Bill Callahan - Rough Travel for a Rare Thing

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No one listens to a Bill Callahan album expecting to be cheered up. The singer's best songs carry with them a sense of desolation and loneliness that is impossible to miss, even if these dark overtones are sometimes offset with dry humor, a resigned shrug or hints of stubborn determination. Throw in arrangements that could squeeze an emotional response out of anyone with a pulse, along with the singer's wobbly baritone, and you've got the makings for some of the most introspective and altogether moving songs in modern indie.

It's fitting, then, that the live Rough Travel for a Rare Thing showcases Callahan's unique ability to create primarily somber music without becoming melodramatic. Taken from a November 2007 performance in Melbourne, its songs are precisely arranged, with Callahan on guitar accompanied by a trio of fiddles, bass, harmonica and drums. This isn't to say that all 11 songs are wrist-slashing weepers - they aren't, as "Diamond Dancer," "Held," "The Well" and "Bathysphere" inject some volume and speed into this show - but it's the mostly solemn tracks that stay lodged in the brain long after the record has ended. With Callahan's world-weary voice and the backing band's frequent touches of strings and other instrumentation, there is an almost unbearable sadness to the live renditions of these songs, especially in the familial histories/tragedies of "Rock Bottom Riser" and "Bowery," the introspection of the mortality-tinged "Say Valley Maker" and the mournful distance of traditional song "In the Pines."

The show's lack of frills suits Callahan's style well; the songs are performed in an understated manner with a sincerity and conviction that emphasize each song's content and composition. There are also a few fever-pitch moments that probably left the Aussie crowd floored, most noticeably Callahan's howls on "The Well" and "Cold-Blooded Old Times" and the rising strings that punctuate "Let Me See the Colts" and "Bowery." It's an outstanding show to represent the artist's first officially released live album, with each song performed uniquely enough to distinguish it from its album counterpart; old standby "Cold-Blooded Old Times" in particular is a highlight, slowed down to a near crawl and featuring alternate lyrics and off-center phrasing, especially on the classic line "How can I stand/ And laugh with the man/ Who redefined your body?."

Rough Travel likewise hits all the main checklist points any legitimate live album should. It consists of a single show instead of a couple dozen tracks culled from various concerts, which is preferable to this reviewer at least. Its sound quality surpasses most of the Callahan shows that circulate unofficially; unlike many of the American shows that make the rounds, there is no idiotic audience chatter to fill those uncomfortable silences between songs or, you know, those distracting minutes where the band is actually playing. The record is also fairly representative of both the musician's Smog and solo careers up to 2007, with tracks from five different albums and one EP included.

Some fans will argue that one of Callahan's more recent 2009 shows - which mixed tracks from Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle with other songs from the singer's 20-plus year career - should have been considered for Rough Travel, and they'd have a point. Still, any quibbles are minor. For the most part Rough Travel is a live album done right and again confirms why Bill Callahan's work is consistently just so damn good: like the artist's best studio efforts, this live document offers the types of subtle melodies and poetic lyricism that few indie musicians can come close to matching.

Rough Travel may leave listeners feeling a little bit morose, but that's to be expected with Callahan's songs. Quite simply, this album is the next best thing to actually seeing Callahan live in concert.

Film Dunce: Napoleon Dynamite

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I'm not sure it's exactly a compliment being asked to contribute to this particular feature. I can only imagine the conversation that took place when this site's editors were considering writers for it:

Editor-in-Chief: "So which writer doesn't know shit about movies?"

Assistant editors (in unison): "Eric!"

If that's how it went down, there wouldn't be any objections from me. The list of "key" films I've never seen is frighteningly long. How long? Let's just say it wasn't difficult to find worthy candidates to write about.

I chose Napoleon Dynamite for a few reasons. As an Elvis Costello fan I wanted to know if it somehow related to Blood and Chocolate. It's been in the shrink wrap since it was given to me a few years ago and I wanted to finally figure out just what the fuck Vote for Pedro means. T-shirts with that phrase were everywhere in the middle part of this decade, usually worn by socially awkward types sporting self-satisfied smirks and who undoubtedly had a hard time getting laid.

So what does a film dunce like myself think of this movie? Not much, really. For all the catchphrases and annoying assholes who still impersonate Jon Heder's title character that the movie spawned, it is mildly amusing at best and satirical to a fault at worst. I will grant that the casting is excellent and the actors play their respective roles convincingly; in addition, these characters - or the inflated and exaggerated caricatures they represent - are quirky enough to give the movie some much needed charm. Heder rightly received praise for his depiction of the liger-drawing, tater-tot, um, toting and well-meaning Napoleon, but the supporting cast deserves mention for giving this movie a bit of additional color and personality.

But beyond that, the film's shtick gets old rather quickly and its humor is sometimes of the most basic and predictable kind; maybe this stuff was funny in 2004, but hell, in just six years' time it hasn't exactly aged like fine wine. Indeed, how many site gags and one-word exclamations does one movie really need? "But there are some great one-liners!" I can hear various fans of the movie screaming right now. True, but all those witticisms that for some reason remain a staple of drunken conversations are mostly buried among a shitpile of banal and clichéd humor. To wit: a crotch-zapping time machine, the occasional bicycle pratfall, an excruciatingly lengthy solo dance sequence, bad wigs and even worse haircuts and various physical abnormalities (slack jaws, slow speech, the reaction times of a sea mollusk) that suggest every character descended from the same branch of the Hapsburgs' family tree are what pass for comedy. These might be worth a chuckle or two, but in general the movie's sense of humor doesn't make me regret waiting five years to watch it.

Napoleon Dynamite also fails in walking that fine line between satire and pastiche. At its core the movie is about friendship. It also examines what it's like to be an outsider, particularly in those formative high school years, but its various character types - the cyber-obsessed weirdo, the pervert uncle dreaming of his glory days and concocting idiotic get-rich-quick schemes, the jocks, the cheerleader queen of the school, the rabble of geeks, human punching bags and other undesirables - are so over-exaggerated as to make them both inaccessible and unbelievable. Clearly much of the film hinges on this premise, but all too often it's impossible to care about Napoleon, Pedro and Deb because they don't even seem remotely human. Such lack of realistic characters might make for easy comedy, but it does little to make these various types seem like anything other than freak show specimens.

Though it may be too harsh to dismiss Napoleon Dynamite as a formulaic high school flick masquerading as something more complex and unconventional, ultimately the movie's left-of-center veneer is a smokescreen. Folks love a happy ending, and this movie has that in spades: the slow-witted Pedro wins the school presidential election, while Napoleon and Deb become tetherball buddies. Yet by the movie's conclusion I'd lost interest in these characters, thanks to the film's overblown and implausible brand of satire. The sporadic laughs the movie induces are simply too infrequent to hide its flaws, regardless of what those faithful Vote for Pedro t-shirt wearers will still contend.

"Family Happiness" from The Coroner's Gambit (2000)

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"Family Happiness" is a road song from a lyricist who has written his share of such gravel-on-wheels numbers, only this time the road is paved with suspicion, paranoia and imminent violence. Although the long-gestating The Coroner's Gambit represented a subtle step toward the polish and high fidelity of 2002 masterpiece Tallahassee - a handful of songs were actually recorded in a studio and included strings, electric guitar and other instrumentation - "Family Happiness" mostly follows the sparse musical blueprint Darnielle has relied on throughout much of his career. Built around a pounding acoustic guitar and the singer's manic-pace vocals, the track showcases Darnielle at his most lyrically biting and observant.

