Blogcritics Author: Modern Pea Pod

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

CD Review: This American Life - Stories of Hope and Fear

Modern Pea Pod — Fri, 1 Dec 2006 18:52:08 EST

Every episode opens with Ira Glass repeating the same line, now drilled into the heads of millions of loyal public radio listeners. It is the mantra of WBEZ Chicago and Public Radio International's This American Life: "Each week we choose a theme and put together different kinds of stories on that theme." Then the audience discovers what the theme of that week shall be, and one of the finest hours of storytelling currently available in the American media landscape begins. One of the things about great stories is that they never fall directly into one theme - there's always a bit of overlap. That's where the show's new two-disc collection This American Life: Stories of Hope and Fear comes into play. Here the show's producers have collected a number of stories from a wide variety of recent broadcasts that all seem to share common ideas. Like a skillfully crafted mixtape, it is split up into two halves: Disc One - Hope, Disc Two-Fear.With topics as broad as those of hope and fear, the possibilities are endless, and indeed, the wide variety of pieces on these discs will be sure to delight any NPR listener, even the boring people who enjoy Car Talk and A Prairie Home Companion. The first disc, Hope, teaches the listener about what hope means, using everything from David Wilcox's moving and somewhat sorrowful piece about his dying mother's relationship to his mentally impaired sister, to Alex Blumberg's entertaining and fascinating interview with a person, born a woman, who made the choice to become a man. These are complimented by more lighthearted pieces like Sascha Rothchild's live diary reading at Los Angeles' Mortified stage show, which may be, in this writer's opinion, one of the funniest items ever broadcast on the radio. The slightly more serious Fear disc runs the gamut from teenagers living in dread of their mother, to a developmentally challenged child's fears that most of us could not possibly comprehend, to a radio producer being brought to tears by Corporate America. Of particular interest in this section is a work by writer David Sedaris, known by many for his autobiographical stories, that provides an example of his latest endeavor - a bizarre reshaping of the world of animal fables.The quality of this collection was, however, never up for much debate. The fact of the matter is that This American Life has had a profoundly successful run for its first decade on the air. With a television version set to debut on Showtime in the near future, the show is going places that most Public Radio shows could not fathom. Listeners are never let down by Ira Glass and his cast of regular storytellers, but that isn't the reason to buy this compilation. After all, most consumers could just turn on the radio any weekend for free. Hell, most of them have probably already contributed to their local fund drive as it is. So why shell out cash?Obviously one could argue that radio doesn't give a person the chance to listen to their favorite show at a whim. A CD set is, to be sure, a pretty nice thing to have around the car when you're on a long trip, but this isn't 2004, or even 2005. The fact of the matter is the radio landscape has been profoundly reshaped by the podcast revolution. Over the last year, most major weekly NPR and PRI shows have become available for free weekly downloads set up automatically by your computer, and This American Life is no exception. The listener is no longer beholden to his local station's weekly schedule. If that isn't enough, you can stream each old episode for free on your computer or download them for less than the cost of a king-size Butterfinger. Any sensible, digital-aged child wouldn't pay twenty bucks for under three hours of entertainment when they could just log onto iTunes and get twenty hours for the same price - and you don't even have to leave your bedroom.But that's just it. While podcasting has most definitely begun to reshape the way young people consume news and entertainment, most Public Radio listeners are not among the cloned, iPod-wielding masses of college and high school students. Besides, few cars have begun including mp3-hook-ups on their dashboards. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly not trading in my set of wheels just to plug in my Apple gadgets. For the meantime, a market still exists for items like this, even if it will be shrinking in the years to come. Were I a reviewer who tends to get a bit more preachy, this would be the moment where I'd encourage Public Radio to adapt to the times and start reshaping the way they peddle their wares, but they seem to be doing a good enough job adapting to technology without my help. So what is my advice? Buy this CD. The price is more than worth it, if for no other reason than the fantastic cover art that will compliment any CD collection. Besides, you probably haven't pledged yet, and I'm sure you're feeling guilty about that.by Aaron Kahn

Find more music, film and pop culture criticism at The Modern Pea Pod.

