Some uprise

Nas - Illmatic [1994]

Can’t stop spinning Nas’ Illmatic. 1994. That mandatory hip hop text that somehow escaped my mindset for fourteen years. Unforgivable. “Straight out the fuckin’ dungeons of rap” Nas says… What can you say back?

“It's like the game ain't the same
Got younger niggaz pullin the triggers bringing fame to they name
and claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
In broad daylight, stickup kids, they run up on us”

It’s hard to appreciate the truth in these lines if you aren’t from the ghetto. But a good fucking headstart is watching HBO’s phenomenal series The Wire. Yeah, yeah, a TV show. But, in many ways, the anti-show. I could cum-guzzle The Wire all night, but I wont subject ya’ll. Suffice to say The Wire is Illmatic: The Movie.

“I'm out for presidents to represent me (Say what?)
I'm out for presidents to represent me (Say what?)
I'm out for dead presidents to represent me”

Fact is, these lines aren't gangsta posturing, this is the reality of life for black kids from those project corners in countless American cities – especially in the early 90s, at the peak of the crack boom. And we had working class artists like Nas right there, observer-participants, discussing this shitstorm in vivid detail in a form that was really less than a decade old. A form that would come to take over music. That's some Shakespearean shit.

“sometimes i sit back with a budda sack
mind's in another world thinking how can we exist through the facts
written in school text books, bibles, etcetera
fuck a school lecture, the lies get me vexed-er”

One time for you mind. That was Nas too. He was 21 years old when he wrote this shit. Twenty-one.

“Peoples are petrol, dramatic automatic fo'-fo' I let blow
and back down po-po when I'm vexed so
my pen taps the paper then my brain's blank
I see dark streets, hustlin brothers who keep the same rank
Pumpin for somethin, some uprise, plus some fail
Judges hangin niggaz, uncorrect bails, for direct sales
My intellect prevails from a hangin cross with nails
I reinforce the frail, with lyrics that's real”


“Straight up shit is real and any day could be your last in the jungle
Get murdered on the humble, guns'll blast, niggaz tumble
The corners is the hot spot, full of mad criminals
who don't care, guzzlin beers, we all stare
at the out-of-towners (Ay, yo, yo, who that?) They better break North
before we get the four pounders, and take their face off
The streets is filled with undercovers, homicide chasin brothers
The D.A.'s on the roof, tryin to, watch us and knock us
And killer coppers, even come through in helicopters
I drink a little vodka, spark a L and hold a Glock for
the fronters, wannabe ill niggaz and spot runners
Thinkin it can't happen til I, trap em and clap em
and leave em done, won't even run about Gods
I don't believe in none of that shit, your facts are backwards
Nas is a rebel of the street corner
Pullin a Tec out the dresser, police got me under pressure”

Suckin' the Thorny Red One

Review Reviews No. 1: The Dwarf Discovers "their ain't no place like METAL!!!"

Judas fucking PRIEST are apparently still alive and getting about sans-Zimmerframes. Not one of them is dead, you guys. When does that EVER happen? Never, that's when. Ever. Anyway. The tired, irrelevant, probably senile cast of headbangers from the golden age of metal (the pissweak age of metal) apparently toured the wide brown land just recently - and for once, "toured the wide brown land" isn't code for "ran out of adult diapers".

I pooped my pants.

music stooge benefactors and worst benefactors ever The Dwarf felt compelled to cover Judas Priest's Aussie tour not once, not twice, but thrice. Why three times? Because they fucking could, I guess. (The insane, "astounding", unprofessional (nice pen name, kathy0685), "who the hell would even visit this site?" epic crapness of The Dwarf is a whole 'nother post (watch this space fourth quarter 2008!), suffice to say, don't click any of those hyperlinks.) Below, I compare and contrast the three Judas Priest gig reviews in an attempt to glean something from the insanity beyond the pressing urge to END IT NOW.

Review 1: Friday, September 12 2008, Sydney show, by Stephen Bisset

A workhorse-like effort by The Dwarf standards (The Dwarf doesn’t have standards), which is to say that Stephen Bisset writes like he might have actually finished high school. Then again, the very first word of this review is “Nary”. Don’t write or say or even think the word “nary”, Stephen Bisset. Or anyone. No one says that. And by the way the nineteenth century called on a phone it got from Alexander Graham Bell and it wants its vocabulary back. It called just to tell me to tell you that, Stephen Bisset.

Apparently Judas Priest are a “metal” band. This becomes pretty apparent throughout the course of the review, depending on how savvy the reader is to the subtle clues Bisset leaves dotted around the place as to what genre of music Judas Priest play. This both needs and deserves a tally. What follows is a list of Bisset’s use of the term “metal” is his 933 word opus:

metal gods (x 6 (six))
metal – heads [sic. Yes, the spaces between the – are Bisset’s. Metal needs room, you guys]
disgruntled metallers
breakneck-speed metal
heavy metal thunder
metal as plastic
metal fans
metal showman
metal frenzy

That’s 14 metals. That’s almost as many “metals” as “ands” (22 of those). For math buffs, this article is 1.5% metal. That’s more metal than there is in your car. That’s one metal every 67 words. In case these statistics aren’t telling the story for ya, I’ll translate: that’s fucking mental.

There’s some real gems in this review. The best sentence, far and away, is this:

“It was obvious from the get go that Judas Priest meant business, with drummer Scott Travis perched atop a riser no less than eight foot high that was flanked by two platforms.”

I love this sentence. I almost feel bad to make fun of this sentence, because I’m pretty sure that if I saw this sentence in a bar I would hit on this sentence and buy it a drink and later I wouldn’t take no for an answer from this sentence. It’s nice to know in this crazy mixed-up world that if you ever want to “mean business” (and hey, who hasn’t?) all you need to do is perch on a ridiculously tall drum kit? No, that doesn’t make sense.

But even better than meaning business by being on a “riser” (is that a word?), I love the journalistic integrity of this sentence. I mean, Bisset could have taken the punchy, dramatic path and omitted to mention the “two platforms”. Readers would have been left with an image of a drum kit fucking floating in space. But no. Bisset, the Noam Chomsky of music journalism, didn’t shy away from the truth. The riser was “flanked by two platforms”, guys. It was flanked by platforms. Otherwise, how could the drummer have got up there? Exactly. He doesn’t live on the riser, guys. Give the platforms some credit.

