I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MARK EITZEL-Candy Ass (2005).

I’ve liked Mark Eitzel since my friend Lar played me “Johnny Mathis’ Feet” back in college.  I got some of his solo discs, but by around 2000, I’d more or less given up on him.  Someone donated a copy of this solo album to the library, and since we weren’t keeping it, I brought it home.

So I don’t know what he’s been up to since 2000, and this album came as something of a surprise.  The first song is quintessential Eitzel: downbeat mellow song with clever lyrics.  But after that, it seems like he got his hand on a drum machine and some electronica and just had a field day with it.

The one trend in electronica is to write long songs, and this holds true for Eitzel here.  There are a number of songs here that are predominantly simple drums and sound effects. The second song, in fact, has no words: it’s just a rudimentary drum machine which feels a lot longer than its 4:44 total time.

The few simple guitar songs (with electronic backing) sound good, but the thing is that Eitzel is an awesome songwriter, he’s just not such a great dancey songwriter.  The electronic experiments aren’t bad, they’re just not very inspired.  They may work as an introduction to that type of music for fans of his that never listened to electronica, but beyond that it’s just not that exciting.

Candy Ass is an interesting experiment, but it falls way short of his best work.

[READ: March 8, 2010] “Ask Me If I Care”

No, I really don’t.

I was really rather disappointed in this story.  It never really gripped me in an interesting way.  And even though the band practice stuff all probably happened, it just feel believable at all.

There was something about this story, and I’m not entirely sure what it was, that made me feel like none of it was plausible.  The narrator’s naiveté didn’t really jibe for me with the reality of her surroundings.  Of course, I admit I don’t know what teens were like in 1979 but for her to be hanging out with the Flaming Dildos and going to punk clubs, it didn’t ring true when she was shocked by inappropriate sex.

I was also disappointed by the “punk” aspect of the story.  I almost felt like she heard the lyrics to an Iggy Pop song and based a story around them.

The funny thing is that there was one scene which really resonated and which was, if I may use a music metaphor: the hit single amidst an album of filler.  Rhea is on a balcony and a creepy and inappropriate man compliments her and gives her advice.  And the section ends with her saying, “And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads.  But I listen.”  And that right there is how the story should have ended.  I cared about Rhea and was focused on her story.  But the rest of it, the part about Jocelyn, nope I didn’t care.