Music Review: Gob Iron - Death Songs for the Living

Modern Pea Pod — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:14:47 EST

I'm relieved that Gob Iron is just a special project from alternative-country howlers Jay Farrar (of bands Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo) and Anders Parker (of Varnaline)... not because it's bad, but because it's intense. Never has an album lived up to its title so strongly. Death Songs for the Living hits hard, heavy, and slow with a handsome grin - like death. But (also like death) this music still manages to demand both appreciation and deep respect.Farrar's voice is the essence of man, with deep, musky overtones coming from the stiff mouth of a cowboy. The instrumental accompaniment plumps each somber melody beautifully and feeds Farrar's twang. Death Songs's 19 tracks shouldn't scare anyone away - half are 15-second instrumentals, each of which have an individual charm, and the songs for the most part are brief, usually telling a story, like those a depressed ranchero would sing.Recorded while Farrar and Parker locked themselves away in St. Louis, their updated twist of classic folk songs is remarkable in that it hits its mark so well that an additional album would tilt the whole death theme too far into Gob's court. On opening track "Death's Black Train," Farrar's vocals strike first, giving an immediate country feel soaked in vintage; but tender and slow, not the show-off, look-at-my-rhinestone-spurs country that would never fall from Gob Iron's plate. Most songs play out a story, and once you think you have them all down, a song will pop up with lyrics you least expect. For instance, "Wayside Tavern" begins slowly, and sounds like an ode to a favorite watering hole. Of course the singer meets a pretty girl at the bar, and you think the song will lead next into the familiar realm of country love, but rather you hear: "I felt her knife stick in my back / I turned and saw her lover on it / She said his name is Barney Jack... And now I sing beneath the ground." Farrar's voice never changes tempo from the slow-dripping shadows under a hat's Western brim, which makes these lyrics so striking.A few songs jump from the Grapes of Wrath's soft dustbowl settings - "Nicotine Blues" runs a tinge faster, and an electric guitar chord slices through the song for the first time on the album (it's song number 11), but Farrar's voice is still there and still warm. "Buzz and Grind" brings about the everyday working man side that laces through the album strongly, and "Little Girl and Dreadful Snake"'s blatant symbolism warns parents never to let their children stray in more ways than one.Death Songs for the Living plays more like a continuous stream of melancholy mourning coos lassoed out of Oklahoma than individual melodies from two wandering Midwestern musicians. With the instrumentals layered between songs, it might have been intended to have this globular effect, and I like it to an extent, but the huge block of down-and-out music makes it harder to pick up and listen to on a regular basis. Gob Iron's new album is great for a slow spin, but be forewarned, the more you listen to it, the more depressed you will become.by Laura Misjak

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Music DVD Review: The Harry Smith Project Live

Modern Pea Pod — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 20:36:28 EST

You might not think you know Harry Smith, but if you have even a passing familiarity with the last fifty years of traditional folk music, you certainly know his work. A fanatical record collector, archivist, and ethnomusicologist (as well as an artist, filmmaker, and all-around eccentric), Smith compiled the three-volume, six-disc Anthology of American Folk Music for Smithsonian Folkways in 1952, arguably the first such collection of obscure folk, blues, and hillbilly 78s on LP and certainly the most influential. A mere glance at the songs brought to public attention by Smith's Anthology is enough to prove its monumental impact on popular music as we know it: "John the Revelator," "The House Carpenter," "Single Girl, Married Girl," "Frankie [and Johnny]"; the list goes on and on.The goal of The Harry Smith Project, the latest in record producer (and, like Smith, noted eccentric) Hal Willner's seemingly endless stream of tribute projects, is to shed more light on both the brilliance of the original Anthology and its lasting influence. And true to form - this is, after all, the guy who compiled a Mingus tribute with Vernon Reid, Keith Richards, Robert Quine and Chuck D - Willner has assembled a decidedly motley crew. The Harry Smith Project Live features performances by Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Van Dyke Parks, Beck, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Todd Rundgren, David Thomas, and a hell of lot more besides. And the amazing thing is, all of it is good.Lou does his Popeye and his Blind Lemon Jefferson - c. 2006 Shout! Factory Or at least, about 95% of it is. The beauty of Willner's approach here is that it's often the combinations of artist and material which sound positively wince-worthy on paper that end up coming off best - like the shuddering version of "Dry Bones" performed by Sonic Youth and avant-garde jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd, or the eerie duet on "The House Carpenter" by Rundgren and Robin Holcomb. Most surprising of all is a Blind Lemon Jefferson cover by the man who once preclaimed that the only rule he made for the Velvet Underground was "no blues licks." Reed's "See That My Grave is Kept Clean," though admittedly mining the same old fuzzed-out noodling and phrasing gymnastics which have long gone from his stock in trade to a depressing self-parody, is somehow shockingly good.Yet even The Harry Smith Project's more "obvious" triumphs make for some excellent music. Cave's "John the Revelator" could have sat comfortably on the track list of his mid-'80s classics The Firstborn is Dead or Kicking Against the Pricks; Costello's "The Butcher's Boy" finds the punk-era troubador in a cathartic British folk mode I wish he'd return to more often; and every time Kate and Anna McGarrigle take the stage, their haunting Carter Family-style harmonies command one's complete and undivided attantion. Indeed, there are so many musical highlights to be experienced here, it seems more effective to point out those rare moments when the show falls flat: most problematically with the appearance by A Mighty Wind's fictional folk trio "The Folksmen" ( a.k.a. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer), which is funny enough but feels incongruous amongst the other performers, more like a live-action trailer for Guest's movie than a tribute to Harry Smith - especially since the song they sing, "Old Joe's Place," bears a Guest/McKean/Shearer writing credit and has decidedly little to do with the Anthology of American Folk Music.In a sense, though, that bizarre cameo by Guest and company does say something about Harry Smith, simply because the good-natured, gee-whiz folk festival schtick of the Folksmen is about as far from Smith's vision of traditional American music as it got. Though it undeniably inspired '50s and '60s folk revival acts like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary, the Anthology of American Folk Music had much more in common with the "Old Weird America" enshrined by Greil Marcus and upheld by everyone from late '60s Bob Dylan to Will Oldham, Lambchop, Captain Beefheart, and even Jandek. This is passionate, spectral, violent and often desperate Americana, and as such, it makes sense to cast idiosyncratic artists like those already mentioned in its reenactment; there's even a good chance that Smith, far from a folk purist himself, would have preferred it.And let's not forget that this is a tribute to Smith we're dealing with, as much as it is a tribute to his legendary anthology; thus two of the most fascinating moments in The Harry Smith Project Live end up straying away from the topic of folk music and into the oddball personality of the archivist himself. There's a recollection by the Fugs' Ed Sanders of a visit from Smith which ended in the destruction of a few "learned journals," coupled with some video footage from the 1980s of a wheedling, elderly Smith on the phone, complaining about being taped. Even more revelatory is Phillip Glass' performance of his "Etude No. 10" over footage taken from one of Smith's various experimental film shorts: an abstract animation sequence in the tradition of Oskar Fischinger. It's sequences like these which remind one that Harry Smith was more than just a footnote in folk music history - he was an influential artist in his own right, as well as a living, breathing person, with as many flaws and idiosyncrasies as the indelible records he compiled.Frankly, the only real misgiving I have about the stand-alone Harry Smith Project DVD is that it's almost too tempting a preview of Shout! Factory's full-length four-disc box set to be justified. If you're a fan of more than a handful of the artists above and want to see what they can do with one of popular music's most beloved songbooks, or even if you just love American roots music and aren't afraid to see some daring modern interpretations, you'll want the extended version; especially since it features a smattering of tracks which the DVD does not, including appearances by Wilco and Marianne Faithfull and additional tracks by Cave, Thomas, Sanders and others. Granted, the single-disc edition is a lot easier on the old pocketbook. But after getting a taste of The Harry Smith Project, I can say for certain that my Christmas list just got one item longer.by Zach Hoskins