Where my platforms at?

You just know that Bisset knows that music isn’t just about the sounds and stuff, it’s about the props. He points out that the lead singer’s costume made him look like “some kind of futuristic druid”. But druids are from the past, I hear you say? Exactly. Imagine something from the past from the future. Fucking badass.

But not for long:

“From Halford wielding massive flags about the place, changing costume no less than five times, to appearing from behind a door underneath the drum riser singing from a throne pushed by a cloaked figure.”

Anyone that can “wield” a flag has got my respect. And costume changes no less than FIVE TIMES?! Maybe even more than five times? Bisset likes to say “no less than”. It’s got a salesman’s oomph. Who says “the riser was eight feet high” when you can say “the riser was no less than eight foot high”? Whoever they are, they aren’t Stephen Bisset.

But I’ve got to say, Bisset, where has the platform love gone, dude? I mean, props for shouting out both the “door”, the “throne” and the “a cloaked figure” (read: roadie). But surely the platforms were still flanking the riser when Halford appeared from behind the door singing from a throne pushed by the a cloaked figure? We’ll put it down to an oversight this time, but dude: Remember your roots. Your platforms, as it were.

Bisset, master of the witty turn of phrase, ends with a signature piece of repertoire:

“I guess you could say I went into the ‘temple of the metal gods’ an agnostic. The Priest made me believe.”

Kind of reminds me how I went into this article an agnostic, but Bisset made me believe (that there is no God).

Review 2: Saturday, September 13 2008, Melbourne show, by April P Bedeau

In the course of this 1289 word behemoth, the newly assless (“I'm sure many an ass was rocked off by the Melbourne show... including MINE!”) April P Bedeau lets us know that her favourite band is Motley Crue and, while she has the soapbox, manages to complain about the parking (“Rod Laver really do need to look at their parking facilities around their venue”). I should just stop here, but this article is a train wreck so complete that I looked at it for way longer than anyone should and I now find myself compelled to tell people all the gory details. I’m sorry. If you’re a nice person, please skip directly to Review 3 (if you’re a nice person, you’re not reading this. Sorry, person whose reading this and thought they were nice).

My theory is that the 36 year old April P Bedeau was so super PUMPED to be seeing the “Priest Beast roller coaster” that she regressed into writing like a sugar-crazed nine year old penning a freeform piece on the joys of Halo 3. But that’s just my theory. All I can say for sure is that any way you look at it, April P Bedeau should never have gotten her pen license. We need a Royal Commission into why April P Bedeau got her pen license.

So, in spite of my minor obsession with this article, I’ve been semi-dreading the prospect of reviewing it. Beating up on April P Bedeau’s writing is going to be like flogging a child. I don’t take any pleasure in this, guys. This hurts me more than it hurts you, April P Bedeau. I’m not angry, I’m disappointed.

It’s hard to read this review. Line for line, it’s heavier going than Homer’s Odyssey. I planned to quote some choice sentences and/or paragraphs here, but it has become quite clear that it can’t be done. I don’t want to blow your minds like that, readers. Instead, I’m going to drip feed you a few fragments. Take it easy and make sure you’re seated when you read these, ok?

“there he stood, in a sparkly cloak on a platform looking like a wizard with his staff”

This one comes back to April’s year two teacher, the same one with the liberal pen license policy. I don’t care what you say, Webster’s Dictionary: “sparkly” is NOT a word. Got back and do it again.

Scrupulous readers will also notice the return of the promised “platform”. Seriously, this band loves platforms, and apparently the fans lap it up (this may or may not have something to do with the occupation of your average Priest fan – see Review 3 below). The singer doesn’t love platforms quite as much as the drummer, though, because he’s only got one platform. He isn’t flanked by platforms.

Now, I can’t decide whether “a wizard with his staff” trumps “some kind of futuristic druid”. “A wizard with his staff” is perhaps the more mundane of the two descriptions, but, on the other hand, at least it makes fucking sense. Whether or not he had a real staff or April was just referring to his mic stand, we may never know (we never want to know). I’m not going to get into the staff versus wand debate (sorry, Harry Potter fans). But I’m inclined to like April’s description here. It’s straightforward and modest. She’s a writer for the masses. If Bisset is the Chomsky of music journalism, Bedeau is the Mao.

A futuristic druid or a wizard with his staff? You decide.

“The first cloak outfit was one of five costume changes Halford made throughout the show and the numerous props that went along with it were what made it a truly theatrical experience.”

Mao or Chomsky, everyone loves props and costume changes. Looks like Bisset might have been a little hyperbolic with his gushing “no less than five costume changes” though. Bedeau brings the straightforward honesty yet again: yep, he changed costume five times. No more, no less. Wow.

“the beginning was sure to be just a taste of what was to come.”

See what I mean? Can you think of anything less pretentious than actually taking the time to explain to your readers what the word “beginning” means? I can’t.

“Halford slowly made his way down amongst the other players at the end of the second song…”

Just because Bedeau is a populist, doesn’t mean she can’t break new ground. Why aren’t musicians called “players”? They play music, don’t they? If you’re thinking “Because it’s a god-damned stupid thing to call them”, then you just don’t get it.

“Sure the songs Angel was haunting…”

Aww, how cute, she said the songs Angel. And way to bring the positivity, April. So much nicer than Bisset’s just plain meanie take on the same track: “The only let down in the set was the atrocious and ill fitting power-ballad Angel, possibly only included to give the guys a much needed breather.” AND included to haunt April, Bisset. Don’t forget the songs Angel haunts April.

“Of course, I have been to copious amounts of metal shows as well as other gigs before in several different genres”

Oh. Wow. Bisset’s sentence earlier, the one from the bar: screw that slutty sentence. I’ve got a new crush. “Copious amounts”, ahhhh, that goes down like an ice-cold 7-up in a hot, hot desert. She’s been to gigs IN genres! INSIDE them! Several DIFFERENT genres! Oh, the best. This is the best sentence, you guys. If Bisset’s sentence was a one night stand, this sentence is a happy marriage and two beautiful kids.

