SOUNDTRACK: NO FORCEFIELD-God is an Excuse (2001).
I was looking up what Larry LaLonde, guitarist for Primus, had been up to while Primus seems to be on hiatus. I hadn’t heard a word from him, so I was surprised to see that he had released two albums with a band called No Forcefield.
I looked for the discs, and found both of them used for $1.00 each. So I ordered them without really knowing what they were about, except that they were described as “experimental.”
This is the second disc by the band which consists of Brain and Ler from Primus as well as assorted other fellows (Bob Cock) and guests. And experimental is an okay word to describe the record. But a better one is disappointing.
With the lineage that these guys bring to the band, it’s surprising how mundane the disc is. It opens with a phone message about Bin Laden and God which morphs into the hilarious Denis Leary bit about CDs and the silver dog bone thing. It then becomes a fairly straightforward electronic track. And this electronic stuff is kind of the purpose of the group, I think. There are at least 3 long, simple instrumentals that are little more than a few notes repeated over a drum beat.
The other tracks are complete nonsense: a faux TV show with “products” for sale which is a teensey bit funny, but not really. There’s also Billy Roz, whoever that may be, crooning “You Are My Sunshine” as well as some polkas over a drum machine (he sings like an old doddering man). And finally a short drum solo.
It’s not even clear to me why Ler is in the band as it seems to be mostly drums and a simple keyboard chord. The only interesting track on the disc is “How to Purify Street Heroin” which is an awesome scratchy workout which I assume is by DJ Disk from the Invisbl Skratch Piklz. And that’s pretty much it.
I was really disappointed my first go around, as I was expecting something, anything, more than this. On subsequent listens, I can appreciate the disc as background/comedy although really neither one is a reason to hunt this down.
[READ: January 21, 2010] Too Much Hopeless Savages
This third collection of the Hopeless Savages saga sees many new revelations. Turns out that Nikki Savage’s mom has come under the influence of a preacher who is intent on praying at the Hopeless-Savage house trying to get them to react in some way. (I’m a little unclear exactly what his goal is here).
At the same time, Arsenal and her boyfriend and Twitch and his boyfriend (the boyfriends are brothers) are off to the boyfriends’ homeland of Hong Kong. Arsenal is there for a martial arts competition and Twitch heads along so that the H-S siblings can meet their boyfriends’ great grandmother.
Hijinx naturally ensue. In this case, Arsenal is slipped a very valuable package and she soon has numerous groups of men after her (it’s unclear if any of them are up to any good). The rest of the family decamps for Hong Kong to escape from all the praying (and they bring grandma along to de-brainwash her).
What is surprising about the story is the emotional depth that comes out of an incident from Arsenal’s past. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: RA RA RIOT-The Rhumb Line (2008).
I have a hard time describing this album. It has a lot of ingredients that don’t make sense individually, yet which work very well. I would almost resort to calling them pretentious rock, but that seems so derogatory. Vampire Weekend falls into this category of highly literate pop too, and 
SOUNDTRACK: WRSU 89.7 FM.
Coming straight out of Rutgers University in New Brunswick (my grad school alma mater), this was the first station that I happened upon while I was scanning the lower numbers on the radio station.
I hadn’t heard of this book, although actually I’m sure I had–but I ignored it. Roy Blount Jr is on 
Such a great name for a greatest hits album. I’m delighted to know that Primus is still fun after all these years. How on earth they were every popular is simply beyond my comprehension.
I Just Read About That... 