Find more music, film and pop culture criticism at The Modern Pea Pod.

Music Review: Johnny Cash At San Quentin (Legacy Edition)

Modern Pea Pod — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 08:37:37 EST

"God, I've never seen anything like it," producer Bob Johnston recalls in the liner notes to Columbia/Legacy's deluxe reissue of Johnny Cash At San Quentin. "When Cash sang 'San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell,' they were on the tables yelling. A lot of the guards were up on the runways with loaded guns, backing up the doors, and I'm backed up to the door with all these guards with guns, and I'm thinking, 'Man! I should have brought Tammy Wynette and George Jones - anybody but Johnny Cash!"When Johnny Cash walked through the gates of the California State Penitentiary at San Quentin on February 24, 1969, he was undeniably one of country music's greatest stars. But he was also one of the edgiest. Since the beginning of his career on Sun Records in the late 1950s, Cash had spent the night in jail on seven separate occasions, including a run-in with Texas narcotic officers for smuggling amphetamines over the Mexican border. He was banned from the Grand Ole Opry in the early '60s after kicking out the footlights of the Ryman Auditorium in a drug-fuelled rage. Simply put, Johnny Cash was a badass; a natural born rebel who drew from the energy and attitude of rock'n'roll along with classic country and western. He had been riling up incarcerated audiences in prison performances for nearly as long as he'd been playing music, and on that fateful day at San Quentin, as Johnston notes, very nearly incited a prison riot.That rebellious attitude accounts for much of the enduring popularity of At San Quentin: a document of the 1969 show which, listened to in the right context, can hold the same amount of visceral impact as the Stooges' Metallic K.O. No, there aren't any bottles being thrown - just tin prison cups, in a moment one might recall from the brilliant if anachronistic "Folsom Prison" sequence in James Mangold's Walk the Line - but as on the previous year's "brother album" At Folsom Prison, the interplay between Cash and his "captive audience" (as well as the tension between Cash, the inmates, and the guards) is palpable.And, even more than at Folsom, Cash himself is on fire for much of the show: he bellows his way through his performance, making even much-derided novelty material like "A Boy Named Sue" sound positively dangerous, and rides his trademark "steady like a train, sharp like a razor" sound right off the rails with a breakneck version of "Wreck of the Old 97," howling like an engine whistle as he goes down. Even from a distance of almost three decades, it's thrilling stuff.But what the Legacy reissue reveals, and what wasn't readily apparent either on the original ten-track LP or on the expanded 18-track reissue in 2000, is that the Cash of San Quentin is more than just a wildman or an outlaw; he's a seasoned pro, both in terms of pure showmanship and in the skill with which he "walks the line" between wholesome entertainment and subversion. When the Man in Black, after anticipation-building sets by Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and the Carter Family, takes the stage to the strains of "Big River," his usual introduction of "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" is delivered with the smug tone of a returning hero, a marked difference from the almost paternal greeting which opened At Folsom Prison. And though it would be out of the question to suggest that Cash gave any less than his all at the San Quentin performance, the medley he plays of "The Long Black Veil" and "Give My Love to Rose" comes off as a little rote, a veteran entertainer knocking a couple of chestnuts out of the way so he can get to the good stuff.Of course, when he does get to the good stuff, it's arguably never been better. The moment -- preserved on all three versions of the album -- when a defiant Cash debuts his song "San Quentin" to violent applause, then turns around and plays it all over again, is arguably one of the most emotionally overwhelming moments in the history of recorded music. And while much has been made of the naivete in playing "Starkville City Jail" (a humorous little ditty about being arrested for picking flowers) in front of a bunch of convicted murderers and rapists, the warmth and empathy with which Cash delivers his prison narrative and its accompanying anecdote helps to make it a modest and effective parable about the futility of American justice.But then, the quality of the music was never really in question. Chances are, most longtime fans of Johnny Cash have already heard it (albeit in somewhat truncated form) and know how great it is. Instead, the question on many of these fans' lips is undoubtedly whether a three-disc reissue of the set is worth the extra (if you'll pardon the pun) cash.The answer to that question largely depends on the individual listener, and their impressions of Johnny Cash himself. Strictly speaking, the additional music on this set adds very little to At San Quentin's badass reputation; whereas the "classic" incarnation of the album, and even the 2000 expanded edition, made the best of their conciseness, coming off to many listeners as one sustained adrenaline rush, this version captures a "Johnny Cash Show" whose showbiz package mentality and Vegas-style instrumental transitions between acts sound bizarrely incongruous in the middle of a maximum security penitentiary.Don't get me wrong, the supporting cast is great: Perkins sounds barely a day older than his own Sun Records peak on both "Blue Suede Shoes" and the latter-day "Restless"; the Carter Family is unimpeachable as always; and though the Statler Brothers are clearly the most dated-sounding act on the bill, their psych-country hit "Flowers on the Wall" (best known today for its use on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack) is charming and well-performed. But in terms of actual unearthed Cash material, only the aforementioned "Long Black Veil" medley, a cover of Billy Edd Wheeler's "Blistered," and versions of "Orange Blossom Special" and "Jackson" (both inferior to their counterparts on At Folsom Prison) make their debut here. And while that "Blistered" cover is both hard-rocking and appealingly horny (and, with its backing vocals by Cash's mother- and sisters-in-law, more than a little bizarre), its two-minute running time is hardly enough to justify another purchase by those who merely want to relive the outlaw panache of this classic album.Perhaps, though, the fact that the expanded Johnny Cash At San Quentin isn't quite the vicarious thrill as its previous editions isn't such a bad thing. Like many of the recent Cash collections from Legacy (Personal File, the reissued Children's Album), this San Quentin is more of a historical document than an addition to the storied Legend of Johnny Cash. It presents to us a truly complete and well-rounded portrait of both the performer and the man himself, from the snarling Man in Black bravado of "Wanted Man" to the sentimental family nostalgia of "Daddy Sang Bass." And it leads one to the conclusion that, while stories like Johnston's sure paint a hell of a picture - what if Cash had gone just an inch too far and provoked violence in the audience? - in the end, the man who closes his show with a series of gospel ballads just doesn't have it in him to start a prison uprising. His heart, however troubled, is much too big for that.Some people might not like that realization, just like plenty of people didn't like previous attempts at "softening" Cash, from the aforementioned Walk the Line biopic to the collection of traditional hymns which marked the final release of his lifetime. Those people are advised to stay away from the expanded At San Quentin and just stick to the original, along with the American Recordings series, the Murder comp, and any number of other releases which cement the classic image of Cash the rebel. But in an era when shrill, one-dimensional caricatures of country hellraising like Hank III are elevated as "the real deal," in my eyes, it's always good to look back at a giant of American music who was as three-dimensional as they came. To quote a song made famous by Cash himself, Here Was a Man. And here, now in its complete and unexpurgated form, is one of his greatest moments.by Zach Hoskins