Review 3: Thursday, October 2 2008, Perth show, by Dan McManus

In their way, both of the reviews so far are so bad that they’re hard to hate. But I’m an arsehole and I hated them anyway. Not for the crap spelling and the atrocious syntax. I hated those reviews for their sycophantic, gushing, narrow-minded, bogan discourse. I hated them because they’re a waste of air and precious internet bandwith and because the authors were clearly in it for the free ticket. A free ticket to see a shitty outmoded act whore itself to a cliché so obnoxious it’s a parody of itself. Ugh, you guys. Just gross.

And then, almost a month later, Dan McManus rolls into town:

“Whoever fixtured priest on a Tues needs to be lined up and skull fucked.”

Now that’s writing. How brutally and honestly and hard does that sentence hit you after the other bullshit? It is the anti-Bisset and the anti-Bedeau. It’s a beautiful thing.

Bias alert: Dan McManus is a mate of mine. Oh, wait, everyone reading this thing knows that. Still, just putting it out there. Bias or no, in a mere 578 words this article kicks arse and it kicks fucking THOR arse next to those other two:

“Half the crowd there were blokes and sheilas over 30 who clearly needed to be up at 4.30 am the next day to lay bricks for dale alcocks homes in mindare.”

While Bideau’s grade 4 grammar could be cringe-funny, this is legitimately haha-funny. Like, LOL funny. Moreover, THIS is why Judas Priest fans are obsessed with platforms: they all work on them. You have to admit: Priest have their niche cornered. The fans appreciate a good platform – give the fans platforms!

McManus, being my mate and all, informed me that The Dwarf censored the more brutal aspects of his article. I can’t even imagine how brutal when stuff like this made the cut:

“Judas shit? That's right metal heads, your beloved metal gods sucked Satan's proverbial thorny red cock last night. Sorry to have to be the one to shed some truth on the matter, but they did.”

Suckin' the thorny red one

But the real beauty of that quote and this review is that it simply cuts the shit. Dan doesn’t count the bloody costume changes. He doesn’t use the word “metal” as an adjective. Platforms don’t get a gig. He sums up the cheap theatrics hilariously:

“The theatrics of Priest, always a highlight in the heyday, seem dated and sort of like your on a 1987 version of the Ghost Train at the perth Royal Show. Scary when it first came out but now cute and adorable.”

Rather than fellate the rehearsed gun-show, McManus has an eye for those surprising details that actually tell you something about the experience:

“There was a funny moment during Breaking the Law when a bloke got on stage, took a photo with K.K.Downing had a little dance with himself and then mingled back into the crowd without security batting an eyelid. Unbelievable. It was either pure apathy from the rent a cops or pure incompetence.”

The best thing about this review in the context of the other two is that it actually explains why those reviews suck Satan's thorny red cock: because the idiotic reviewers were always going to love it, even if the fucking Druid Wizard had finally had that coronary on stage:

“I don't think it would have really mattered what Priest offered last night, the army of black jeans and even blacker shirts were going to love it. And love it they did. As demonstrated when I was walking from the carpark trying to locate my way out of this labyrinth only to see a young hoodlum deviate 5 metres sideways to elbow me in the shoulder on his way through. Now that's what I call love for a fellow human being. Going out of your way to make physical contact. Just brilliant.”

Take me off suicide watch tonight, guys. The world is ok again.

Lightbulbs are transparent things

Fujiya & Miyagi - Lightbulbs [2008]

It’s a cliché of criticism to say that a band records the same song or the same album over and over. It’s generally bullshit perpetrated by those who want to dismiss a piece of music offhand, but there’s also some truth to it (as acknowledged by Love is All who called their 2006 album “Nine Times That Same Song”). For one, in the end, all music is about organising sound over time – so a five word history of music might read “Infinity times that same song”. But that’s not to say that repetition is a-ok. Sometimes it blows, because, well, it’s boring.

But if talented musicians reinterpret and challenge a formula, song to song, the result might be great music, in spite of the accusation that they’re reinventing the wheel. Bringing us to Fujiya & Miyagi’s newie, Lightbulbs. Lightbulbs happens to sound a lot like Fujiya & Miyagi’s excellent 2006 break-out, Transparent Things, and not just in a sound-over-time sort of way. The Brighton four-piece are still pumping out funky, bassy Krautrock over silly lyrics about household items. For those of us who were all over that shit in 2006, the question is whether they break through the seen-it-all-before threshold and back into the awesomesphere this second time around.

The answer is yes and no. Fujiya & Miyagi are still as catchy, fun and stupid as ever. They still sound great from car speakers and if you spin this thing at a party you’ll still get strangers nodding their heads and asking who these funky mofos are. Because the band’s formula is relatively unique, the need for musical evolution is diminished. One spin of album opener “Knickerbocker” or the appropriately titled “Uh” reveal Fujiya & Miyagi doing what they do best with, to quote Borat, great success.

And yet, a couple of things tend to dim Lightbulbs in the context of Transparent Things. Fujiya and Miyagi’s only attempt at anything different here comes in the form of two down-tempo tracks: “Goosebumps” and the eponymous “Lightbulbs”. Both fail. Fujiya & Miyagi are built for driving four-four grooves, but these tracks plod. They break up the album unnecessarily and feel like a token nod to the expectation that their sound evolve. And while the rest of the album pretty much regurgitates the Fujiya & Miyagi formula to success, closer “Hundreds and Thousands” is pretty much an instrumental version of Transparent Things opener “Ankle Injuries”. It seems an odd way to finish.

Still, apart from the plodders, props to Fujiya & Miyagi for shamelessly rocking a pretty sweet formula.

The Forefront of Unclassifiable

subtle - Exiting Arm [2008]

subtle’s 2006 album, for hero:for fool, always struck me as sounding like music from the FUTURE. The way subtle morphed these rambunctious beats through some very weird production, the way that it didn’t conform to any of the tropes of indie rock and yet was somehow firmly grounded in the indie aesthetic, the way the raps had no real point of comparison in modern hip hop, and the way the whole thing was somehow catchy – all of this created the time travel effect. I mean, imagine hearing cutting edge music 10 or 20 years from now without the benefit of context. So many of the evolutionary steps that are embedded in the music – and familiar to contemporary listeners – would be lost to you. It’s going to sound familiar yet different, like how rye whiskey tastes. subtle mimic this effect by being so forward looking and unique.

subtle are still rocking the time machine with Exiting Arm, providing further evidence that they’re at the absolute forefront of whatever genre they’re supposedly in. iTunes tells me that for hero:for fool is in a genre called “Unknown” (with the exception of one track, which is unhelpfully classified as “General Hip Hop”), while Exiting Arm is simply “Rock”. This is rubbish, but I’m not sure that I could do better. Is it possible to be at the forefront of “Unclassifiable”?

