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Archive for the ‘The Replacements’ Category

Ray Bradbury–“Take Me Home” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012)

Posted in Books about writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Essays, History, New Yorker, Ray Bradbury, Sci-fi, Short Story, Tangled, Tarkio, The Decemberists, The Replacements, Time Travel on June 5, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: TARKIO-three song demo (from Omnibus) 1997.

These three songs are part of a demo released in 1997.  I actually assumed that Omnibus would have collected all of Tarkio’s releases (how many more can there be?), but I learned that “omnibus” means “a book containing reprints of a number of works.”  So there ya go.

Nearly every review of Omnibus complains about the size of the release.  Some complain that the songs are too long (which is something else entirely), but many seem to suggest that 27 songs is too many for this collection.  I don’t quite understand this attitude, because if it were the collected works, there would be no reason to complain.  As such, I suspect I am the only person who wishes there was a little bit more–like why not the other two songs from this demo?

And demo is a rather unfair name for this, because it sounds wonderful.  (I suspect a demo from 1997 could be recorded with much better equipment than a demo from say 1984).  And these three songs are really something.  I suppose also, listening to these songs in this manner–not as a two disc set but as an original demo of three songs, makes them seem like maybe there isn’t too much of a good thing.

“This Rollercoaster Ride” opens with an interesting pseudo Middle Eastern violin.  But it quickly settles down into a very catchy rock/folk song.  It sounds very Decemberists, and it’s extremely catchy.  “Following Camden Down” is a beautiful song (the reminds me of The Replacements’ “Skyway”).  Meloy’s voice sounds subdued and not as immediately notable as he normally does.  It’s a wonderful little song.  “Slow Down” is a bouncy folk number (with dominant violin).  It’s got a rocky alt feel, although it still reads as traditional folk.

True, none of these songs reach the delirious heights of the best Decemberists songs, but they’re a nice step towards the kind of music Meloy and friends would put out next.

[READ: June 5, 2012] “Take Me Home”

This issue of the New Yorker is devoted to Science Fiction (see the cover).   In addition to five stories (which I assume are science-fiction-y) we also get five (more or less) one-page pieces from masters of the genre (genre being a dirty word, we’ll find).  When I first saw the names of these writers, I thought they were each creating a cool one-page story.  So I was a little disappointed to realize that these are “personal histories” with sci-fi.  But I shouldn’t have been disappointed, because even though these are short, they are really impactful–and come on, they’re classic writers.

I’m surprised by the fact that I haven’t read more Ray Bradbury.  I know I’ve read Fahrenheit 451 and I’m sure I’ve read some of his stories, but I haven’t even scratched the surface–he has written so much!  Indeed, I was surprised to hear that he was still alive (in fairness, he is 92).

This piece begins with Bradbury’s recollections of his introduction to sci-fi with Buck Rogers (1928) and John Carter of Mars (not Disney’s creation, but a series of stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs). (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“Meet Me in St. Louis” (New Yorker, December 24, 2001)

Posted in Books about writers, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, David Lipsky, Essays, Jonathan Franzen, New Yorker, Oprah, Sonic Youth, The Fall, The Replacements on October 6, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PAVEMENT-Slanted and Enchanted (1992).

I decided to go back and give a good listen to Pavement since I’ve always liked them but never loved them And, yes, they were in Central Park the other night).  So I started at the beginning.

I listened to the disc about a half-dozen time at work and I really started enjoying it a lot more by the end. It’s a difficult album, one that doesn’t actively embrace its listeners.  It’ a noisy, sloppy album (and that’s one reason why I like it), but there are hints of melody within.

Because I’m not in the moment, I can’t decide just how revolutionary this album was.  Nearly twenty years later it sounds like any number of noisy distortion fueled, lo-fi recordings of the period.  You can hear all kinds of influences on the band, Sonic Youth, The Fall, even The Replacements.  So, it’s not like they created something out of the blue.

Perhaps they were the first band to consolidate these influences into this particular stew.  No songs really stand out for me, as this seems more of an album of sounds that a collection of songs.  I rather enjoyed some of the oddball instrumentals and the use of keyboards, (which seem too polished for their sound: out of tune guitars and scratchy vocals).