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DVD Review: Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law - Vol. 2

Modern Pea Pod — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:10:52 EST

When I was a child, I would wake up early every Saturday morning and watch cartoons with my dad. Usually, over huge bowls of Frosted Flakes, we would coast through the adventures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which my mother never wanted me to watch for fear that I would pick up the phrase "Cowabunga!"), and during the commercials, he would tell me about the cartoons of his own youth. In a splash of sepia-tinted nostalgia, my dad would recount the adventures of Space Ghost, Astro Boy, and Birdman. It wasn't that he would go into a nerdy series of overblown accounts about each and every episode, but the way he spoke about these cartoons proved how much they meant to him.So, when I received the second season of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (the irreverent part-parody/part-postmodernist remake of the original Birdman show now on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim), I wasn't quite sure what to tell my father. I am sure that he has some awareness of what the Cartoon Network has done to the cartoons of his childhood - Space Ghost: Coast to Coast hit the airwaves more than ten years ago, after all - but much like he tried to make me believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, I try to keep him away from that awareness. The problem is, sometimes I would like to share Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law with him, simply because most of the time it's so damn funny. Episodes such as "Studying Environmental Law Through Pop Culture" and "Malpractice Law and Plastic Surgery/Home Improvement" are just plain laugh-out-loud hilarious. It's shows such as those that remind the world how stupid it is to think cartoons are just for kids. And even when the episodes aren't quite up to par - "Your Body and You (for emerging superheroes)", "Gas, Ass or Grass: Nobody Shrinks for Free - Semiotics of the Booty" - a good belt of gin makes it all the funnier.While we're on the subject of gin, though, I should mention that a good bottle of gin is the only thing missing from this DVD's excellent packaging. Even if you're not a fan of Harvey Birdman, every pop culture fetishist should consider buying this edition to the series. Packaged like a fake law book complete with a vintage, silly case, this box set is well-worth displaying. But as I said, despite the hilarity and over-the-top zaniness that bursts from the show, watching too many of these fifteen minute episodes may become daunting without some kind of chemical enhancement. That's why I propose that for all of you over-21-year-olds reading this article, after you buy this box, go to your nearest liquor store and buy a fifth of Beefeater. Every time you're like, "This is weeeeeeeird!", take a drink. You won't regret it.... Well, you might regret it if you don't quit the game by the third episode, because then you'll be dead.by Megan Giddings

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Year-End Roundup Music Review: Deadboy & The Elephantmen - We Are Night Sky