Title track opener “Exiting Arm” provides all the evidence. Like most of the songs here, it’s driven by percussion – in this case, a thumping, fast rap beat. Then, like a lot of great Beatles tunes, the lyrics start with the chorus. Meantime, a whining, distorted riff weaves its way around the beat, keeping pace, and further rhythm is provided by a looping, Brian Eno-does-Microsoft hum. When the guitar drops out for the verse, we’re immediately in hip hop territory. In the course of less than four minutes subtle manipulate this tension between musical genres. The bridge at the 2 minute mark is a classic electro break, while the one forty seconds later is “Rock” – everything drops out besides the voice and the bass. Somehow, it’s all catchy as hell.

Thus, Exiting Arm is the best possible musical mindfuck. “Sick Soft Perfection” drops spooky, Amnesiac beats and pained electronic glitches under subtle’s already-weird vocals at their most disjunctive. To their credit, subtle never allow the density of the music and the ideas behind it to take over, as evidenced by the surprising moments of clarity like the rap break-down in “Unlikely Rock Shock”. And while the lyrics are largely incomprehensible, you’re occasionally given a hint that what’s being said doesn’t just sound like it might be profane, it actually is: see “what sort of armor can the average man arrange inside of him?” and “Q: what’s working man’s hope? A: they call it cope”. [Edit: Also see this fucking nutso flash site the band put together to accompany the album, featuring interactive poetry.]

The future called, they want their music back.

Punks. Everywhere.

Abe Vigoda - Skeleton [2008]

There’s this punk club in downtown LA called The Smell and there must be something fishy in the water there (get it? Fish smell, heh-heh) because four of their mainstay acts – No Age, HEALTH, Mae Shi, and now, Abe Vigoda – have blown up and become mega indie-famous. Meaning, moderately famous. Not sure if this is one of those Manchester in the early 80’s things (unlikely) or Seattle in the early 90’s (also unlikely) but, well, it does at least look like one of those random geographical creative pulses – and those things are pretty cool. Call it the Californian Spring… Of rock. The California rock spring… You get my drift.

Abe Vigoda make tropical punk rock. Weird, right? It reminds me of when Lisa Simpson encountered Yahoo Serious: “I know those words, but that makes no sense”. The tropics are the last place you’d expect to find a punk – it’s too hot for black jeans, and everyone’s getting laid too often to be riled about capitalism, the Man, or the Queen of England. Y’know, punk stuff.

But the concept of tropical punk makes a bit more sense when you hear Abe Vigoda. The dissonance of Skeleton is very No Age, but the sound also embraces the chaotic power of Black Flag and throws a whole lot of schizo Caribbean rhythm into the mix. Abe Vigoda even manage at points to make the guitars sound like steel drums, which is one of the things that almost rockets this album directly into the awesomesphere. If I were forced to give a non-drug related analogy, I’d say Skeleton is the music equivalent of being chased through downtown LA by stoned, knife wielding Rastas. Woops, there’s a drug reference. Sorry.

Abe Vigoda’s sound isn’t easy on the lobes. Skeleton isn’t a dinner party album, unless you’re hosting a dinner party for hipsters. But you get the feeling that Abe Vigoda would fucking shred live, and that (the potential to one day see these guys shred) probably makes this album worth the risk of indictment for music piracy. Plus, when everyone’s talking about the “Cali scene of the late 00’s” you can be all like: “yeah man, I was listening to Abe Vigoda back when No Age were relative unknowns”. That’s called cred. You can’t buy that shit.

Zack Attack Back

New Zack De La Rocha here. The angry not-so-young man and a drummer called Jon Theodore. It's stripped down down and pretty cool, but this may as well be new RATM. Not necessarily a bad thing.

voltage spikes

This looks even cooler here.

When in doubt, play track 4

Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Momofuku [2008]

Elvis Costello is an imposing figure. According to some, his shadow over modern music is as significant as that cast by Bob Dylan. Admittedly, this was news to me. The hipsters haven’t embraced Costello like they have Dylan or Tom Waits. Why that is, it’s hard to say. Maybe it’s because he’s British and he hangs out with perennial sad case Paul McCartney. Or maybe it’s because he reminds the hipsters too much of themselves – skinny, literate, geeky glasses, encyclopedic knowledge of music history – except that he’s got the thing every hipster dreams of but doesn’t have: talent, fame, success. We like our musical geniuses to be tormented, depressed, alcoholic – dead, ideally. So the fact that a well adjusted suburban computer programmer can do it is a harsh reality check best avoided.

Costello is still doing it. Momofuku is a great album. It does that thing where it sounds familiar and yet confounds expectations. The joy is in these little surprises, like in opener “No Hiding Place”. At first, the song seems a jam, but little by little it reveals itself as a deliberately structured and superbly produced rock out. Then, “American Gangster Time” punches in with this raw punk riff, but by the time the chorus rolls around complete with Vox continental organ, you’ve realised the wheel’s been reinvented again.

What else can I say? To quote Costello himself, in an article for Vanity Fair that listed his favourite 500 albums: “How many times can you write "Superb," "Beautiful," "Stomping," or "Absolutely tangerine" before it loses all meaning? How many times do you need to read: "Masterpiece"? Or, better still "Masterpiece . . . ?".” Ok, this is no masterpiece. But the man’s point applies to those words, too. Who cares if you’re listening to a masterpiece or not when a track like “Go Away”, pumped through crappy earphones, can make you drum the air with invisible sticks as you walk home from work.

In the same article, Costello wrote: “When in doubt, play Track 4-it is usually the one you want.” Damn straight. Track 4 of Momofuku is called “Harry Worth”, and it’s absolutely tangerine. Head straight for track 4 and if it doesn’t knock your motherfucking socks off, feels vindicated in your Costello-apathy.

Melancholy on toast

El Perro Del Mar - From the Valley to the Stars [2008]

A bit of the way through El Perro Del Mar’s new album, From the Valley to the Stars, Swedish vocalist and songwriter Sarah Assbring repeatedly sings “Don’t cast away your inner island”. It’s a line with metaphorical reverberations throughout the entire album.