It’s a fun record, and it certainly sets a tone and an agenda for the band.  I’m just not blown away by it.

[READ: September, 22, 2010] “Meet Me in St. Louis”

As I mentioned in the Franzen article the other day, I missed the whole brouhaha with Oprah and Franzen.  This article, which touches on that somewhat, gives Franzen’s perspective on what happened.  But primarily it shows (his take on) the videorecording that happened for his big Oprah TV show.

Mostly it involves Franzen driving around St. Louis.  Franzen grew up in St. Louis but spent most of his adult life in New York City–which is where he considers his home.  However on the book tour for The Corrections, he stopped in St. Louis.

The producers of Oprah wanted to film his great homecoming, even though he never felt it was one.  About two years before this event he and his brothers sold their family house after his widowed mother died.  That was the last time he had been to the house, and he had planned to never return. (more…)

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Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 4] (1851)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Barenaked Ladies, Big Books, Canadian Music, Death, Demons, Fishing, Herman Melville, Infinite Zombies, Moby, Neil Peart, Paul Quarrington, Rheostatics, The Beatles, The Replacements, Violence, Whale Music, Whales, Yuck! on June 14, 2010| 7 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Whale Music (1992).

The Rheostatics are from Etobicoke Canada.  Their second album was called Melville (named after a town in Saskatchewan, but it has a whale on the cover so…).  Their third album (this one) is called Whale Music (inspired by the novel by Paul Quarrington).  When they made a film of Whale Music, the Rheostatics were asked to make the soundtrack for it, which they released as Whale Music.  So, the band have 2 albums called Whale Music and one called Melville.  Perfect soundtrack to Moby-Dick.

The album is chock full of all kinds of music: country tracks, folky tracks, metal tracks, and hooks galore.  And it’s all wrapped up in the oddity that is the Rheostatics.  This album features guest spots by the Barenaked Ladies and Neil Peart as well as horns, strings, spoken word parts, and “power tools”.

“Self Serve Gas Station” is a great opening.  It begins with swirling guitars and a beautiful solo (Rheostatics guitar lines sound so elemental as to seem like they’ve always been around).  But just as the vocals begin, the song becomes a sort of country track: a folkie song about adolescnece.  But it returns to a good rocking (and falsetto fueled) rock track.

“California Dreamline” is a wonderfully weird track, with more gorgeous guitar melodies.  It also has a disjointed section with squealing guitars.   While “Rain, Rain, Rain” opens with a lengthy percussion section (played by Neil Peart of Rush) with a weird time signature.  It’s a fun singalong.  “Queer” meanwhile has some great chugga guitars that turn into a rocking tale of an ostracized brother (and features the great line: “But I wish you were there to see it/When I scored a hat-trick on the team/That called you a fucking queer.”

“King of the Past” is another great track, with a wondrous string sound near the end.  It’s a gorgeous song with (again) different sections conveying shanties and jigs (and you can dance to it).  Like Moby from last week, Rheostatics, also bust out a fast metal track, but this one works well: “RDA (Rock Death America)” has a major hook and name checks everyone from The Beatles to The Replacements.

“Legal Age Life at Variety Store” is a great folky singalong (and features the piercing harmonies of Martin Tielli).  “What’s Going On Around Here?” is the most traditional song of the bunch, a poppy little ditty which avoids complacency with a rocking coda.

“Shaved Head” is a moody piece, wonderful for its roller coaster sensibilities, which is followed by the beautiful Tim Vesely sung ballad “Palomar.”  This track is followed by the humorous (but serious) shouted-word piece “Guns” which also features Neil Peart.

“Sickening Song” is an accordion based shanty song.  Followed by another pretty, poppy-sounding track, “Soul Glue.”  Drummer Dave Clark sings “Beerbash,” an upbeat song.  And tye final track is the epic, “Dope Fiends and Boozehounds.”  It opens with a beautiful acoustic intro and a wonderfully catchy wheedling guitar solo.  It ends delightfully: “Where the dope fiends laugh And say it’s too soon, They all go home and listen to
The Dark Side of the Moon.”