Modern Pea Pod — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:15:06 EST

As we gear up towards the end of the year, it's time to discuss the albums that we may have missed in months past. Some may be records we wish we could have kept avoiding; others we may wholeheartedly regret that we didn't catch on to earlier. Beginning our series is February's We Are Night Sky, from Deadboy & The Elephantmen.Okay. STOP, STOP, STOP. Before we even talk about We Are Night Sky, let's put something on the books. Unless it's a two-person band where the man is singing like a high-pitched shrill woman from country music hell and the drummer is charmingly inept, it's no longer fair to compare every two-person band to the White Stripes. There are expectations involved which will be raised, heightened, and will finally ruin all attempts to fairly examine the album. So now that we have that clarification in place, we can proceed to talk about this record.For the most part, Deadboy & The Elephantmen have put out a damn fine original album. The sound veers toward both jump-up-and-down rock and roll ("Stop, I'm Already Dead," "Misadventures of Dope," and - my personal favorite track - "Blood Music") and slow hybrids of folk and ballads ("Walking Stick", "No Rainbow"). The largest problem, though, is that singer/guitarist Dax Riggs rarely shuts up. Look Dax, rock and roll is not hearing a man try to take on Yoko Onoesque vocals. I mean, I love Yoko. Her Plastic Ono Band is honestly one of my favorite albums. But dude, your music just doesn't fit with the voice. This isn't what rock music is about! It's about, every once in a while, letting your drummer (Tessie Brunet) and your guitar show off how awesome they are. Honestly, all of these songs would be great if just once we could have a few minutes to enjoy the music both of you are playing. And I'm not asking for an instrumental, I'm just asking for you to rock. Or at least get some messier production. Guys, go hire Jim Diamond. If there's any group out there who needs his production, it's really you two.Despite all of my complaints, however, do listen to Deadboy & The Elephantmen. It might not change your world - shit, it's only their first album - but the potential is definitely there.by Megan Giddings

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Music Review: Darkel - Darkel

Modern Pea Pod — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 01:59:28 EST

According to Jean-Benoit Dunckel from Air, the name "Darkel" is a curious manifestation, a play on words constructed from his last name, Dunckel, which spelled without the "c" means "dark" in German - hence, "Darkel." Beyond that, the name also fits well to the concept of the album, which J.B. claims was recorded at night. Clever indeed, but darkness often leaves one disoriented if not pointed in the right direction, which is exactly how I felt while listening to this album.Most of Air's songs use either guest vocalists or the vocals of the band members morphed beyond our familiar cosmos, so I fully assumed that the vocalist on Darkel's album was a guest singer as soon as the first track "Be My Friend" began. The unsettling voice caught me off guard, and by the time the second piano-led track "At the End of the Sky" began, I found myself rapidly rifling through the liner notes to find out exactly what or who the hell was singing. I was shocked to discover that the creepy, elfish voice is that of Dunckel himself! And as if his pipes weren't unusual enough on their own, Dunckel's voice is processed so far on the track "TV Destroy" that Darkel may have a good shot at passing as the only transgendered Smurfette impersonator in existence. Combine that with the agitating and repetitive lyrics (which don't go far beyond the title), and pretty soon I wanted to forget the TV and destroy Darkel's album. And that was only by the third track.So I decided to chill out for a bit and see where the album went. Instead of thinking of Dunckel's voice as an unwelcome disorientation, I tried to imagine it as a pleasant and prepubescent version of Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. And instead of letting the trite lyrics of "TV Destroy" push me over the edge of sanity, I tried to chew it up and spit it out like the disposable bubblegum pop it was intended as. But with other tracks ranging from epic electro-pop spreads ("Be My Friend") to lullabies ("Some Men"), I wasn't quite sure what to make of the album, which seems to lack congruency.Some tracks, however, seemed to stand out a little higher above the disjointed structure of the album, such as "My Own Sun," with its bouncy and proud expression of positive energy. And the chill track "Bathroom Spirit" carries a very familiar vibe and vivacity that couldn't make Dunckel's contribution to the band Air any clearer. Finally, the track "Earth" is worth mentioning for its appealingly minimalist groove, as well as the funny French accent Dunckel carries as an indicator of his origin.Overall, however, Darkel's debut album was a disappointment and didn't meet the expectations I had built when referring to Dunckel's past work with Air. I didn't expect Darkel to be another Air album (and wasn't hoping for that, either), but I also didn't expect such a disjointed composite of dissimilar tracks coated in the shards of such a discomforting voice. The voice, in actuality, is secondary and is a component that could have enhanced the character of this album, if only it had been coupled with pleasing tracks. But they weren't that good. So please, Dunckel, don't quit your day job.by Tyler Merkel

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The Pixies Reunion on Film

Modern Pea Pod — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 22:34:19 EST