It is perhaps the darkest song on an album defined by an overt sense of fatalism and a fixation with death. A concept album of sorts loosely held together by an overarching biblical storyline, Gambit presents the listener with a series of lives on the skids and "Family Happiness" undeniably fits within the album's overall tone. Driving in the dead of night somewhere along the Canadian border, its narrator comes across as wild-eyed and several degrees beyond pissed off. The song unfolds like an ugly examination of a relationship in complete shambles, accompanied by the types of subtle narrative details that make Darnielle's music so compelling: a passenger incomprehensibly mouthing Tolstoy into a recorder, "innumerable evergreens," a few impotent pot-shots that won't make a damn bit of difference in the long run ("I mouth my silent curses at you"), the type of resignation that should feel melodramatic but somehow works ("I hope the stars don't even come out tonight/ I hope we freeze to death.")

"Family Happiness" is equally notable for the details it leaves out, a quality that has always separated Darnielle's story-songs from those written by less talented lyricists. We never find out who the narrator is or who he's doing battle with - hell, maybe it's himself - nor do we know exactly how this drive will end. Darnielle's intense vocals on the line "do what you brought me out here for" are impossible to miss though, and it's clear this rotten Canadian trek sure as hell won't end well for at least one person. In an album littered with songs about loneliness and desolation, "Family Happiness" ranks as The Coroner's Gambit's most jarring and memorable track.

Titus Andronicus: The Monitor

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Listening to The Monitor is like being shoved face-first into a musical blender, with large chunks of punk colliding with smaller fragments of horns, barroom piano, bombastic arena-ready group sing-alongs, strings, harmonicas and bagpipes. Whatever ambitious starting points its songs might have - Titus Andronicus frontman/howler Patrick Stickles describes the band's newest album as "sort of" a concept album about the Civil War - listeners shouldn't expect a song cycle about soldiers dying for nebulous causes or even South Carolinian thug Preston Brooks beating the abolitionist tar out of Charles Sumner. And that's for the best: The Monitor feels like a perfectly contemporary album that will remain relevant years from now. It is also, to borrow a term used on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, pretty fucking amazing.

To be fair, there are scattered Civil War references throughout the 65-minute album. Several songs begin or end with musicians reciting quotes from famous dead politicians and writers immortalized in very large and professorially serious volumes about the war; the cover art, album title and 14-minute closing track "The Battle of Hampton Roads" invoke the famous ironclad; lyrics speak of "blue trampling over gray," the "terrible swift sword," white flags, gurneys, stretchers, ships heading back into port and other implements of war. Hell, opening track "A More Perfect Union" manages to incorporate parts of at least three different 19th century wartime tunes. But there are also mentions of various things Jersey - the Newark Bears, Fung Wah Bus, Garden State Parkway and a nihilistic Springsteen revision of "tramps like us/ Baby we were born to die" - as well as clever lyrical borrowings of Elvis Costello, the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan ("I'm going back to New Jersey/ I do believe they've had enough of me"). Simply put, The Monitor might be inspired by America's bloodiest war, but its concerns are of the present time.

Throughout their debut The Airing of Grievances, Stickles raged like a sane man locked up in the basement of Ancora State Hospital. On The Monitor, his vocals are placed much higher in the mix, giving these songs the type of vocal clarity that was sometimes missing from Airing's murkier mix, without sacrificing any sense of urgency. There's still a ton of yelling and spitting - particularly in the revenge fantasy of "Richard II" and the vitriolic screed that punctuates "The Battle of Hampton Roads" - but there is also a range to Stickles' voice that the songs on Grievances only hinted at. He'll never be mistaken for a smooth crooner, but Stickles actually has an expressive, evocative voice, particularly on the slow-burn openings of "Four Score and Seven" and "To Old Friends and New." The songs' arrangements are likewise sprawling, whether it's in the two-minute claustrophobic outburst of "Titus Andronicus Forever," the sodden, sloppy honky-tonk of the appropriately boozy "Theme From 'Cheers,'" the rolling keyboards of "A Pot in Which to Piss," or the nearly-symphonic horns of "Four Score and Seven." Few albums have managed to incorporate so many different musical ideas this well; despite their lofty intentions, none of these songs ever sound bloated.

The Monitor plays like a pocket guide to existentialism without ever falling into the type of self-pity that makes emo so unbearable or the proselytizing that makes your garden variety punk band so exhausting. Coupled with the songs' furious arrangements, these sentiments are often cathartic as hell. There's death, frustration, rage - plenty of rage - thoughts of revenge ("There's only one dream that I keep close/ And it's the one of my hand at your throat") and a palpable anger that someone's been royally screwed over and isn't exactly happy with it. It's the same familiar territory as Grievances, but with a more finely-honed edge. A clear line is drawn in the sand; "it's still us against them/ And they're winning" Stickles screams at one point, repeating the line for anyone too attention-deficient to catch it the first or second time.

As on Grievances, there are also frequent bouts of self-loathing, small-town boredom, and sexual frustration - "a hand and a napkin/ When I'm looking for sex" Stickles laments at one point - which are only temporarily dulled, usually by booze or cigarettes or watching sitcoms in the basement with equally miserable friends. The album's fatalism can sometimes come on a bit thick, with a few clunky lyrics to match, but most of the time it works. Life as depicted on The Monitor may be absurd and pointless, but no one from Titus Andronicus is waving the white flag or ready to let the bastards win just yet. They'd much rather cling to their righteous pissed-off defiance and beat their instruments into submission, even if all they can ultimately do at the endgame is "urinate into the void."

Various Artists: Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox

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The shitty tribute album has long been a staple of the music industry; the fact that the majority of the listening public has no real interest in such travesties hardly deters some labels from spewing out such trash with alarming frequency. Still, a sucker is born every minute, and there will likely always be a few clueless souls jonesing to hear a bluegrass version of "Like a Rolling Stone." Even a cursory internet search makes a compelling argument for the overall uselessness of the tribute album: symphonic versions of classic singles, the dreaded Pickin' On series and third-rate punk bands paying "homage" to their grandfathers appear in distressing numbers (and, not surprisingly, most often at bargain bin prices).

Of course, occasionally a gem sneaks through this grimy garbage. In the span of less than a year, indie fans have been rewarded with two such products. 2009's Dark Was the Night, though not a tribute release in the strictest sense, was perhaps the finest compilation album since No Alternative, with some of indie's leading artists contributing to an effort whose proceeds went to the Red Hot organization. Likewise, Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox includes outstanding tracks from an impressive number of indie musicians united in a worthy cause; namely, to assist the Tall Dwarfs/Enemy/Toy Love leader in his recovery after recently suffering a stroke. Not every song on this two-disc behemoth will appeal to every listener, but taken as a whole it is almost every bit as good as the higher-profile Dark Was the Night.

Stroke's greatest charm is that its cover songs never sound forced or overdone. Even better, most tracks cover both Knox's band and solo work from every possible angle while remaining true to the musician's original versions in both spirit and tone, if not always in execution. Knox's pop sensibilities are represented right out of the gate, with the now-deceased Jay Reatard opening with "Pull Down the Shades" and the Checks turning in a bouncy, infectious take on "Rebel." Knox's lo-fi and experimental leanings are also given proper attention, via Pumice's dissonant spin on "Grand Mal" and Lou Barlow's reimagining of "Song of the Tall Poppy."

There is strength to simplicity, and throughout Stroke, a handful of songs that feature minimal instrumentation and assured vocals are the most memorable. Jeff Mangum's version of the Tall Dwarfs' "Sign the Dotted Line" features nothing more than a guitar and the singer's wonderfully flawed voice; at a shred over two minutes, it's altogether too brief, but it's nice to hear something from Mangum all the same. Peter Gutteridge reduces "Don't Catch Fire" to whispered vocals and funereal keyboards; the effect is chilling. Elsewhere, Bill Callahan strips down "Lapse" to only guitar and occasional hums of fuzz, Sean Donnelly offers an aching redux of "The Outer Skin" and Will Oldham's plaintive stab at "My Only Friend" could turn even the most cold-hearted bastard to mush.