El Perro Del Mar told us that she set out to record a good hearted album free from cynicism, and she’s succeeded with From the Valley to the Stars. But not in the way you might think, because we’re not talking about sunshine and lollipops here. For one, Sarah’s haunting voice precludes that. But beyond that, in many ways this album is a dark piece of work. Melancholy is El Perro’s bread and butter, and despite lighter moments such as “Somebody’s Baby”, the introspective gloom can’t help but seep in.

Happily, it works. This is a funereal piece of music, and Sarah sings like a brave widow. The sunny optimism of the lyrics of “Happiness Won Me Over” are put to the lie by sighing Church organs. Opener “Jubilee” uses those same organs to convey the joy that Christians are supposed to feel about Christ’s crucifixion – a joy fixated upon slow, violent death.

Then there’s that line, “Don’t cast away your inner island”. Much like the album, the lyric sounds sweet, corny even, upon first listen. But it’s really about solitude – while no man is an island, we all have an island in us. Maybe we go there to die, alone.

SUPER MUSIC NERD STATUS CHALLENGE

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals [2008]

Girl Talk has finally dropped the follow up to 2006’s non-stop party machine Night Ripper. It’s called Feed the Animals, and about 45 seconds into my first spin this week I got that tingly feeling in the spine that means that everything might just be right with the world.

I’m not even sure what a mega mix is, but Girl Talk takes the mega mix to the next level. Let’s call it the ultra mix – no, even better – the mega ultra mix, the multra mix. Girl Talk is the multra mega phat pharty-starting white boy, Leisure Suit Laptop, the Sheik of Beat, the Cherry on Top of the Pops. He doesn’t so much mash up as mash on down – sure, there’s mash ups galore, but each lasts for about 5-25 seconds before being drowned or devoured by the next indie riff, rap beat, hip hop flow, pop hook, dance... thingo.

It’s hard with words to convey the sheer weight of hedonistic sampling that goes on in Feed the Animals. So here’s what I done. On my third spin the record (yes, first would have been better, but it’s too late now, isn’t it?) I conducted an experiment and a challenge. Of the 300 or so samples on this three quarters of an hour, could I name 100 songs, either by title or band?

Girl Talk draws so thick and fast from the last couple of decades of popular music, any music nerd worth his salt would anticipate a walk in the park in naming a mere 100 samples from Feed the Animals. But would I be up to it? In the days leading up to SUPER MUSIC NERD STATUS CHALLENGE, as it came to be known, I massaged my lobes raw and obsessively studied Spicks and Specks in anticipation. The stakes: any future claim to musical knowledge, and the enviable MUSIC NERD status that it entails.

The Rules:
Target: 100 points.

The Purported Nerd may name either band or song title, or both, of any song sampled. Each successful guess is rewarded with 1 point. A band and title combo is worth 2 points (yes, I'm cheating).

Random comments in (parentheses) will be tolerated.

Markers comments will appear in [square brackets].

No google. No mobile phones. Laptops ok. Girl Talk uses two.

And the result:

Track 1: "Play Your Part (Pt. 1)" - 4:45

“My Sharona” [ed: not actually sampled on this song, apparently. Way to false start]
Kiss: “We’re Not Gonna Take It” [ed: It’s by Twisted Sister. At least I got the men in heavy make up bit right]
(“Gettin’ some head; Gettin’ Gettin’ some head”)

2 "Shut the Club Down" - 3:07

Avril Levine: “You Don’t Need a Boyfriend” [ed: It’s called “Girlfriend”, but close enough]
Butthole Surfers [ed: song’s called “Pepper”]
NWA: “Fuck the Police” (Ice Cube rocks in right at the end here with a “Wit a little bit of gold and a pager”, some other rapper responds “We don’t give a damn, we don’t give a fuck”) [ed: Actually a Cool Kids song which samples NWA. Girl Talk samples Cool Kids sampling NWA. How postmodern]

3 "Still Here" - 3:57

(“Flash…lights”) [Ed: Kanye]
(“I like the way you work it (No diggity) I got to bag it up”) [ed: BLACKstreet feat. Dr Dre]
(That “20 dollar bill” club hit, over some country song)

4 "What It's All About" - 4:15

(“Na na na na na” song)
Faith No More [ed: song’s called “Epic”]
“Say a Little Prayer” [ed: No such song, apparently]
(“I grew up on the crime side/The New York Times side/Stayin’ alive was no jive”)
Outkast: “Miss Jackson”
Jackson 5: “2 and 2 is 4” [ed: It’s called “ABC”]
Queen: “Bohemian Rhapsody”

5 "Set It Off" - 3:42

Radiohead “Paranoid Android”
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five [ed: Song’s “The Message”]

6 "No Pause" - 3:12

(That annoying road trip song) [ed: Len: “Steal my Sunshine” Bad song, but Girl Talk works it.]
“I want you to want me”
Eminem (This is a fucking great Eminem rap. Whatever happened to that guy?) [Ed: Song’s called “Shake That”. As for Eminem, isn't he dead?]

7 "Like This" - 3:21

Beastie Boys: “Bodymovin”
“Ghetto Superstar” over Yo La Tengo: “Autumn Sweater”
Metallica: “One” (the super fast guitar bridge bit - matched with this awesome chick rapper) [ed: She’s called Lil’ Mama]

8 "Give Me a Beat" - 4:12

Air: “Sexy Boy”
Of Montreal (“foooorgeeeet” goes the lyric, apt because I’ve forgotten the song name) [ed: “Gronlandic Edit”]
“America’s Most Wanted” [ed: it’s “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”, but close enough]

9 "Hands in the Air" - 4:20

“Woop there is it” [ed: Apparently it’s “Whoomp”]
Cardigans: “Love Fool” with Hot Chip
(a dance sample – that fucking song with the video clip of the kid running around with a model airplane that gets sampled fucking all the time!) [ed: Stardust “Music Sounds Better with You”. Der.]

10 "In Step" - 3:23

(A hella Jane Fonda workout song, oh hang on, it’s):
“You got it!”
(That wacky whistling sound. Can’t believe I can’t remember the name of this) [ed: Deee-Lite: “Groove is in the Heart”]
Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit” [ed: “Lithium”, you tool]
“Dancing in September” [ed: Just “September”]
The Beatles: “God only knows” [ed: Beach Boys! Lennon is rolling over in his grave! I hate you!]