In an era when mystery was virtually as important to the development of a great alternative rock act as guitar or drums, the Pixies were quite possibly the most mysterious of them all. Armed with inscrutable lyrics about Surrealist cinema and Nimrod's sons, an arty visual aesthetic which precluded group photos on the album covers, and a stage presence that boiled down to standing stock still and playing as viscerally as possible, they were a truly enigmatic force, more like a coven of obscure European avant-gardists than a mere American rock band. Even today, elements of their all-too-brief epoch remain shrouded in mystery - things like the precise motivations behind their breakup in 1992, or the much whispered about sexual tension between Kim Deal and Charles Thompson. There's still a sense that we'll never really get to know the Pixies, and if anything, that makes them all the more enticing.It also goes a long way toward explaining why their reunion in 2004 came as such a surprise; engimas don't get back together for sold-out world tours, they don't conduct extensive interviews, and they certainly don't release upwards of half a dozen CDs and videos within a two-year period to document their return to the concert stage. But the Pixies did. And so you'll have to excuse my kneejerk reaction to the first couple minutes of their new DVD Live at the Paradise in Boston, which is something along the lines of, "This is the most surreal thing I've ever fucking seen." There they are, the mythical Pixies, in all their glory, playing what might be their last intimate club date as a band together. And what do they do? Stroll onstage, shuffle around a little bit, and then tear into... "La La Love You?"Doolittle deep cut before Thompson brings it screeching to the halt. He then essays a pretty decent Springsteen impersonation, and, all smiles, leads the others into a second attempt at the song. And that, more or less, is how the show proceeds. They take requests, they crack jokes, they talk to each other. Not a single guitar gets kicked across the stage. And it's great, but for people like me who came of age with little to know of the Pixies but their stand-offish reputation, it's also weird as hell.In all honesty, though, the Pixies have probably never sounded better than they have in the years 2004-2006. They're tighter than a band who spent most of the last 15 years in acrimonious distance has any right to be; Joey Santiago's guitar playing, though still stylistically unique, is technically better than it ever was during the "peak" era (his solo during "Vamos" kills); and contrary to what his solo work might have you believe, the artist formerly known as Black Francis can still manage a surprisingly blood-curdling howl (see: "Something Against You"). But watching this music come out of the players onstage, with their receding hairlines, baggy jeans and (in the case of Kim Deal) soccer mom haircuts, can be an awfully disconcerting experience, especially in today's world where a fashionable MySpace haircut and a waifish waistline is de rigeur for any up-and-coming indie rocker. Maybe it's a commentary on the inevitability of middle age, maybe it's just my own youthful shallowness, but the visual side of the Pixies reunion reminds me of nothing more than watching my friends' parents clamber onstage at a wedding reception, plug in - and then, through some bizarre and miraculous fluke, sound about a thousand times cooler than they look.But then, the Pixies never really were "cool," at least not in the traditional sense of the word. That all-pervading image described above, that air of mystery, was if anything a convenient veil for a group of people who never quite fit in with their hip surroundings, either in the Boston indie scene (a song like "Subbacultcha" could only really be written from the perspective of an outsider looking in) or amidst the Anglo goth milieu of 4AD Records. David Lovering, if you'll recall, was a Rush fanatic before he joined the band; Deal used to show up to gigs wearing the same outfit she wore as a secretary temp; Thompson was/is a UFO enthusiast. And let's not forget that the infamous break-up wasn't some kind of coke-fuelled blow-out - it took place over a fax machine, the perfect end to half a decade of sustained awkwardness. In that sense, then - and with another film, Steven Cantor's and Matthew Galkin's documentary loudQUIETloud, in mind - the reunited Pixies we see in Live at the Paradise aren't surprising for their brazen, lovable dorkiness. It's more of a surprise that they're talking at all.loudQUIETloud is a portrait of four individuals, as sublimely mismatched as the day they met, who have reconvened after 15 years of separation to face some of the biggest audiences of their careers. All that would be an awkward enough experience to begin with, for any group of people; but when the subjects happen to the Pixies, perhaps rock's most notoriously asocial band, you can only imagine. Indeed, more than any other document to come before it, loudQUIETloud paints a striking picture of what the Pixies reunion really is, more vivid and consequently more brutally frank than any interview snippets or concert-night speculation could ever be. In beautifully-shot performance sequences (which, incidentally, take place in much larger venues than Live at the Paradise, thus driving home just how "big" this comeback has become), we see the band make some of the most impressive music together that they've ever made, ascending to the career heights they were never allowed in their initial run. Then we follow them backstage, and see neither "one big family" amiability nor icy tension in the tradition of Wilco's almost unwatchably pissy doc I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. Instead, we mostly just see the quiet, friendly, somewhat formal interactions of a group of professionals in the middle of a very important, very lucrative job.This isn't to say that the Pixies reunion has been exposed by this film as the kind of "comeback for cash" we've all seen too much of; I'm pretty sure it isn't that at all, and if it is, well, the band does such a good job of hiding it onstage that I couldn't really be bothered to care. It's also worth noting that Thompson was reportedly none too pleased about the filmmakers' portrayal of Lovering's brief descent into substance abuse, claiming that Cantor and Galkin based their entire narrative arc around what really only affected a fraction of the tour. If he's right, and there is some kind of substantial story-tweaking going on, then for all we know the Pixies could be hugs all 'round backstage and the middle-aged ennui seen in loudQUIETloud is just an invention of the editing machine. Something tells me, however, that this is not the case. The mood captured by loudQUIETloud is just too real to be an exaggeration, and when the directors say in the commentary that they frequently found themselves despairing because so little was happening on camera, it checks out with everything we've heard about the Pixies before. For a band whose lyrics were vivid and grotesque, their music unrelentingly powerful, Thompson, Santiago, Lovering and Deal just aren't terribly expressive people.Which, again, shouldn't be taken to mean that they're not compelling. It's actually fascinating and poignant to see the Pixies all grown up, starting families and kicking addictions just like other forty-something rock stars. The inside look at the rehearsals leading up to their warm-up tour helps to humanize a musical event which has often been described in near-supernatural terms, capturing the anxieties and self-doubt of an aging band so out of touch with their younger selves that they have to consult an iPod just to remember how one of the old songs goes. And of course, there are plenty of Spinal Tap-esque moments to entertain us as well, like the strange and arguably staged scene where we eavesdrop on a post-therapy Thompson reciting self-affirmations to himself. The fact is, loudQUIETloud happens to be a very good movie; but as much as I appreciate it, something in me prefers the chatty, joking, peacefully unhip Pixies of Live at the Paradise to the flawed human beings seen here, the same way you'd rather see distant relatives put on a good face at Christmas time than delve into their marital problems. And maybe, after all, that's the point.Because in the end, none of us will ever truly fathom the Pixies reunion, at least not on the personal level which the Pixies themselves do. We'll never really know whether they got back together for love or for cash or, as one fan puts it in loudQUIETloud, "because they were too good" not to. So why not just buy our tickets, watch our movies, and settle into the ideal of our choice?There's Charles and Kim during the Paradise performance, joking back and forth about the former's decision to "bring it down" in the middle of "Gigantic." "I've never brought it down before," she giggles. "How does it feel?" he asks. "Really weird," goes the reply. It's a perfect little moment, the kind you imagine would never have happened while the Pixies were together the first time around, certainly not after the Doolittle tour. But is it genuine?Who cares? After all, we've got to leave at least a little bit of mystery.by Zach Hoskins