If Stroke confirms anything, it's that Chris Knox's music has influenced a wide variety of musicians whose styles are quite diverse. A large contingent of New Zealand bands like the Chills, Verlaines and the Bats are included and speak to Knox's impact in his home country, certainly, but the number of American artists included here demonstrates how influential Knox's music has been worldwide. There is nary a throwaway among Stroke's 36 songs; the highlights are simply too numerous to mention in this review and it's hard to imagine any indie fan not finding at least a handful or 30 songs to like here. For once, a record label got a tribute album right.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad, by Dan Kennedy

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Much of Dan Kennedy's Rock On: An Office Power Ballad is as tedious and ennui-inducing as the mainstream music acts and corporate culture he lampoons throughout the book. Based on the writer's experiences as an Atlantic Records employee during that label's clusterfuck 2000s, Kennedy certainly had plenty of material from which to base his memoir/200-plus page rambling inner monologue: music industry weasel executives whose wardrobe never advanced past the early '70s but whose self-preservation skills are finely honed; the inherent absurdities of work life as part of a company on the auction block; the mass layoffs that sent both label presidents and lowly grunts cowering under desks as they tried to avoid getting the axe. Yet the book never really manages to say anything more than major labels are prone to the same shenanigans as any other mega-corporation and are primarily focused on pushing image-conscious and blandly generic artists onto the public instead of fostering a musician's artistic growth or providing quality product to the listening public. No shit.

First, a few polite words. The persona Kennedy adopts throughout Rock On - a well-meaning thirtysomething who initially thinks his lifelong obsession with music will be fulfilled when he lands a job in Atlantic's marketing department - is likable. The author brings a modicum of common sense to a frequently bizarre world of major label internal politics, gamesmanship and ass-covering. He doesn't buy into Atlantic's effusive praise of its illustrious artists, nor does he tow the official party line or hold back criticism of the label's outdated sales methods (in print, at least). The book's best moments occur in its latter half - well past the point by which many readers will have lost interest - where Kennedy offers an insider's view of life in a sagging music company whose employees expected to be unceremoniously canned on a daily basis. Kennedy's writing here is both cynical and poignant, exhibiting a flair for dark humor and a keen eye for capturing the company's anxious mood as loyal workers - including Kennedy - were laid off.

Yet Rock On has one significant shortcoming: it's just not that funny, which is an obvious problem for a book whose primary goal is to humorously skewer the music industry. Kennedy's humor is too often of the snarky, smarmy variety favored by a seemingly increasing number of cultural pundits and hack comedians. Moreover, many of Kennedy's witticisms are fairly obvious, beyond stale and grossly repetitive; 200 pages is a lot of paper to waste to simply state that a lot of mainstream acts are lousy and that executives driven more by self-interest than any abiding love of music are hopelessly out of touch with contemporary listeners. The author's first-person writing style quickly becomes rather exhausting and, quite simply, annoying, as Kennedy at times comes across as more neurotic than George Costanza. Readers who aren't fans of inner monologue writing likely won't enjoy this book.

Rock On isn't a total letdown, but it is trite and formulaic, while rarely offering any new insight into corporate culture that can't already be gleaned from Office Space or "The Office." Kennedy gets some points for deftly - and sometimes, comically - depicting what the atmosphere at Atlantic was like when the label began to flatline, but this only accounts for a small portion of the book. It's actually fitting, in a way; Rock On is unintentionally a lot like the mainstream acts Kennedy jabs at throughout his book: there's a decent tune surrounded by a whole lot of filler and banal sentiments, none of which ever really say anything of substance.

Home: Seventeen

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Home's latest album, Seventeen, opens with "Hello From Texas," a distorted blast of lo-fi that makes John Darnielle's earliest recordings sound pristine by comparison. It's a bold way to open an album for a band whose following is modest at best...and a good way to lose listeners who may not have the patience to navigate through the various stylistic exercises that comprise the album. If listeners have the attention span to ride it out, though, they'll find plenty to like among the album's 15 tracks, even if Seventeen isn't the band's most consistent release and will likely primarily be of interest only to the band's current fans.

To be sure, the album is far from flawless and may not be fully appreciated by those who aren't familiar with the quartet's brand of indie pop. There's a fair amount of silliness here: middle tracks "Wall Walker," "L-O-V-E" and "Gladdy Glad" all exhibit the sophomoric humor and blatantly simplistic rhyme schemes that occasionally reared their heads on concept album Sexteen, which never could be accused of exactly being subtle anyway. Though these songs become - somewhat - more palatable with repeated listens and certain self-serious indie bands could benefit from Home's example, their goofiness nearly renders them throwaways. "Gladdy Glad" in particular stinks of schmaltz, with a catchy and carnival-like pop arrangement that's weighed down by awkward, sappy lyrics. The song is excessively cute to the point of the listener's annoyance; its attempts at tongue-in-cheek humor fall flat, and it's the type of overly optimistic song that makes its love-struck narrator sound like the most obnoxious and irritating fool in the room.

Seventeen is in many ways a tale of two albums: if the record's lighthearted tracks are mostly forgettable, the band is at its best on the album's more heartfelt and, for lack of a better term, serious tracks. "Pop! Pop!" plays like a passable redux of standard garage rock and album closer "Walking Talking Slab Of Heaven" is a convincing and wonderfully screwed up stab at country music, but a handful of other songs most effectively play to the band's lyrical and instrumental strengths and make the album worth hearing. "Easter Snow" consists of nothing more than a simple acoustic guitar, patches of static interference and understated vocal harmonies that are heavy with a sense of distance and loneliness. It's the album's most conventional and outstanding moment, and - with the images and emotions it invokes - almost unbearably sad. "Any Way That You Go" has a similar tone and style, as the song's unassuming vocals fit the arrangements perfectly. Sometimes less is more, even for a lo-fi band with experimental leanings like Home; both songs exhibit the type of restraint and accessibility that are too frequently missing from much of the album.

Seventeen won't embarrass its creators, but it won't be considered Home's finest moment either. There are several slight and empty songs here that likely should have been omitted for the album's overall benefit, but goddamn, "Easter Snow" is a fantastic track deserving to be heard by a wide audience. One standout track and few other keepers certainly don't make an entire album essential, but these are one more than many other bands cut from a similar cloth as Home ever manage to achieve.

Revisit: Elvis Costello - Spike (Demo Version)

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Revisit is a series of reviews highlighting past releases that now deserve a second look.

Spike is either Elvis Costello's most ambitiously experimental or self-conscious and overindulgent album. Released in 1989 as the musician's Warner Bros. debut - the start of a relationship that would eventually become as contentious and vengeful as one of Costello's songs - the album received a lukewarm critical reception, as numerous critics blasted its musical excesses and alleged lack of lyrical focus and direction. Although he never explicitly agreed with such critiques, even Costello has subsequently acknowledged the record's eccentricities, commenting in the liner notes of the 2001 Rhino reissue that he had the blueprints for five albums in his head and apparently decided to make all of them at once.

If the album still sounds occasionally bloated and over-saturated with instrumentation, the demo versions included in that Rhino reissue offer a fascinating contrast in how Spike's songs are structured and how such embellishments can alter a listener's perceptions of the songs. Eleven of Spike's 15 tracks are presented in demo form, with "Any King's Shilling" being the only notable exclusion. Stripped of the various studio enhancements that still remain the album's most recognizable characteristic, these demos showcase Costello in a solo setting, with only a guitar, occasional keyboards and backing vocals used to flesh out the songs.