I had been listening to the band live a lot recently, and they play these songs a lot.  So it was quite a treat to go back and hear the original with all its full instrumentation.

[READ: Week of June 14, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 62-86]

I never thought I’d ever say this, but I really enjoyed Moby-Dick this week.  So far, these twentysome chapters have been my favorite (even the gruesome whale sections), there weren’t any chapters that I thought really dragged.  So, good for me!

This week’s read begins with Ishmael stating that harpooners should not have to paddle and then be expected to harpoon as well.  They should save their strength for that last, all important act.  And that seems logical to me, although one also expects that the harpooners would feel kind of bad while everyone else is paddling. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño –“Gómez Palacio” (New Yorker, August 8, 2005)

Posted in bolanobolano.com, Chris Andrews, Culture Shock, Dromedary Records, Foreign Books, Funny (strange), Moxy Fruvous, New Yorker, Poets, Roberto Bolaño, Short Story, Supernatural, The Mommyheads, The Replacements on February 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE MOMMYHEADS-Flying Suit (1994).

The Mommyheads continue the Dromedary catalog’s streak of consistently poppy indie rock.  Throughout the disc, the The vocals are gentle and falsettoed, setting kind of a trend on the label thus far.

What sets this disc apart from a lot of comparable acts of jangly, light-on-the-bass 90s rock is the subtle complexity of the songs.  Even though most of the songs are fairly simple pop confections, there’s usually an unexpected moment that pops up, making things a little more than what they appear.

The opening chords of “Sandman” are, well, weird, angled and minor, but they somehow lead into a very poppy catchy verse about a sandman.

“Saints Preserve Us” opens with a crazy, no wave guitar lick that, somehow, is matched by a vocal line.  And yet, they can’t resist a smooth an catchy bridge, even if it is only two chords long.  Meanwhile, “Spiders” sounds like a long lost Moxy Fruvous track, kinda funny but kinda serious at the same time.

The only thing odd about “Bottom Out” is how normal it is…a fairly simple, undeniably catchy little pop song that would have fit in very nicely on the Juno soundtrack

“Annabell Ann” plays with the listener’s head by sounding for all the world like an orchestral pop song with a weird arrangement until the chorus pops in with poppy chords and harmonies.  And what of “Worm”?  An opening set of bizarre chords that sounds like it’s coming from next door, followed by a delightfully obscure jazzy bassline.  The song wanders around into interesting corners for a few minutes before ending just as suddenly.

The wonderfully titled “Henry Miller is Dead” shows the heavy side of the band, with noisy guitars and raucous lyrics until the very gentle bridge grounds the song back into familiar Mommyheads sound.  The disc ends with “Valentine’s Day” a gentle sorta jokey sounding song about, well, Valentine’s Day.  It sounds like an even indier version of something off of The Replacemnets’ Hootenanny disc.

The disc is less than half an hour long, making it close to an EP.  But it’s a wonderful half an hour.  You can hear the tracks on Dromedary Radio.

[READ: February 17, 2010] “Gómez Palacio”

This short story comes from Last Evenings and Other Stories, and was translated by Chris Andrews.

Bolaño is from Chile and Mexico City, and he seems to have a rather disparaging view of small Mexican cities.  Gómez Palacio is a small Mexican city where the narrator is assigned to teach a short term writing workshop.  The narrator is a poet himself.  His class is attended by only 5 people, none of who are very good.

The bulk of the story concerns his relationship with the director of the Arts Council where the class was held.  She has bulging eyes and is quite short.  Yet every day she picks him up from his seedy motel and drives him to school.  While driving one day she asks him to take the wheel but he doesn’t drive.  Regardless, he drives down the road until a car pulls over in front of them.  The director says that it’s her husband.  She then regales him with a story about her unhappy marriage. (more…)

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J. Torres & Eric Kim–Love as a Foreign Language Volume 2 (2007)

Posted in Arcade Fire, Beirut, Belle and Sebastian, Blonde Redhead, Cat Power, Conor Oberst, Culture Shock, Eric Kim, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, J. Torres, My Morning Jacket, Oni Press, Paul Westerberg, Riceboy Sleeps, Romance, Set at School, Sigur Rós, Spoon, Stuart Murdoch, The New Pornographers, The Replacements, TV on the Radio on January 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DARK WAS THE NIGHT-That Disc (2009).