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Music Review: Paul Stanley - Live to Win

Modern Pea Pod — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 07:24:05 EST

I'm no grizzled veteran rock journo, but I like to think I'm streetwise enough to know what to expect when I slam a classic rock icon; even if I didn't know it before, the flood of vitriol directed at my Neil Diamond review last year would have been more than enough to clue me in on this fact of life. So here I am, beginning a review on the defensive. I like, and even respect, Paul Stanley. Maybe not as a human being (I wouldn't know), and, aside from a few ironic giggles, certainly not as a publicity-constructed individual (his stage banter on last year's KISS Rock the Nation Live DVD was enough to make even the most ardent KISS fan crawl under a rock and die), but as a songwriter and performer, I consider him a truly underrated force in hard rock music. If you don't believe me, just look at his credits: "Love Gun," "Detroit Rock City," "Shout It Out Loud," and "Got to Choose," for Christ's sake. So before the hate mail comes flowing in, people, let me get this off my chest: I'm not about to slam Live to Win because I have it in for Paul Stanley. I'm about to slam Live to Win because it's an absolutely unforgivable, unlistenable load of tripe.See, none of the songwriting chops or sheer rockosity of the nuggets listed above are in evidence on Paul Stanley's solo "debut" (actually, his second solo album, if you count his fourth of the self-titled KISS orgy of 1978). Instead, we get what sounds like bad Linkin Park, with vocals overdubbed by a 54-year-old, whose top range is disappearing about as rapidly as his famous rug of chest hair is going grey. What's more, the old queen didn't even have the cojones to write these songs himself; the bulk are co-written with soft-rock crossover whore Desmond Child, whose credits include most of Aerosmith's worst songs as well as '80s KISS "classics" like "Heaven's on Fire," "Uh! All Night," and "Let's Put the X in Sex." As a result, the album is predictably sucked dry, not to mention ProTooled within an inch of its life. Thirty years after Stanley was bold (or arrogant) enough to flub his high notes on "I Want You" without any post-production fuckery, he's apparently more comfortable glossing his vocals until they're as plastic and artificial as his now Botox-expressionless face.If this doesn't seem like a real review, then you've got me -- it sort of isn't. But that's only because Live to Win hardly qualifies as a real album. There are no high or even low points, unless you count its mercifully brief 33-minute running time. Every song just bleeds together into a mush of embarrassing, out-of-touch musical self-flagellation. Okay, here's something. The monster ballad "Everytime I See You Around" sounds kinda like Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." That, if you can't guess, isn't a compliment either. In fact, the best thing I can say about Stanley's exercize in irrelevancy is actually more of a compliment to his bandmate of 30 years. I never thought there would be a worse rock-dinosaur solo album than Gene Simmons' Asshole, but a mere two years later, here it is. Enjoy!by Zach Hoskins

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Music DVD Review: Public Enemy - MKLVFKWR Manchester UK Live

Modern Pea Pod — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 06:07:22 EST