The superficial difference is of course obvious: the demos are rougher and - perhaps most importantly - more organic than their crafted and polished album counterparts. Less apparent is how the demo versions transform both the listener's expectations and the album's personality; whereas the official version places an emphasis on the songs' elaborate arrangements and production techniques, the stripped-down demo versions instead force the listener to focus on Costello's lyrics. Indeed, many contemporary reviewers, struggling to figure out just what the hell was going on musically in these songs, only gave cursory mention of the songs' content. Several of the demo versions can be described as social or topical songs, while many others examine the type of sentimental and sordid topics that have appeared in Costello's work for decades, with the contrasting aspects of devotion and infidelity appearing in nearly equal parts.

Though some of Spike's politically-themed songs might have been lost on American audiences - the story that forms the basis of the thinly-veiled anti-capital punishment screed "Let Him Dangle" still isn't exactly well known across the ocean, while "Coal-Train Robberies" is limited by a specific geography - the album contains Costello's angriest and most accessible "protest" song. Costello had a working draft of the anti-Thatcher song "Tramp the Dirt Down" since at least 1985, performing an early incarnation of it at the 1985 Miner's Benefit, before finally committing it to Spike. If the album version is notable for its fury and anger, the demo actually goes further: Costello spits the lyrics out with disgust and rage, a single guitar framing his vocals and no extraneous instrumentation to distract listeners from the song's confrontational tone and razor-sharp lyrical barbs.

Most of the other demos are far more introspective. A sense of the past and familial commitment frames a pair of songs that find Costello at his most affectionate, even if the darkness and tragedy of these songs is impossible to ignore. Free of any excessive layers of instrumentation, images of devotion and attachment can be found throughout "Veronica" (written about Costello's grandmother and her declining mental health) and "Last Boat Leaving" (also inspired by Costello's family history). Costello's vocals make the latter song far more ominous than its Spike counterpart: the narrator forebodingly tells his son that he'll "ever reach the shore" and will likely be forgotten: "When you go to school, son, you'll read my story in history books/ Only they won't mention my name."

Other tracks are far less devotional and the characters much less dignified. Like any good Costello album there's a fair amount of filth and sleaze here, and the famous Costello sneer remains on full display throughout the demos. "...This Town..." presents the stories of a slimy piano player who hits the keys like he was "pawing a dirty book" and a woman who trades blow jobs for stock. The peep show tragi-comedy "Satellite" features a cheating couple whom Costello presents with a mixture of derision and sympathy. It's obvious early on that the affair is fleeting: both conspirators - the intoxicated female for whom "Champagne rolls off her tongue like a second language" and her admirer who undresses her in his mind - are clearly amateurs at such games of deception. By the time the mess has ended, the most the pair can salvage is that "Now they both know what it's like/ Inside a pornographer's trousers." Whereas the album version moves with almost a grand orchestral feel to it, the demo's minimal instrumentation and Costello's vocal delivery fit the subject matter and tone better.

Costello knows full well there are at least two sides to any tale when relationships are involved - a separate article could be written about "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," the album's most complex and nuanced song - and Spike addresses these various sides with both compassion and cynicism. Certainly it's a tough sell arguing that a set of imperfect and informal demos with little instrumentation surpasses a finished product that contains contributions from Mark Ribot, T-Bone Burnett, Michael Blair and Allen Toussaint, among others, but in the case of Spike, that is exactly the case. The original album's strengths and flaws are both inextricably linked, as the album's unconventional styles and arrangements make the songs frequently cluttered and impenetrable, with some of Costello's most pointed, biting and humorous songwriting overlooked as a result. In retrospect the demos hold up much better than their polished album counterparts: their simplicity and sparseness are what make them so fascinating and far superior to the actual album in many respects.

Concert Review: The Rural Alberta Advantage - 12/9/09

February 3, 2010 8:42 AM
It was fucking cold in St. Louis on this particular Wednesday night. With temperatures hovering in the single digits and a large segment of the local population raiding grocery stores as if Thursday morning would bring with it a new Ice Age, the chance of a poorly-attended show at Off Broadway was a strong possibility. Yet despite the usual panic-inducing weather forecasters begging people to stay the fuck inside, enough like-minded indie souls braved the elements to make The Rural Alberta Advantage's second show in St. Louis in 2009 respectably attended.

Mixing songs from the somewhat-underappreciated Hometowns with several new songs and one truly bizarre yet sublime Survivor cover, the trio played a spirited, ramshackle and altogether too brief 45-minute set. The band's setup was rather minimal, as members Nils Edenloff, Paul Banwatt and Amy Cole set up in a straight line toward the front of the stage with only a couple keyboards, an acoustic guitar, small drum kit and various pieces of percussion.

In this live setting the tracks from Hometowns were performed rougher and more aggressive than their more polished album counterparts, suggesting the current critics' depiction of the group as dreamy-eyed, nostalgia-filled Canadian indie-popsters isn't entirely accurate. Most noticeable was the contrast between Banwatt's precise and frenetic drumming and Edenloff's slowed-down vocals on "Don't Haunt This Place" and "Drain the Blood," a juxtaposition that exists on the album but was more noticeable in concert. Cole alternated between keyboards and percussion, sometimes hitting a tambourine set atop a drum or just the drum, adding an extra kick to "In the Summertime" and most other songs. Edenloff's vocals were far-ranging and expressive without coming across as overly emotional, overblown or derivative - enough with the comparisons to Mangum and Meloy already - on slow burners like "The Ballad of the RAA" as well as the blistering, set-closing "The Dethbridge In Lethbridge." Even a take on the goddawful and nauseatingly insipid "Eye of the Tiger" - one of the lowest points in the history of shitty 1980s music - somehow worked, as Edenloff transformed it into something more meaningful and relevant than the bombastic Balboa-recalling original. It wasn't quite as implausible as Richard Thompson singing "Oops!... I Did It Again," but it certainly came close. Three new songs were performed with very little introduction from Edenloff; all three were excellent and suggest the band's next release will be every bit as good as Hometowns.

There is an honesty and sincerity to Hometowns, and the band's stage demeanor similarly came across as equally earnest. Clearly the band knows they've got a damn good set of songs, playing with an intensity and focus that older and more established bands still lack. Skeptics might dismiss the group's subject matter as too limited, and undeniably the Canadian landscape right now defines both the band's catalog and how they are perceived by some fans and critics.

Once the show ended some of the audience clearly wasn't in a hurry to head back outside; it likely wasn't just because of the freezing slaps of winds that waited just outside Off Broadway's front door. It doesn't always require overwrought lyrics and bloated arrangements to convey emotion. Sometimes it can be done with a simple stage presence, imperfectly nasal voice, precise drumming, flourishes of keyboards and percussion and lyrics that say something about both hope and loneliness without dissolving into either extreme pessimism or idiotic optimism, something that The Rural Alberta Advantage clearly already knows.

Moonface: Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums

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It's only February, but Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums is already a strong candidate for the most bizarre release of 2010. The second record Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown/Swan Lake member Spencer Krug has released under the Moonface moniker and available only on vinyl or donation-based digital download, it consists of a single 20-minute track heavy on percussion, echoed vocals, instrumental segments and the type of lyrical conceits insufferable college frosh poetry students glom onto after being introduced to John Berryman or various illicit chemicals.

To Krug's credit, the track works much better that it ever really should. Though cynics will likely dismiss the EP as little more than a vanity project that plays to the musician's eccentricities and, again, points to his alleged inability to self-edit, that's being a bit too harsh. The song itself is mostly interesting, and there are enough divergent arrangements and the occasional evocative lyric to somewhat offset its heavyweight, 20-minute run time. In keeping with the EP's painfully obvious theme, the track has an ethereal, dream-like quality to it, particularly in Krug's distant vocals and the percussion's ebb and flow.