11 "Let Me See You" - 4:04

(woo-oo, wee-oo)
(Sounds like a young Shaggy singing “I’m a flirt”) [ed: it’s R Kelly]
Daft Punk: “Harder Better Faster Stronger”
Devo: “Whip It” [ed: nope.]
MIA: “Boys Say” [ed: “Boyz”. Close enough]
(Some new wave revival wonderfully mashed up with MIA) [ed: It’s the Cranberries: “Dreams”]

12 "Here's the Thing" - 4:46

“Choo choo Ride” [ed: It’s called “C’mon Ride It (The Train)”. Perhaps even more inane a title than “Choo choo ride” would have been]
Skank Ho: “Since U Been Gone” [ed: Correct! Two points. Also would have accepted Kelly Clarkson]
Prodigy: “Breathe/Firestarter” [ed: yep, Firestarter. Those songs are indeed indistinguishable, so no penalty]
“Jessie’s Girl” (Best call and response sample mix ever. Faggy white boy [ed: Rick Springfield] sings: “I want Jessie’s Girl”. Rapper responds: “But I’d rather get some head”)

13 "Don't Stop" - 2:58

Underworld: “Born Slippy”
The Cure [ed: Nice! “In Between Days” is the song. The Cure’s “Close to Me” also sampled on earlier track “What It’s All About”]

14 "Play Your Part (Pt. 2)" - 3:25

Red Hot Chili Peppers: “Under the Bridge”
ACDC: “Thunderstruck”
(very Family Ties opening sequence piano bit with lage scale synth action… Whitney Houston?) [ed: It’s Journey “Faithfully”. Interestingly, David Chase also chose to end the final episode of The Sopranos with a Journey song. Coincidence?]

The Score:

Named 29 bands + 31 songs = 60.

A “pass”, but shatteringly short of the target. See the work of a real nerd here. Download the album (pay what you want) here.

Religion and death

Swedish pop minstrel El Perro Del Mar (“The Dog of the Sea”) came to indie prominence a couple of years ago with the release of a beautiful and melancholy self titled debut. It was a record that carried with it the air of having been discovered in a grandparent’s musty basement – a sepia time capsule by a long-dead pre-War starlet. Her second album, From the Valley to the Stars, has just hit Australian shores, and it confirms El Perro Del Mar (Sarah Assbring by birth) as a rare talent. I spoke to Sarah on the phone as she sipped a double espresso in her kitchen.

What was the process of making From the Valley to the Stars?

It was a long process. It was different. I wanted it to be different, I knew that I wanted to make a conceptual piece – an entity, a unity of songs, I wanted to make something that was almost expressionist in some kind of way.

I started with that idea, and with these theoretical ideas in my mind I felt I needed to work on a theme, so I started to do research for that while I toured.

When I finally got the time I connected a lot of ideas and impressions and theories. I had them in my notebooks. When I got back to Gothenburg and started writing music I had all these ideas collected and I just started to put the ideas down and put them into music.

It was a different kind of process and a process I didn’t know would be possible… I had all these ideas for songs – I had very specific things written down for the songs – this song will sound like this, this song will sound like this… and then there will be a part of the song where this happens… blah blah blah…

I didn’t know if it was ever going to sound the way that I envisioned or even going to be an actual song – it was all a risky thing.

I was really happy to find pretty fast after I started writing music that it was possible and I was very happy that I made it.

You say the music came after the language. Does this include lyrics? Do you keep a diary or write a lot?

I have tons of notebooks. I separate things a lot. I have a personal diary where I would never ever write any ideas or inspirations – I’m very meticulous about that… I’ve always made that kind of distinction with things.

I know when I go to the place I work or write, if I stumble on a diary note when I’m writing music it distracts me or annoys me so they have to be kept separate.

I keep 3 or 4 notebooks. Some contain inspiration, people, events, other music. Page after page of names, dates, buildings, historical events. Other books contain quotations, poetry. Others contain my own stuff.

So you find a lot of inspiration in places beyond music?

When it comes to music, all the music that means something to me has a very clear heartfulness and soul. That’s what I look for and what I instantly hear and love when I listen to music. I think it’s the same when it comes to other things. I draw inspiration from a lot of different things – architecture very much, literature, photography and math – and art. And a lot of inspiration from various people… Peoples’ lives.

It’s all about the soul and the heart of those people and what they made and the imprints that they left on this world, I think, that I’m drawn to.

You instantly see it when you look at a painting or a building – you see the person behind it and that’s what fascinates me.

There is an innocence about From the Valley to the Stars, which you’ve said before is a conscious thing. Is modern music too cynical?

Yeah… It’s in a lot of modern music. The feeling that I had and wanted to rid myself of was… when you’re into pop music and the short lived world that pop music is about – about fashion, and it’s so well studied, you tend to get cynical and bitter when you’re involved in pop music.

I wanted to make something that wasn’t about that, something good hearted that didn’t have ideas of anything else besides being loving and good hearted… I didn’t want to be a part of the complaining department.

There’s certainly a few religious references on this album, and I think the use of the organ gives it the feeling of a mass, or a wake. Did you have a religious upbringing?

No, definitely not. But I’ve always been – especially in the last few years – drawn to religion . I wanted to explore the reason why that was.

The last few years I have been very – there’s been a lot of deaths taking place – I lost a lot of people the last few years – and I started to think about what relation death had to religion. For me religion was so closely linked to death… the only reason we have religion is because people have always needed and will always need an explanation for why their loved ones disappear, so I wanted to explore that and to see if there was a religion for me or if I’m even capable of believing in something

I realised that I’m not - probably not. Not in a religion per se but maybe [I can believe in] a religion that is simple and almost childlike for me in the way that children celebrate life and celebrate nature.

That’s what I ended up believing when I wrote the album, and that to me is what the album stands for – this simple, naïve celebration of living and being part of the world and part of nature.

You’ve said you wanted to make an “unfashionable” album. Do you think drawing from Christianity is one of the more unfashionable things you could have done?