Which is a stranger thought -- that Public Enemy's days as hip-hop's single most important, relevant group has now been over for more than twice as long as they had lasted? Or that Public Enemy was ever important and relevant in the first place?It's my hope, at least, the majority of you would have answered with the former; PE's glory days may have taken leave of them long before the dawn of the 21st century -- a glance at VH1's program schedule is enough to confirm as much -- but their importance to hip-hop history, popular music history, and just plain history in general is one thing that can never be overstated. These guys were, at one point in time, the cutting edge for rap music: an incisive Molotov cocktail of street rhymes, dense samplescapes, and radical Black politics, the likes of which has never been seen before or since. I'm not saying political rap didn't exist outside of Public Enemy, either before or after the release of their 1987 debut LP Yo! Bum Rush the Show, but I am saying their prescient combination of progressive lyrics and progressive production has never quite been replicated, not even after more than a quarter century of rap music at its highest profile. Even if Public Enemy always was ahead of their time, there's still a nagging sense that "their time" hasn't quite arrived.That's why the mere appearance of MKLVFKWR, a DVD which captures a complete concert in Manchester from the now three-year-old Revolverlution tour, is in itself a little disappointing. Back in their heyday, Public Enemy would never dream of releasing three-year-old material, not even as a stopgap video collection. This was a group who sang about what was happening today to be listened to tomorrow; a group so supremely of-the-moment that when snippets from a 1987 London Hammersmith Odeon concert appeared on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, they were a mere five months old -- and that was in the vinyl era! Meanwhile, in a day and age when bootleggers can videotape a concert on a Friday and have it captured and uploaded onto YouTube by Monday, here's Public Enemy putting out a video that predates George W. Bush's second presidential term. Times have certainly changed.In fact, this could be said to be the theme for MKLVFKWR: Manchester UK Live in general. One of the most interesting things about this DVD is just getting to see how a PE show goes down these days. For starters, the Security of the First World seems to have been downsized to just two guys standing stock-still in berets (they've traded in their Uzis for nightsticks, too, unless that's just a coy reference to the UK's gun control laws), while Public Enemy's trademark rapid-fire barrage of samples is sometimes bolstered, sometimes replaced with live drums, bass, and guitar. This makes for some radically different, more guitar-driven arrangements for many classic songs, which, incidentally, are often condensed into the kind of "get 'em out of the way" medleys Prince has specialized in since he became a Symbol.Maybe that's why the show starts a little slow; something about the truncated takes on "Brothers Gonna Work It Out," "Welcome to the Terrordome," and "Bring the Noise" which open the set but fail to connect. On the other hand, maybe there's something a lot more depressing at work here. There are more than a couple of moments on this DVD that are definitely wince-worthy, moments when I caught myself wishing Public Enemy would just cash in their chips after 20 years -- like when Chuck D raps along with a prerecorded track of his younger self on "Public Enemy No. 1" and comes off as a little short of breath, or, worse yet, when Flava Flav attempts to hold his trademark "yeah boyeeeeeeee" for a minute or so, and winds up sounding like a severely out-of-tune violin. Even the band's politics, while certainly not dulled, have lost something in the way of execution since the days of "Fight the Power." I'm well aware there's always been an element of kneejerk reactionism to Public Enemy, but when the best they have for us is "Fuck George Bush! / Fuck Tony Blair!" ("Son of a Bush"), it just makes me embarrassed to admit that I still believe in these guys.The bizarre thing is, I still do. Even when the crowd shots reveal a depressing surplus of skinny white dudes mouthing Chuck's lyrics and even when Flav is doing what he does best by making an ass of himself (most spectacularly with a series of a capella "previews" from his mercifully still-forthcoming solo debut), I still believe that Public Enemy has some more good music in them. Part of that, of course, is that I know the end of this story -- last year's New Whirl Odor was, despite the usual mixed reviews, a surprisingly solid latter-day achievement, and though I haven't listened to this spring's collaboration with Paris, Rebirth of a Nation, what I've heard about the album has indicated it's not a disappointment. But even rewinding to Manchester in 2003, MKLVFKWR features flashes of the quasi-revival to come: from "Shut 'Em Down" to "911 is a Joke," the PE captured on this disc is on, delivering both old songs and new ("Revolverlution" actually sounds a lot better than some of the more vintage material in this context) with their trademark energy and power. Granted, this brief hot streak (five songs all told with "He Got Game," included only with some trepidation) comes near the end of a largely lukewarm set, after which we are subjected to solo sets from Flava, his boring cousin Timbo King, and even Professor Griff, whose "heavy mental" crew, 7th Octave, seems to have forgotten that rap-metal went out with Fred Durst. Even so, the James Brown-ized rendition of "Fight the Power" that closes the main performance is actually pretty sweet and serves as a preview of the jazz-infused PE who will later emerge on New Whirl's excellent album track "Superman is Black in the Building."Maybe I'm being too easy on Public Enemy. There are few other rap artists, after all, from whom I would put up with a set this thoroughly outdated and mediocre. When you get right down to it, who else is there to believe in? In the midst of a widespread backpack backlash, which sees everyone from Vibe magazine to the acne-ridden Pitchfork reader in your dorm decrying the merits of political consciousness in favor of nihilistic "crack rap," who is our Great Black Hope? Kanye West is too self-absorbed, the Coup too far below the radar, and the Roots, while experiencing something of a critical resurgence with Game Theory, have never possessed the same excitement or commercial thrust as prime PE. So Public Enemy it is until somebody better comes along to pick up the torch. But at this rate, will they ever?MKLVFKWR: Manchester UK Live also features over a disc of bonus material, including classic footage of Public Enemy performing "Can't Truss It" at the 1992 "Stop Sellafield" concert, as well as a "PETV" montage of video clips, and two tour diaries: one from the Revolverlution Tour and one from 1988. Despite being in need of a heavy editing job, Revolverlution does contain some interesting footage, including PE meeting with Jesse Jackson during his second presidential campaign. For a casual or non-fan, it's pretty much minutiae. For someone who enjoys Public Enemy even when they're not at their peak, however, it could be a gold mine, something that could be said about the DVD as a whole, actually.- Zach Hoskins

Find more music, film and pop culture criticism at The Modern Pea Pod.