Still, this EP is predictably limited and, ultimately, a novelty piece at best. Accessible to a general audience it is not; the track's sonic textures eventually devolve into tedium and overdone repetition, and it likely won't excite many listeners who aren't already familiar with Krug's previous efforts. Its 20 minutes never really manage to say anything other than dreams are fucked up and highly subjective; unless you have an innate Old Testament David skill for interpreting dreams, much of the track comes across as a mundane dream journal at best and nonsense at worst. Either way, Krug rarely offers the listener much incentive to grapple with what's happening on this track. Songs based on and inspired by dreams have been done before; they've been done well and they've been done with mediocre results. All too often the EP falls into that latter category.

Psych students, stoners and those indie types who drool over anything unconventional may embrace this EP, but for those of us who aren't mesmerized by the sleeping man's psyche, this record too often feels like sounds and dreams that never should have left Krug's head.

Midlake: The Courage of Others

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Midlake's The Trials of Van Occupanther was a pastoral album whose acoustic-minded songs of bandits, log cabins deep in the woods and travelers far from home recalled both the best - and occasionally the worst - of early '70s folk and soft rock. Though it wasn't a landmark album and sometimes flirted with being ridiculously twee, some of its songs - "Head Home," "Roscoe," "It Covers the Hillsides" - were among 2006's best and showed that the Denton, Texas band could borrow from the past without sounding derivative.

It's now been several years since the release of that sophomore album, and though the band hasn't entirely abandoned its roots on its most recent effort, The Courage of Others, the record's starting point is markedly different: in recent interviews frontman Tim Smith has commented how the album was heavily influenced by British folk music, particularly Fairport Convention. That group's style does indeed surface on Courage, most notably in the album's mostly acoustic instrumentation, understated vocal harmonies and copious amounts of dainty flute. For the most part it's a convincing, if subtle, homage that doesn't sound forced; it's not painfully lousy genre dabbling along the lines of the Decemberists indulging their prog-rock perversity at our expense and calling it The Hazards of Love. Its finest moments blend strands of British folk with the Americana of Van Occupanther without sounding like retreads; "Acts of Man" and "Fortune" are as strong as anything the band has recorded. Courage is also executed meticulously and it's clear much consideration went into its sound: the production, arrangements and vocals are precise and carefully separated.

Still, this stylistic shift isn't nearly as dramatic as one might think: most of the songs here, for better or worse, are most reminiscent of their Van Occupanther brethren, and too often sound like the work of a band running in place. These similarities make the album instantly familiar but also expose the album's most glaring weakness: it is, frankly, fucking boring and predictable. It is far too controlled for its own good, and its careful execution sounds excessively clinical. Worse, the album quickly becomes repetitive, as most songs lock into a predictable pattern and never really deviate from it. There is very little spontaneity or variety to be found throughout these 11 songs, as both the group's instrumentals and Smith's vocals sound overly uniform from one track to the next. The much-needed sparks of electricity that "Small Mountain" and "Rulers, Ruling All Things" inject are simply not enough; the result is an album that, although it sounds gorgeous and is executed flawlessly, feels both studied and monotonous.

This is to say nothing of Courage's subject matter, much of which mirrors that of Van Occupanther. Smith's nature-centric fixations and wanderlust are again on full display, with song titles like "Winter Dies," "Small Mountain," "Core of Nature" and "In the Ground" leaving very little doubt as to what the lyricist's preoccupations are. The songs' heavy focus on - groan - man's oneness with nature is exhausting and could give Bowerbirds a serious challenge for most eco-focused band in indie rock. The Courage of Others isn't without its merits, but ultimately it's a bland release that is expertly executed but lacking any sense of adventure or experimentation.

Fucked Up: Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009

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In a little under a decade, Fucked Up has recorded and released more music than many bands manage to in an entire career. Though the Canadian band isn't the only group churning out songs with such Pollard-like proficiency, it has largely maintained one key element sometimes lacking from other artists who spit out records at breakneck pace: quality control. It took the overwhelmingly positive critical reception to The Chemistry Of Common Life to introduce the band to a wider indie audience, but longtime fans already knew what that album confirmed: since 2002, Fucked Up has created some of indie's most challenging, confrontational and consistently solid records.

Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009 doesn't contain all of the band's essential singles from those years - given the sheer volume of its output, it really couldn't - but it's still a near-perfect compilation for both casual listeners who are only familiar with Fucked Up from Chemistry as well as those already well-versed in the band's extensive discography. Consisting of singles, demos, outtakes, cover songs and alternate versions, the release covers most of the band's best work of the last decade and, taken together with previous singles collection Epics In Minutes, offers a comprehensive overview of the band and is an early entry for one of the best reissues of 2010.

The Fucked Up of Couple Tracks is one whose hardcore leanings are obvious, especially on tracks like "No Pasarán," "Neat Parts" and "Ban Violins." The group takes a similar approach on nearly every song: Pink Eyes barks out his vocals like either an unhinged sociopath or the most dangerously sane person in the room, while the band, behind him, works over their instruments with a mixture of precision and violence. Still, the band offers enough variations in these songs to separate them from the shitpile of hardcore-influenced bands that so slavishly crib from Black Flag, Minor Threat and Fugazi, among others. These departures from typical hardcore are less pronounced than they are on Chemistry, but they are nevertheless evident: the atypically long running times, guitar instrumentals, underlying melodies and overdubs become more pronounced and tense against Pink Eyes' menacing snarls. Many of the songs included here are as strong as anything from Chemistry; moreover, there is an immediacy and directness to tracks like "Dangerous Fumes" and "Toronto FC" that is sometimes missing from some of Chemistry's more meandering and indulgent moments.

Although much of Fucked Up's sound and subject matter fit neatly within the hardcore template - and the group can be faulted for sometimes displaying that genre's dogmatic social/political/cultural tendencies - the band's style is unique enough to have saddled them with lofty, and most likely unrealistic, expectations. Whether by design or something as simple as great songs coupled with critical praise and a loyal fanbase, the group has taken a genre every bit as formulaic and doctrinaire as folk or bluegrass and made it relevant again. If the band's music has sometimes taken a backseat to its carefully honed image - the biographical misdirection and mythologizing, the bouts of painfully obvious and deliberate provocation, among other things - Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009 proves the songs are strong enough to stand on their own. Leave that extraneous stuff to less capable bands.

Revisit: Nirvana - In Utero (Steve Albini mix)

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Revisit is a series of reviews highlighting past releases that now deserve a second look.

In February of 1993, Nirvana and Steve Albini finished recording the follow-up to the band's (insert hyperbolic adjectives here) 1991 release Nevermind. Already starting to distance themselves from that record - and in particular, its mostly sanitized and commercial-friendly sound that made it palatable to a broad audience - the trio consistently maintained that their next studio album would be far less accessible and polished than its predecessor. In the months leading up to the recording sessions Kurt Cobain's opinion of that album increasingly soured, at least in print, where the vocalist frequently voiced his displeasure at its smooth production and inoffensive sheen. Enlisting Albini - someone who seemed to never gave a damn about whether an album would be met with commercial acceptance - seemed to confirm the band's intention to craft something less FM-ready than Nevermind.

Though the exact order of events for what happened after the tapes were submitted to the suits at Geffen remains unclear, one thing is certain: whether due to label pressures, the band's dissatisfaction or a combination of the two, the Albini mix was rejected and hot shot producer Scott Litt was called in to give the songs an overhaul. "All Apologies" and "Heart-Shaped Box" were remixed, the bass and drums were given more separation throughout the album and Cobain's vocals were increased by a few decibels. Judging by most contemporary reviews these modifications were for the better; the revamped record that would be released as In Utero received almost universal critical praise as a radical departure from the style of Nevermind.