The second disc in this set is a somewhat more raucous affair than the first (which was pretty much all acoustic performances).  On the surface, this seemed like the better disc of the two.  I like so many bands on this disc: Spoon, Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, The New Pornographers, Stuart Murdoch, Blonde Redhead.

And the disc starts out really great. The Spoon track, “Well Alright” may just be my favorite song on the whole compilation.  The Arcade Fire are typically great.  Beirut, whom I’d not heard before have a great track and My Morning Jacket’s song is very good, in a mellow sort of way.

From there, though, the disc kind of goes downhill. The Sharon Jones track is okay.  Dave Sitek’s (of TV on the Radio whom I love) track is fine.  It’s very basic, especially for him.  It has grown on me somewhat, but it’s nothing too exciting.  The New Pornographers track is catchy but nothing amazing.  Even the Stuart Murdoch (who has never done a bad track) song is mild at best.

But Riceboy Sleeps, which is a side project from the amazing Sigur Rós just kills the disc in its tracks.  The thing about Sigur Rós is that if you’re not in the mood for them, they are too ponderous by half.  So, in the midst of these kind of rocking songs, this 9 minutes ambient instrumental is just death.  And, it’s followed by a dreadful version of “amazing Grace” by the usually delightful Cat Power.

And then comes the Conor Oberst song.  This is the second song by him that I’ve listened to in a short period of time (the other was on Future Soundtrack of America).  And I just don’t get this guy’s appeal.  I feel like I must be a crotchety old man thinking this but I’ll say it: he sounds like a total knockoff of Paul Westerberg.  And the weird thing is, he sounds like a 19 year old P.W. singing the songs of the middle-aged P.W.  “Lua,” the track on here has some clever wordplay, but the melody of the song is pretty much note for note of The Replacements “Sadly Beautiful.”

And at this point in the disc I never even give Blonde Redhead and Kevin Drew a fair chance.

Track sequence means a lot, and I fear they do a disservice to the disc on this one.  I’m still a fan of Disc One and there’s a number of great tracks on Disc Two, but I was rather disappointed by this one.

[READ: December 22, 2009] Love as a Foreign Language Vol. 2

This volume concludes this engaging romance from Oni Press.

I was a little concerned as the volume opened because the Joel-Hana budding romance is derailed by a couple of silly misunderstandings.  (I was afraid we were heading towards TV-slapstick territory).  But, they proved to be just a few moments of comic relief in what was heading into a pretty emotional conclusion.

There’s also the sudden realization/crisis that his fellow teacher, the fun and flirty British woman also has a thing for Joel (what’s a guy to do with two women into him?  And realistically a British romance seems more feasible than a Korean one). (more…)

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Georgi Gospodinov–Natural Novel (2005)

Posted in Books about music, Dystopia, Foreign Books, Funny (strange), Georgi Gospodinov, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Minnesota, Natural Novel, Postmoderism, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs, Short Books, The Replacements, Toilets, Unreliable narrator on June 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

gospodinovSOUNDTRACK–THE REPLACEMENTS–All Shook Down (1990).

shookAnd here we come to the end of the recorded history of the Replacements.  7 albums (and an EP).  4 and a half hours of recorded music.  And a steady maturation from drunken punks to elder statesmen.  Or really statesman (Paul Westerberg at the ripe old age of 31!).   All of the reviews state that this was originally designed as a Westerberg solo album, and that the band barely played together on it at all. And it shows.

To me, this album just isn’t very good.  It’s not that the songs are bad…I ‘ll always admit that Westerberg is a great songwriter.  I’m just not inspired by them.  The single, “Merry Go Round” is the most (there’s that word again) mature sounding rock tracks that Westerberg has written.  And “Nobody” is a decent acoustic type rocker (although the drums are kind of boring).  “Bent All Out of Shape” shows promise but never lives up to it.