It is probably yeah. That’s what inspired me as well – why is it [unfashionable]? What’s the reason? I’m always drawn to doing things that people would initially think is weird or not so fashionable maybe, but to me it’s the only thing that I could do, the only thing on my mind, the only thing that I wanted to express, to talk about, so I had no real choice but to be unfashionable.

Are you immune to fashion?

No. I love fashion and trends – I’m very weak when it comes to fashion. But if your meaning is to be a serious artist – or if you take yourself seriously when it comes to your art or your music – I think you have to kind of separate yourself from what goes on in fashion and trends – a little bit at least – if you’re going to really have your own voice, and your own soul and your own heart, if it’s going to be heard through the trendiness.

I try to keep them separated because I thinks that’s the point – by the time you’re done with what you’re doing, something else has happened and the wind has changed, so you really need to have an idea that what you’re making is your own regardless of what is going around.

Any chance you’ll work with Jens Lekman again?

Definitely – I hope so. I’ll probably spend some time in his summer house in the south of Sweden this summer. We’ll probably make something during that time.

Any plans to make it over to Australia in support of the album?

There are, but nothing set. I’m hoping to come in winter. Hopefully.

I’ve never been to Australia, but I’ve been dreaming about it.

It's a giant freaking ball of yarn

Guillemots – Red [2008]

There’s got to be some limits to the notion that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Having endured Guillemots second album, Red, five too many times, I can confirm that one of those limits is a cover photo that features a giant freaking ball of yarn in some kind of corrugated iron tunnel road. It doesn’t help that the yarn is, you guessed it, red, just like the album title. It’s fucking yarn. Seriously.

Guillemots are the musical equivalent of a United Colors of Benetton billboard, featuring a cast of musicians from three continents with funky-ass names like Fyfe Dangerfield and MC Lord Magrao who play lots of instruments, have lots of sex with teenage groupies and, you can only assume, have perfect Colgate smiles and black, black hearts. Red is overproduced, earnest and saccharine – in short, sickening – the kind of record you’d catch your mum secretly adding to her ipod shuffle for those lonely Tuesday afternoons of self-loathing on the treadmill.

Don’t believe me? Download “Cockateels” and when those syrupy strings rise 80 seconds through and Fyfe sings “Cuz deeeeeeealing with the real world/Is sometimes not too fun/When baby says she loves you/Whilst holding up her gun”, just see if you can keep your lunch down.

Dangerfield’s lyrics provide a pretty good microcosm of how craptastic Red is overall. Oblige me another quote, this one from masturbatory lamefest “Standing on the Last Star”: “So Cinderella sold her soul/There’s no such thing as rock n roll/We all stood in the queue and sold our hearts”. There’s so many layers of crapness in these three lines, thinking about it too much is like peeling a rotten onion. And these are just three of dozens of rotten lines to be found on Red.

But it’s not just the lyrics. With their debut, Guillemots proved that they are actually capable of penning a decent tune (see “Trains to Brazil”), but on Red the band is out of ideas. The solution, it seems, was to drench the whole thing in super-slick production and turn the bells and whistles up to 11. The problem is that underneath all the guff, the songs suck.

The Verdict: 3 rotten onions:

Me I'm a Creator

Santogold - Santogold [2008]

Some music sounds like other music. It seems obvious, but it’s a fact that’s ignored by anyone who has ever dismissed a musician on the basis that they sound just like someone else. Those who would castigate music writers for harping on about music beyond their immediate subject matter also miss the same simple point. We understand what is new by reference to what came before, and, even more fundamentally, what is new emerges from what has come before. Elvis Presley doesn’t make much sense without BB King, the Beatles don’t make much sense without Elvis. So it goes.

So there’s no point avoiding the fact that Santogold’s cherry picking fusion of rock, pop-punk, electro and soul is just so MIA. That statement isn’t a denigration, because this debut album from Santogold collaborators Santi White and John Hill is great stuff. Rather than an MIA rip-off, what we’ve got here is a reinterpretation of MIA’s restless, schizo, globalised sound, and the results are pretty glorious.

Santogold opener “L.E.S. Artistes” is the perfect example. This could be a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, if Karen O was less of a rockstar poseur and more of a sexy bitch, and the rhythm section turned the bass up to 11 and discovered their dancing shoes. Two parts Interpol, one part Beyonce, shake. Best served from a stripper’s exposed bellybutton.

In true pop style, every song on this CD clocks in somewhere between three and four minutes, and there’s so many club ready hits you’d hate to have the job of choosing the singles. Whoever does went with “Creator” first up. Probably the most obviously MIA-influenced track here, Creator’s rowdy electro backing bursts along behind vocalist White, who dominates proceedings with a boisterous call to arms. “Shove It” is the kind of track that will convert teenagers to dub, and the chorus “We think you’re a joke/Shove your hope where it don’t shine” is just too freaking cool.

There’s some great music here, all of which apes established genres without falling into their clichés, but Santi White is the real star of this record. Shame on the music industry and the public for allowing hacks like Delta Goodrem to sing for a living when there’s talents as mercurial as White out there. She’s charismatic, clever, powerful and flexible. That flexibility means she sounds just as perfect in front of reggae (“Shove It”) as rock pop (“I’m a Lady”).

Perhaps one marker of a truly revolutionary musician is the quality of their imitators. In that case, Santogold is the latest bit of evidence for the case that MIA has caused a mini-revolution in popular music. While Santogold might not quite reach the artistic heights of MIA’s output, it explores new pop avenues and gets the party started. What more can you ask?

Vampire Weekend at Bernie's

Anyone lucky enough to have caught Perth’s Snowman live in the last few years can testify to the shrill, “Nightmare on Elm Street” tone that the four-piece brings to the stage. The first time I saw Snowman, vocalist Joe McKee threatened to suck the audience’s blood before the band ripped into a twisted set of what might be described as undead surf-rock, like what might happen if Brian Wilson died and a teenage punk band exhumed him and propped him up on stage, “Weekend at Bernie’s” style.

Having corresponded with Perth’s Snowman, I can confirm that the band probably aren’t undead, but they do have the angle on all things horror rock. Vampire Weekend, eat your heart out: “[Vampire Weekend] don't do [the undead thing] very well,” Snowman told me. “We have the market cornered.”