In retrospect, this shift wasn't nearly as dramatic as most critics claimed and it's debatable whether these changes really improved the album. Though Albini has as recently as 2007 stated that any version that passes as the Albini mix is generations removed from his recording, what is claimed as the Albini mix reveals significant differences from the revised In Utero. Although the face lift that was applied to the record appears slight and superficial at first glance, the effect it had on the record's overall composition is impossible to miss. The original mix didn't feature The Albini Sound at its most confrontational, but his version is still far more punishing, aggressive and industrial than the official release and emphasizes the influence that noise rock had on the band. This is most noticeable on harder-edged songs like "Serve the Servants," "Scentless Apprentice," "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" and "Milk It." Albini puts the vocals and instrumentation about even in the mix, making these songs far more abrasive than their officially-released counterparts, which still today sometimes sound too refined and safe.

Any chances of Cobain's lyrics not being the focus of attention were lost when the songs were reworked. Though Albini didn't bury the vocals as severely as he had on other albums, they sometimes threatened to be swallowed up by the songs' arrangements, creating a far more primal sound that often felt like Cobain was howling from the depths of his own private hell. In contrast, the Geffen-approved release increased the vocals' prominence just enough to kill off at least a fraction of the conflicted emotions he conveyed. Indeed, this seemingly innocuous decibel boost makes the singer's various mumbles, screams and wails on "Very Ape," "Pennyroyal Tea," "All Apologies" and the perfect-for-radio "Heart-Shaped Box" sound less desperate and urgent. Any potential walls Albini's mix might have allowed Cobain to construct as he railed against being typecast as some sort of disaffected slacker voice of a generation crumbled once the vocals were thrown front and center. Though these lyrics probably would have been dissected and overanalyzed regardless, at least Albini made the listener work to understand what had Cobain so pissed off and distraught.

Prior to his suicide Cobain remarked how he'd like to move in an entirely different musical direction, even suggesting an acoustic record along the lines of Automatic For the People wasn't out of the question. For observant fans it wasn't the first time they'd heard this, but it would be among the last. Though the official release remains Nirvana's most consistent effort, it's hard not to conclude that the band fell just short of a true masterpiece when the Albini mix was overhauled. It may take careful attention to fully appreciate the differences between these two pieces - and such an examination is clearly a sign of geeky fanboy behavior- but ultimately the Albini version comes across as more challenging, satisfying and worthy of the band's legacy. Although it's overly simplistic to assume the band conceded to these revisions to ensure mainstream attention and radio play - it's hard to imagine "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" and "Tourette's" expanding Nirvana's fan base - it is nevertheless undeniable that the Geffen version, while not exactly duplicating the slickness of Nevermind, didn't exactly disavow that record's accessibility either. As it stands today, In Utero sounds more like a partial deconstruction of the Nevermind sound that a complete break from it. That full deconstruction - Albini's mix - was essentially gutted in favor of something that, while representing the group's most adventurous studio release, smoothed over the band's sound just enough to make it less disagreeable to the mainstream audience that Nevermind initially reeled in.

The Walkmen - Bows and Arrows

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Few albums continue to sound as evocative as Bows and Arrows. The follow up to the critic-revered though somewhat scattershot Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone, it remains the Walkmen's most focused, ambitious and successful work. Its songs are so damn good that not even a cameo appearance on ultra-shitty teen melodrama "The O.C." could ruin "Little House of Savages" and "What's in It for Me."

With most tracks centered on the sights, sounds and desperate dramas of the typical metropolitan city, the album's arrangements complement the lyrics almost flawlessly. "The Rat," with its searing guitars, precise drumming and alternately menacing and vulnerable vocals, rightly garnered most of the attention in 2004, but in hindsight the record's other songs are equally strong. The listener can practically smell the booze and feel the rain-soaked streets in the bar-room laments of "138th Street" and "Hang On, Siobhan," while "No Christmas While I'm Talking" and "New Year's Eve" almost too convincingly depict the type of disillusionment and boredom many of us feel around the holidays.

Initially saddled with comparisons to U2, the Walkmen have since proven those claims largely absurd. It likely won't ever escape from the massive shadow that Funeral cast over 2004, but Bows and Arrows remains as relevant and varied as it did upon its initial release. If the "O.C." couldn't destroy those songs, nothing likely would.

13th Chime: Complete Discography

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It's not surprising that 13th Chime never found commercial success, remaining one of Britain's most obscure and under-appreciated bands and their hard-to-find catalog primarily of interest only to hardcore fans and collectors. With a difficult style that mixed post-punk with goth rock and made no concessions to the more accessible elements of either genre, the group self-released just three singles and recorded a handful of songs for I.R.S. Records before the suits at that label decided they weren't particularly interested in the Chime's macabre subject matter and claustrophobic, experimental arrangements. Lead singer Mick Hand would depart soon thereafter, leaving remaining members Gary O'Connor, Terry Taylor and Ricky Cook to recruit a new vocalist and attempt a few rehearsals before eventually calling it quits in 1985. With no sympathetic record label to keep the group's work readily available, the Chime's standing as a band with a cult following was assured.

Complete Discography, then, will likely be most listeners' first introduction to the band. With the exception of live performances, the release presents the group's entire known recorded output and shows the band deserves far more than just passing mention in the post-punk story. Though much of the band's theatricality (the group took its name from a line in George Orwell's 1984, dressed predominately in black and presented themselves as androgynous sub-creatures, while their live shows featured pagan images, animal bones and speakers that were stored in custom-made coffins) now seems both dated and perversely quaint, the music itself remains unnerving and entirely original. The Chime's earliest songs are conversely the group's most discordant and striking efforts. Hand's vocals on "Cuts of Love," "Coffin Maker," "Cursed" and "Dug Up" are delivered as demented, echoed chants - sometimes reminiscent of PiL-era John Lydon - Taylor's bass is oppressively up front in the mix, while O'Connor's guitar and Cook's drums alternate between precision and improvisation. The songs recorded for I.R.S. are more rock-oriented and professional but no less worthwhile. Hand's vocals are fairly straightforward and mostly audible on "Radio Man," "Fire," "Two as a Couple" and "Help Me Street," with the group's instrumentals more developed and mature, the underlying melodies more pronounced.

Though the Chime's catalog contains heavy amounts of stereotypically goth themes - doom, gloom and enough caskets and corpses to fill a cemetery - and the group itself invented a persona to match, their best songs are notable for their introspective undertones and social concerns. The tough instrumentation would never suggest it, but there is a sense of a more personal type of loss in the group's singles beyond all the deathrock images and conceits they contain; indeed, the death of friend Steven Woodgate, with whom Hand, O'Connor and Cook played in the short-lived band Anticx, possibly influenced some of these songs. At their best, the band's lyrics railed against many of the popular topics of the day with both caustic humor and a sharp critical tongue: "A woman's heart is such a small price to pay/ For the exploitations of the people's culture," Hand declares in the barroom drama "Sally Ditch." If this release confirms anything, it's that the Chime should not be typecast as a prototypical goth band.

Complete Discography might not pull 13th Chime out from obscurity, but it does finally make the band's recordings readily available to the public and is a well-produced document of the band's blink-and-you'll-miss-it career. The sound and subject matter won't appeal to everyone, and there likely will be plenty of detractors ready to dismiss the band as just another black-clad, overly theatrical collective. And while goth rock has become its own punchline, the Chime's music still sounds desperate, urgent and unique enough to clearly show that the band should be considered in the broader context of the British post-punk era.

Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream

Steven Watts has managed to do the near-impossible: turn Hugh Hefner's life into a plodding, monotonous and excruciatingly goddamn boring exercise in academic overkill and professorial tedium. His Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream is the first serious book-length attempt to view Hefner as an historical figure, particularly against the backdrop of the socially conservative 1950s in which Playboy was first launched. As a study that largely ignores the more salacious and sordid details of the publisher's life in favor of a considered examination of how Playboy has both impacted and reacted to shifting cultural and sexual attitudes, the book occasionally succeeds. Yet it's ultimately a failure; excessively long and mind-numbingly repetitive, the book is a dry, clinical and humorless biography that simply goes in circles.

That Watts has done his research is never in question. Drawing from an ungodly amount of material from the 1950s to the present, Watts' portrait of Hefner is likely as complete a depiction of the publisher as we'll get. Granted substantial interview time with Hefner in which he clearly discussed far more than which women Hefner has nailed over the years - the author is likely more dedicated than others would be in his place - Watts does a solid job of offering a nuanced view of Hefner as both a person and businessman. Though Watts' depiction is largely sympathetic, it's not fawning and Hefner's flaws do not go unmentioned. Watts never resorts to tabloid journalism; those interested in a tell-all sex fest should look elsewhere. Hefner's single-minded focus - some would say obsession - on all major aspects of the magazine is discussed in depth, as are the various triumphs and tragedies that punctuate the Playboy story. Though Hefner obviously the book's focus, it also serves as a nice primer for anyone interested in the magazine's history (and not just the pictures).

All of which makes Mr. Playboy all the more frustrating. Despite Watts' intensive research and direct access to Hefner, the book is agonizingly redundant and tiresome to read. One of Watts' major assertions is that Playboy played an integral part in shaping the public's views on leisure, consumerism, wealth, and, of course, sex, especially in the post-World War II Eisenhower years. Watts argues that Hefner was adamant that Playboy would never be branded as a skin magazine or pervert's handbook, showing how from its earliest days the magazine included social commentary, fashion advice, fiction from leading writers of the day and critiques of music and film. Less convincingly, Watts depicts Hefner as a, to use his words, "philosopher king" whose frequently awkward and half-baked forays into philosophical discourse attempted to codify the Playboy philosophy.

Though Watts shows how Hefner played a pivotal role in endorsing a lifestyle of pleasure and, in a term the author uses far too often, "material abundance," this conclusion is reiterated constantly and turns the biography into a bloated tome that fails to maintain the reader's attention. Watts exerts a lot of effort and numerous pages - Going Green was apparently never an option - doing nothing more than restating this thesis. The book quickly suffocates under the weight of this oft-repeated conclusion, with a grotesque number of incredibly similar quotes utilized to the point of the reader's annoyance. Watts is about as subtle as a hammer upside the head; either he doesn't trust the reader to get the point unless it's repeated ad nauseam or he needed to add bulk to the biography. Either way too often the book reads like minor variations on the same theme, an interminable and seemingly endless regurgitation of a conclusion that is made painfully obvious. Watts also tends to view too many of Hefner's actions and decisions in light of the editor's broader cultural and social ambitions, an approach that sometimes isn't entirely believable; sometimes a photograph of a naked woman is just a photograph of a naked woman and not a harbinger of evolving cultural attitudes or a celebration of a consumerist lifestyle.

Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream is simply too deliberate and mechanical, with no textures, quirks or humor to offset its laborious approach to Hefner's life and legacy. Regardless of one's personal opinion of the Playboy founder, it's undeniable that Hefner had a visible role in this country's attitudes toward a variety of social and cultural issues. It's a pity that his life story too often takes a back seat to Watts' insistence to make his point.

Tribute: Vic Chesnutt (1964-2009)

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It's the news that we have been dreading and perhaps expecting for years: Vic Chesnutt is dead, most likely by suicide. Chesnutt always seemed older than his years and living on borrowed time: the cracked voice; those loosely-fitting clothes that suggested he was nothing but bones underneath them; the wheelchair and the limitations they imposed on him. Suicide was never a stranger in the singer's life or his songs. In various interviews he acknowledged several previous suicide attempts with a disarming degree of candor; "I flirted with you all my life/ Even kissed you once or twice" is how he addressed the subject on At The Cut. "Florida," written as an elegy for a friend who killed himself, now sounds even more chilling:

A man must take his life in his own hands
Hit those nails on the head
And I respect a man who goes to where he wants to be
Even if he wants to be dead

Most of the obituaries that have been written thus far have invariably typecast Chesnutt as a humorless and death-obsessed Southern folkie. Certainly Chesnutt spent much of his musical, and one imagines, private life confronting the types of questions about mortality many of us would prefer to keep at a safe distance. But the musician's work went far beyond that simplistic characterization; his songs could be cruel, comforting, comical and caustic all at once. At their best they told us something about the beauty and tragedy of life, about companionship and isolation, about hope and hopelessness.

His lyrics could paint pictures more vividly and believably than any painter's canvass; his songs were undeniably poetic. In Chesnutt's songs life was presented in startling detail; a bizarre, fragile and occasionally humorous world came alive in a Vic Chesnutt song. He saw the minute details about the world that most of us cannot or have been conditioned to ignore:

The filthy steps, the cold concrete
The phony earth below my feet
The ancient odor of the street
Yes the world, world, world it is a sponge
"Sponge" (from West of Rome)

Life is often portrayed as painfully transient at best in a Vic Chesnutt song. His albums are littered with characters whose little dramas we can recognize as our own and take consolation in. Chesnutt's musical worldview could be remarkably bleak; even the blissful innocence of childhood couldn't last forever. In his songs he reminded us that eventually we'll become more cynical, distant and indifferent to the world around us as we age:

And a little bitty baby draws a nice clean breath
From over his beaming momma's shoulder
He's staring at the worldly wonders that stretch just as far as he can see
But he'll stop staring when he's older
"New Town" (from About To Choke)

Time is rarely anyone's friend in a Vic Chesnutt song: it inexorably rolls on with or without us. That he could express such sentiments without resorting to melodrama is a testament to his unique lyrical and vocal abilities. When he wasn't twisting the knife into one of his hapless victims, Chesnutt could pose such questions about mortality, aging and the past with both sympathy and tenderness. He knew more about loss and loneliness than any one person should have had to:

Betty Lonely
She will always think in Spanish
Though I know her Spanish black hair will start to fade
"Betty Lonely" (from Is the Actor Happy?)

Conversely some of his songs reflect a fidelity and sense of promise that at least temporarily brightens the suffering lives that played out in his albums. A listener has to look hard and past all the jilted lovers left at the altar, coldest cadavers in the state and dead pigeons in the weeds to find such optimism, but it is there for anyone who wants to find it. If Chesnutt's music usually leans heavily towards total despair, glimpses of light still peak through. He could be unapologetically sentimental:

Cuddling up
Declarations of love
Squeeze and a hug
A kiss and a rub
Faces opposed
Eyelids closed
Nuzzling nose
Like Eskimos
"In My Way, Yes" (from Silver Lake)

In concert it was difficult to watch him perform; his stage presence was simple, genuine and unbearably heartbreaking. He'd sit in the wheelchair and sing in that fractured voice that could wrench meanings out of the even the simplest line or melody, his face twisting and contorting to the words, the bony fingers that actually worked impossible to ignore as they picked at a guitar. When it was time for an encore he'd simply roll the wheelchair back a few feet, wait and then roll it forward towards the microphone. Yet underneath that frail exterior was a defiance and confidence that suggested he knew how great these songs were, and that we'd better goddamn listen. He could quiet a belligerent crowd as easily with his acidic tongue as he could with his lyrics:

Chesnutt: Here's a song about my world actually.
Fan: It's our world, bro!
Chesnutt: It's my yard, motherfucker.
Introducing "Chinaberry Tree," 11/2/09 Athens, GA

It will be impossible to listen to his albums in the same way again. Many of Chesnutt's lyrics will now take on even darker implications in light of his death, and his memory will haunt these songs forever. For those closest to him, his death is a loss that words will never adequately describe. For those who only knew him via his songs, that loss is likewise deeply felt. His music touched our lives and put into words the indignities we endure, and he did it without ever coming across as weepy or self-pitying. He stared down the harsh realities of both his life and our lives with an endearing amount of honesty. He never glossed over anything in his songs - atheism, death, aging, mortality, the past - and he did it with a mixture of humor of the blackest sort and a remarkably colloquial yet poetic ear for language.

