Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Tricky - Mellow
It's been a while since I listened to Tricky's third album, Angels With Dirty Faces, and felt comfortable with all all of it. This morning, while attempting to clear a strange post-NyQuil haze with Red Bull and coffee, everything clicked into place like it hasn't since the first few times I listened to it the week it was released.
At his best, Tricky's albums are filthy sex albums. It doesn't matter what he's rasping on about, his best records are made for making the beast with two backs. (I could have just gone with the obvious curse word there but a childish euphemism seemed like so much more fun, especially considering the frame of mind I was in when this track hit my headphones for the first time at 7 a.m. this morning.)
There's nothing deep about this song. No meaning. No well-stolen sample or clever reference or anything but what it is - an ode to a woman who, ahem, takes care of her man.
The rest of the album, while it seemed like a somewhat bloated overreach after two perfect albums that each had it's own blunted sexually violent tension, actually fits in well. Angels With Dirty Faces is grimy. It's the underworld that Tricky started touching on Pre-Millenium Tension and wished for on Maxinquaye. Amazing. Now I think I need a shower.
Buy Angels With Dirty Faces and the rest of Tricky's discography at Shockhound.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Beastie Boys - Here's A Little Somethin' For Ya
Last week, I gleefully punched a touch screen jukebox into playing "B-Boy Bouillabaisse." That, for the sorely uncultured among us, is the epic final track on the classic and underrated-no-matter-how-credited-it-ever-gets Paul's Boutique. I was less than sober at that moment, but stand by it, because it was, as always, the right thing to play.
Of late I've had a hankering for something outside the Beastie box. I was going to post something like "Skills To Pay The Bills" or something forgotten like "The Move," but you can just get off your ass and dig out the deluxe reissue of Check Your Head or any copy of Hello Nasty and grab them yourself. Instead, I went with one of the tracks from the super-limited to 1000 copies Super Surprise 12-inch pumped to select record stores last year on Record Store Day.
That special release has two tracks on it: "Lee Majors Come Again," which is the rhymes from a new track scratched over Daft Punk's "Da Funk," and this one, "Here's A Little Somethin' For Ya." Neither of them will sound this way on Hot Sauce Committee, part 2, guaranteed. Why would I dare guarantee such a thing? Because there's no way DJ Shadow is going to be cool with the Boys remixing and rapping over "The Number Song (Cut Chemist remix)."
There's no confirmed release date for the new album though, so this will have to do for the moment. And in the meantime, I'll keep terrorizing middle-aged drunks with classic late-80s white-boy rap references to legendary football players and rhymes about peeing between subway cars.
Buy the reissues of Pauls Boutique, Check Your Head, Ill Communication, and Hello Nasty directly from the Beastie Boys.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Campaign - Old Haunts
I don't remember how I stumbled on the free download of the new EP from Atlanta post-hardcore five-piece Campaign. Aside from making me think about Hot Water Music, among other similar-sounding Gainesville bands, there's a lot to like about these guys.
The songs are easy to listen to, and they've got a blog - It Likes To Party - which they use as a home base, mostly to give their music away. The latest EP, Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! is made up of four songs, each of which includes the word "old" in the title. It's a little weird, but the band is singing about combining cheap wine and old records for a more than satisfying night shutting out the world. I can dig that sort of thing, which should explain how they ended up on this blog.
My only complaint is that they're all wearing jean jackets on the cover of the EP. Come on guys, you can do better then that. Hit up Goodwill for some old t-shirts or something cause all that denim is really freaking me out.
Download Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! for free at It Likes To Party, AKA Campaign's band website.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Vivian Girls - Sixteen Ways
One of the complaints about "modern" recording techniques is that they sound sterile. You know, they don't have the pops and clicks of tape, and they don't change over time, because they're not physical the same way that tape is. The arguments are the same for vinyl, because the recordings change (or breathe) over time, unlike on a compact disc or MP3, where they sound the same as the day they were recorded.
Why am I mentioning this? Because Vivian Girls don't like how they're referred to as "lo-fi," the movement that critics and a lot of indie fans grabbed at desperately in the last couple of years. They think it's bull shit, which it is. Because there are only two ways you get the sound of a record that is referred to as lo-fi: Either by using shitty equipment, or by making it sound that way. That's it. That's how it happens.
For Times New Viking, well, they're doing that on purpose, which is a damn shame because they write some really great songs that you have to work to hear through all the static. (Which is exactly what they want.) In the case of Vivian Girls, who say they record in modern, beautific studios, I think this is just the way they sound. I'm not sure what the problem is, frankly. I like it.
Sounding a lot like a classic 60s girl group, these three chicks kick more ass then the label-controlled girl crooners of that time. The songs are catchy, melodic and I imagine that when they do this live, it's loud as shit. What more can you want? Oh, how bout that solo halfway through "Sixteen Ways?" Yeah, that's what did it for me too.
Stop hating on the critical buzz words and bury yourself in the rock and roll of Vivian Girls.
Buy the new Vivian Girls album, Share The Joy, from Polyvinyl Records. (You'd be pre-ordering either a CD or vinyl album, and get an instant MP3 download of the album. Great deal, straight from a great label.)
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