiousness. Sounding at times girlishly naive. Chaffee, by contrast, croons in a soothingly dour baritone comprable. Contrast, by the way, is the very heart of Listing Ship. True to the album's title, the songs of Time to Dream ebb and flow across the American subconscious in a dreamlike haze. With very few uninspired moments Chaffee and Lockie treat the listener to fractured fairy tales, laments, upbeat girly pop, odes, bluegrass ditties and French minstrel revues.
Theres more than a bit of cheekiness present on Time to Dream which thankfully remains innocent and steers well clear of the trappings of ironic posturing. Glancing at song titles like "The Temptation of Miss Piggy" and "Baise Ca" (French for "Fuck That") you know you're in the hands of musicians who are as fun and irreverent as they are serious and proficient. The occasional dashes of pretense seem to deprecate themselves on the spot.
As backing musicians Lockie and Julie Carpenter (Listing Ship's violinist) have performed string arrangements for everone from Lydia Lunch to Brian Wilson to Dave Pajo to Sparklehorse to Arthur Lee of the band Love. Listing Ship seems to smirk at its own pedigree however. Sure they're fantastic musicians with deep respect for American musical traditions but that doesn't mean they can't let their silliness come out occasionally.