Today "Florida" sounds eerily prophetic:

Yes a man must make unpopular decisions, surely from time to time
And a man can only stand what a man can stand
It's a wobbly, volatile line

Vic Chesnutt dangled on that line for longer than most in his situation probably could have. His legacy will be defined by the songs that revealed the scars he'd received throughout life and how he coped with such pain. He wrote some of the most beautiful and disturbing songs any musician has created. For all of us, that will just have to be enough.


by Eric Dennis

Favorite Albums of the Year

My choices for albums of the year. Go to spectrumculture.com for the full list.



13. Dinosaur Jr.
Farm
[Jagjaguwar]
At least one indie reunion didn't destroy the band's legacy in the process. If 2007's Beyond demonstrated that the trio could reunite without wrecking its reputation, this year's Farm proved it was no fluke. Whereas other bands have tried to recreate their classic sound and failed miserably, Dinosaur Jr. didn't even attempt to rehash its past on Farm; those expecting a redux of You're Living All Over Me or Bug were surely disappointed. Instead, the album played to the band's strengths while still sounding original and unique: the intricate guitar workouts, bass and drums of songs like "I Want You To Know," "Plans," "Over It" and "Pieces" couldn't be mistaken for any other band, and never felt forced or redundant.
J. Mascis won't ever be confused with a smooth crooner, but his vocals and lyrics were as evocative as anything from the band's back catalog, especially on slow burners "See You" and "Said the People." Myopic listeners may have tended to zero in on the band's instrumentals - and really, who could blame them? - but Farm contained some of the strongest lyrics and vocals to grace a Dinosaur Jr. album. In a year that regrettably saw too many ill-conceived and poorly executed band reunions, Farm proved such efforts can result in something more than a shitty single and even shittier album. For once, a reunited band didn't simply mail it in; with Farm Dinosaur Jr. created an album that came damn close to matching their best work. -


4. The Antlers
Hospice
[Frenchkiss]
The Antlers created one of this year's - if not this decade's - most complex and profound albums with Hospice, an elegy to loss and remembrance as well as a statement of hope in the face of tragedy. Regardless of the actual events that inspired the record - in interviews lyricist Peter Silberman has downplayed much of the mythology now attached to Hospice - the album is most notable for its dense and varied musical template and richly poetic lyrics. Built around inter-connected storylines of a terminal cancer patient and a disintegrating relationship, Hospice remains a deeply moving album whose standing as one of indie's most fully realized works is assured.
Its songs are alternately devastating and uplifting; empty cancer ward beds, childhood nightmares and dissolution of relationships are contrasted with hopeful defiance and to an extent, guarded optimism. Events are mentioned but the story's complete picture remains elusive and dreamlike, as perspectives and timelines shift to the point that most songs are left open to the listener's interpretation. Silberman's voice and the band's layered instrumentals hold the songs together, never settling on one style for very long but still giving the album an overall tone and consistency.
The world of Hospice is one of transience and fragility, but also one of devotion and, however tentative, optimism. Its characters down mortality and separation squarely and honestly; the album doesn't bullshit and never gives in to resignation. With Hospice, The Antlers managed to take something deeply personal and shape it into a truly universal album. As 2009 ends, the album still is quite simply that type of rare work that serves as a reminder of just how powerful, heartbreaking and comforting music can be.

Album of the Decade....

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Andrew Bird

The Mysterious Production of Eggs

[Righteous Babe; 2005]

Nearly five years after its release, Andrew Bird's The Mysterious Production of Eggs remains one of the few albums from this decade that sounds unlike anything that came before it. Three years in the making, the record marked a dramatic stylistic shift for its creator; instead of repeating or even refining the mostly pastoral sounds of Weather Systems, Bird instead created a sprawling album of layered instrumentation, evocative arrangements and expert lyricism. Addressing predominantly dark subject matter with a mixture of sympathy, defiance and dry humor, the record managed to sound both timeless and timely, a quality that has only increased in subsequent years.

Though Bird's vocals still draw mostly inaccurate comparisons to everyone from Paul Simon to Thom Yorke and Jeff Buckley, Eggs' instrumental foundation is still difficult to categorize. Restrained songs like "Sovay," "MX Missiles" and "Masterfade" are defined by images of mortality and childhood memories as they bend and sway against Bird's careful arrangements, while the blasts of instrumentation that begin and end the morbidly humorous "Fake Palindromes" are largely unlike anything Bird had recorded up to that point. Violin, glockenspiel, guitar and other instruments are applied throughout, yet the album never sounds overly manufactured; even Bird's frequent whistling never feels self-conscious.

Eggs forgoes linear narratives in favor of striking images and clever wordplay. Though it's a bit dicey to call the album prophetic, its relevance to this decade is immediately recognizable: greedy bastards cash in at others' expense, soldiers march off to war, the economy and its financial institutions crumble. Yet even if the world Bird depicts throughout Eggs is markedly bleak, most of its fatalism is tempered with optimism or, at least, benign acceptance. In this way, the apocalypse of "Tables and Chairs" is greeted not with despair but instead with a celebration, complete with dancing bears, a band, Adderall and, of course, snacks, while "Opposite Day" envisions a new social order where society's grunts take charge and the powers-that-be find themselves incarcerated or in hell.

Andrew Bird released a string of outstanding albums this decade - the idyllic Weather Systems, the expansive Armchair Apocrypha and this year's solid Noble Beast - and while each effort demonstrated a different side of Bird's musical vision, none of these records matched The Mysterious Production of Eggs in both depth and ambition. A nuanced album whose charismatic lyrical vagaries and instrumental flourishes never deteriorate into excess or pretentiousness, it stands as one of this decade's most singular, focused and inscrutable releases. - Eric Dennis

Andrew Bird - Effigy

Go to spectrumculture.com for the full list of our choices for this year's best songs.


Built around layers of looped violins eventually fading into an acoustic guitar and one of Andrew Bird's most striking violin instrumentals, "Effigy" is a song of loneliness and isolation. Whatever the song's specifics exactly are - ostensibly it's about a lone drinker at a bar who's short on companionship but long on existential laments, but with Bird, how the hell can anyone be sure? - it is simply one of this year's most powerful and relevant songs.

On paper the song's lyrics are dark enough, but its understated instrumentation and Bird's vocal delivery make the character's situation seem that much more tragic. A few key lyrics add to the track's poignancy; specifically, Bird's reference to "fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone," suggests that communication and social interaction are not among the man's strong suits. Perhaps as bleak a song as Bird has recorded, it offers little sense of resolution or hope. Time isn't on anyone's side and there's nothing romantic about a solitary life for a "man who's lost his way/ Slips away." It's not the first time Bird has written about such things, but the song is among his most direct and moving. "Effigy"'s arrangements, lyrics and vocals fit together perfectly, resulting in one of this year's most touching songs.