“Sadly Beautiful” is another of Westerberg’s solid ballads.  But it doesn’t stand out because the rest of the album isn’t that radically different.  “Someone Take the Wheel” and “When It Began” are decent rockers, but the rest of the album is just sort of…there (except for the awful duet with Johnette Napolitano (whom I used to like but who i just find annoying all these years later).

Westerberg went on to do about a half dozen solo albums but I haven’t heard any of them.

There’s nothing wrong with a songwriter maturing, especially if you get to mature along with him or her.  It’s just such a surprise to see it happen so quickly.

[READ: June 15, 2009] Natural Novel

My coworker and I were experimenting with our library’s catalog.  We started searching for books in specific languages.  We noticed that Bulgarian was one of the languages, and were surprised that our branch had anything in Bulgarian.  It turned out that there was one book that was originally written in Bulgarian but which had been translated to English.  It was this book. It sounded bizarre and fascinating.  And it was only 136 pages.  How could I pass it up?  And what would it be about?

Well, that’s hard to answer.

The premise of a “natural novel” is that it is meant to be a man’s attempt to deal with the dissolution of his marriage.  He starts to talk about the divorce several times, but he can’t really come to terms with it, and so, rather, he gets involved with other things. (more…)

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Gene Luen Yang & Derek Kirk Kim–The Eternal Smile (2009)

Posted in Derek Kirk Kim, Fantasy, First Second :01, Gene Luen Yang, Graphic Novel, Minnesota, Scrooge McDuck, Short Books, Short Story, Snappy Cola, The Replacements, Violence, YA Books on June 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

eternalSOUNDTRACK: THE REPLACEMENTS-Don’t Tell a Soul (1989).

soulWith this disc, the ‘Mats finally scored a hit.  “I’ll Be You” actually made the Billboard charts!  And why not, it’s a delightfully catchy, far more mature version of the ‘Mats now-adult-alternative music.

In my head, this is where the ‘Mats sold out entirely.  But, I listened to the disc the other day and I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed it.  I was probably still really into Pleased to Meet Me when I first got Don’t Tell, so the trip from point A to B isn’t quite as drastic. I guess maybe grown up me enjoys it more than college-aged me did.

The allmusic review is very harsh about the disc, especially the production.  I can’t say I noticed anything about that.  I was just listening for the songs.  And, in addition to being their longest disc to date, it only features 2 songs shorter than 3 minutes!

What you see is Paul Westerberg maturing as a songwriter, for better or worse.  And, as far as his craft goes, it’s certainly better.  As for indie rock, well, not so much.

The songs still maintain the rocking style of older Replacements, but they have more proper structure  (verses and choruses, repeat).  They also play with the loud/soft dynamic that would really come to the fore with Nirvana…although The ‘mats version was more of a rocking/acoustic juxtaposition. Almost all of the tracks on this disc feature an acoustic guitar somewhere in the mix. In fact, I thought that the disc was a lot less rocking than it actually is.

There’s a couple of clunkers on the disc, “We’ll Inherit the Earth” seems a bit off somehow.  But for the most part, the songs sound like a grown up version of the teenage ‘Mats from just five years ago.

By comparison to general pop music, “I’ll Be You” still maintains some indie cred. And, it’s really hard to resist the catchiness of it (from the break to the slightly off-kilter guitar solo that ends the song).  “Achin’ to Be” is another coulda been a hit, although perhaps more on a folk/country side of things.  And “Talent Show” and “Back to Back” are sort of gentle rockers that speed up at a few points. Only “Anywhere’s Better Than Here” has the really distorted rock sound of yore.

Even though I did enjoy listening to the disc, it suffers from a lack of fun.  As I said, it’s a pretty shocking maturation over the span of eight (or even five) years.

[READ: June 12, 2009] The Eternal Smile

Sarah received a copy of this book, and as soon as I realized it was by the guy who did American Born Chinese, an amazing, amazing graphic novel, I was excited to read it.

This is a collection of three short stories: “Duncan’s Kingdom,” “Gran’pa Greenbax and the Eternal Smile,” and “Urgent Request”  I’m not sure if Kim and Yang collaborated or if one did one story and not the others.  But regardless, the art is fantastic in each.  I love the effortless style shifts in “Duncan” from the simple lines in the fantasy sequence, to the very very dark style in the nightmares.  “Gran’pa Greenbax” is so cartooney, so “childlike” in its style, that the violent avarice in the middle comes as quite a shock.  And “Urgent Request” is simply beautiful from start to finish.  It’s a great looking collection. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; or, Pearls Before Swine (1965)

Posted in Corporate skewering, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage Trouble, Minnesota, Political Humor, Smarty Pants, Surf Punks, The Replacements on June 17, 2009| 4 Comments »

rosewaterSOUNDTRACK: THE REPLACEMENTS-Pleased to Meet Me (1987).

pleasedMy friend Al introduced me to the Replacements with this disc way back in 1987.  He was so in love with the song “Alex Chilton” that he must have played it all summer.  And for me, this album is the soundtrack to our summer house at LBI (along with the Surf Punks’ My Beach).  As such, this is my favorite Replacements album.  Whether or not I would feel that way objectively, I can’t say.  But to me this disc is perfect, even without Bob Stinson (blasphemy I know!)

And I have to say that even without Stinson, there’s a lot of screaming guitar solos on this disc, presumably from Paul Westerberg, as I can’t find anyone else who they’re attributed to).  I’m only surprised by this because I thought of Westerberg as more of a rhythm guitarist.

It’s even hard for me to describe this record because it’s so a part of me.  “I.O.U” is a fast and furious opener.  “Alex Chilton,” has everything, rocking guitars, mellow bits and hooks galore.  “I Don’t Know” is a sloppy song, and yet it is a polished kind of sloppy, like they are trying to recreate their wild days.  And yet, it works–the opening drunken laughter and crashing noises, the call and response of disinterested “I dunno” after each line.  hey seemingly get lost during the chorus, but manage to pull it all together, of are pretty perfect.  Even the horns (!) really work on this track. “Nightclub Jitters” is a jazzy, slow song, it sounds a bit out of place, yet it foreshadows Westerberg’s slower pieces.  “The Ledge” is a catchy song about suicide (!).  Whoo hoo, but it’s a really powerful track.

“Nevermind” is a poppy little” number with a catchy chorus (of course they all have catchy choruses).  “”Shootin’ Dirty Pool is a dark and dirty track and “Red Red Wine” is a fun shout along.  “Skyway” is the tender song.  An acoustic guitar ballad that fits nicely on the disc after the raucousness of the last few tracks.  And of course, “Can’t Hardly Wait” is a fantastic closer.

There’s not a bad track on the disc, and I could listen to it over and over and over.  And heck, it’s barely over 30 minutes long.

[READ: June11, 2009] God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

In Palm Sunday Vonnegut rates this book as one of his best, so I was pretty excited to read it.

I was surprised that while reading it that I didn’t fully enjoy it as much as I wanted to.  However, once I finished it, upon reflection, it was a very substantial book, and it will stay with me for a while.  I think that’s because the book deals with really heavy topics: wealth, greed, humanity, love.  And even though it is funny, it’s not as wacky as his other books.  In fact the opening chapters are practically genealogical, and you don’t really realize that the action has started until you’re in the throws of it.

Before I get to the plot, though, I’m going to mention the first appearance of Kilgore Trout, author of science fiction of dubious morality. (more…)

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R. Crumb–The Book of Genesis [excerpt] (New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2009)

Posted in Bible, Gods, Minnesota, New Yorker, R. Crumb, Religion, Supernatural, The Replacements, Tom Waits on June 15, 2009| 2 Comments »

cover_newyorker_190SOUNDTRACK: THE REPLACEMENTS-Tim (1985).

timMany people consider this to be the best Replacements album.  It features one of their best songs “Bastards of Young” (which has one of the best anti-videos ever created (available here)).

For me, I think the second side (how quaint) is stronger than the first.  And, it’s not quite as diverse stylistically as Let It Be.  I think there’s something to do with the production that makes it a bit more polished-sounding.  And yet, despite all of this seeming Tim-bashing, it is still a fantastic record.

“Kiss Me on the Bus,” continues Westerberg’s streak of catchy poppy indie rock.  “Left of the Dial” is an awesome tribute to college radio stations.  And “Little Mascara” is another great, simple rocker.

Tim also contains a few ballads, “Here Comes a Regular” is another great TomWaitsian bar song. And “Waitress in the Sky” is a sweetly depressing song.

All signs indicate that The Replacements matured on this record (which makes this one seem less teenagery than Let It Be).  And after recording this, they kicked out Bob Stinson, founding member and brother of the bassist,  for being too drunk and reckless for the band (for THIS band!).  In fact, their next album will be even more “mature” (but I like that one more).

But Tim stands as one of the 80’s classic indie rock albums.

[READ: June 8, 2009] “The Book of Genesis”

As a general rule, I don’t like R. Crumb’s drawing style.  He’s a little too rough, a little too crass for my tastes.  This is no to say that I don’t appreciate his iconic images and the fact that his style is so recognizable. I just don’t happen truckinto like it all that much.  (Although I think his original characters are all pretty cool–the Keep On Truckin’ guy, of course).

Having said this, I appreciated his somewhat toned-down style in this excerpt.  Crumb decided to do a faithful, respectful illustration of the Bible (or at least the Book of Genesis).  And so he did.  The illustrations are really striking and, as is crumb’s way, he doesn’t hold back. (more…)

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Jonathan Lethem–“Ana’s Apartment” (New Yorker, May 25, 2009)

Posted in Consumerism, Demons, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Jonathan Lethem, Kiss, Minnesota, New Yorker, Short Story, The Replacements, Tom Waits on June 13, 2009| 1 Comment »

CV1_TNY_05_25_09.inddSOUNDTRACK: THE REPLACEMENTS-Let It Be (1984).

letitbeThis is the final album the Replacements made before they moved to the majors.  This disc represents the culmination of their pre-major label sound and is one of my favorite “college albums” of the era.

The disc retains a lot of their sloppy/punk sound of the time, but the songwriting moves forward a little further.  Westerberg wrote some timeless anthems for this disc (“I Will Dare,” “Unsatisfied”).   But, they also sprinkle the disc with silly tracks…not filler exactly…more like balance.  This keeps the disc from being too ponderous.

“I Will Dare” opens the disc. It is bouncy and poppy with an irresistible chorus.   But the bulk of the album is faster and more rocking.  Unlike on their their first two discs, however, the songs run a little bit longer, and they don’t attempt the hardcore feel quite as much.

In fact, there are a few songs that are quite clearly ballads.  “Androgynous” is a piano ballad (!) that could have easily been written by Tom Waits.  “Unsatisfied” is another ballad, although this one has more instrumentation.  Nevertheless, the feeling of yearning is palpable in Westerberg’s voice.  Finally, “Answering Machine” is another flanged-guitar filled song about romance in the age of modern technology (circa 1984).

These relatively light (musically, not emotionally) songs are balanced out quite nicely by the pair of punk/nonsense songs: “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” and “Gary’s Got a Boner.”  They add some (more) levity to the disc.  As well as some rocking guitars.

But perhaps the most surprising song is the cover of Kiss’ “Black Diamond.”  It is surprisingly faithful to the original, (at a time when Kiss was not even ironically cool) and it rocks just as hard.

This album showcases the diverse aspects of The Replacements perfectly.  While some people say their next album Tim is their masterpiece, I am more inclined to go with Let It Be.  And, for some reason, I really like the cover.

[READ: June 10, 2009] Ana’s Apartment

This short story sees the return of Perkus Tooth, who I first encountered in Lethem’s story in The Book of Other People.  In this story, Perkus has had it.   He is tired of his life and of his lifestyle.  He wakes from a party at an obscene hour and walks home in 2 feet of snow.  He learns that his building is shut down; he can’t get his stuff, he can’t even change his clothes.

He wanders around, freezing, until he remembers that his friend Biller told him of a place that Perkus could crash.  When Perkus arrives, Biller tells him he can crash in Ana’s apartment.  Ana’s not there, but she won’t mind a roommate. (more…)

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