Having forged a solid Perth following with 2004’s EP Zombies on the Airwaves of Paris (my copy of which, picked up at the CD launch, is splattered with fake blood), and following it up with Triple J airtime and critical plaudits for 2006’s self-titled debut full-length, Snowman are currently prepping the release of The Horse, The Rat and The Swan. In coy fashion that belies the horror shtick, Snowman are “somewhat relieved” about the end of the recording process. But Snowman fans are pretty excited.

Snowman can count indie-criticism heavyweights Pitchfork Media in that fan group. Pitchfork’s article on 2007’s Laneway Festival prominently featured a picture of (other) vocalist Andy Citawarman in the header line. Later, Pitchfork went on to describe Snowman’s Laneway show as the best they saw in Australia, saying “It’s bands like Snowman that give the sense that Australian rock is about to produce something truly unique”. In some circles, this is the indie rock equivalent of knighthood, but not to Snowman: “[We] try to avoid reading these things. It does not effect [sic] the way we write our music.”

So how did they write their music this time around? “We didn't want to fall into any old habits,” Snowman told me. “We also did not want to rely on rock cliches. We had to teach ourselves some restraint in certain aspects of our playing and reinvent the way we played our instruments. We needed to challenge ourselves I suppose... place ourselves outside our comfort zone.”

Whether or not they read their press, statements like this reveal that Snowman are serious about creating unique, engaging music that avoids the rut of old habits. And what we’ve heard of The Horse, The Rat and The Swan so far seems to confirm that the change of direction is working. First single “We Are the Plague” broods, builds and rattles; the trademark screeching is there, but there’s also this mechanical bent that could signify Snowman moving away from zombie rock toward something more post-apocalyptic. “The Blood of the Swan” caresses vocal harmonies over this creepy, beautiful piano riff, it’s like the soundtrack to a night in a haunted gothic mansion.

It also seems like Snowman might have reburied Brian Wilson, or at least kicked some dirt over the corpse. They’ve described the new album as “mechanical” and “tribal”, adjectives that could easily be applied to the music of recent tourmates Liars, whom Snowman told me are “particularly fine gents”. When I put to Snowman that Liars may have been an influence, they said “Along with millions of other things, probably.” But originality seems to be the important point: “The songs have been written from a fairly isolated frame of mind without too much exterior influence....where possible.”

Liars aren’t the only big name that Snowman have toured with in recent years: they’ve also managed to share confined space with indie legends Spoon and Interpol. When I prodded them for tour goss, Snowman wouldn’t be drawn: “They are all regular people in irregular circumstances. As long as you realise this then all is usually fine.”

Snowman are preparing for some irregular circumstances of their own by moving to London in July and sinking their teeth into some extensive touring. Of the move, they told me: “we need to throw ourselves into the deep end...it's that comfort zone thing again.”

Australian music lovers would be well advised to catch Snowman before they hop on that plane. They won’t suck your blood, but they might rock your shit.

The Long Slump

The Long Blondes - Couples [2008]

When a young band makes a great debut album that blows up and makes a pile of cash, you can almost set your watch to the sophomore slump, that shitty second album that never meets expectations. For this reason, when a band’s debut rocks your shit, it’s best to be circumspect in spinning the follow-up. To take just a few British examples from recent years, see The Music, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, The Streets, Art Brut…

It’s hard to say exactly why bands dud out the second time around, but there’s a few theories. Some debut albums take shape through years of songwriting and touring, while the follow-up might be squeezed out in the studio on record company time (see Bloc Party). Some debuts might find their poetry in everyday life, a vein of experience that can’t be mined on a second album that was written between snorts of cocaine from the naked bodies of groupies (see Arctic Monkeys). Sometimes, the group might respond to the pressure of sudden success by making an overwrought concept album (see The Streets). Other times, it might even be the listener’s fault: the debut album was so fresh and exciting that when the follow-up doesn’t shake the earth, the listener chucks a sad. Fickle consumers that we are, this happens to the best of us.

Sheffield’s The Long Blondes made a great debut album in 2006 called Someone to Drive You Home and now we’ve got the follow-up, Couples. Does it suffer from the sophomore slump? Honestly, yes. Couples falls into a number of the traps which beset second albums. It feels rushed, the songwriting and lyricism is diminished, it takes an ill-conceived stylistic left turn, and it even features some appalling cover art. But in spite of all this, it remains a partial success.

The beauty of Someone to Drive You Home was mostly about front-woman Kate Jackson. There was nothing too revolutionary about the band’s blend of 60’s pop, punk and new wave, but the album was an absolute delight because The Long Blondes could pen a rock tune catchier than syphilis to back Jackson’s wonderful, forthright, and at times hilarious lyricism. Maybe it’s just a reflection of the patriarchal nature of rock music, but I’d struggle to name another front-woman who sings so incisively about boys, girls and relationships. It sounds lame, but it’s actually a revelation to hear a woman sing lines like: “Where do you go when you’ve finished work/You should have been home an hour ago/And I’ve got your tea laid out like some kind of fifties housewife”.

The problem with Couples is that The Long Blondes sound like they’re unaware of their strengths. The album half-heartedly tries on a bit of dance-punk for size, with mixed results, on show in opener “Century”. Other songs, notably “Here Comes the Serious Bit”, sound at best like B-sides from the debut. But the worst sin of the album is that Kate Jackson no longer has her trademark vocal and lyrical presence. Sadly lacking are the witty lines that defined the debut, replaced by repetitive angst (“Century”, “Round the Hairpin”), and aural filler (“I Liked the Boys”, “Erin O’Connor”). Cheekiness was much more becoming on Jackson than the faux-darkness of Couples songs like “I’m Going to Hell”.

But not all is slump on Couples. “Guilt” exhibits everything that’s great about The Long Blondes, right down to some snarled lyrics about an unfaithful protagonist and her loathed fling, and is a legitimate dance-punk hit. “Too Clever by Half” is sexy as fuck, Jackson eschewing her standard talk-sing for a sultry, half-whispered croon.

At the end of album closer “I’m Going to Hell”, Jackson asks “Would you forgive me now?”. Sure we do, Kate. Just don’t go to hell before you make another album as good as your first.

Super Best Hits

No seals were clubbed in the making of this compilation

Morrissey - Greatest Hits [2008]

Fans of Morrissey and The Smiths know better than most that compilations should be handled with care. Whether the blame lies with profiteering record companies or with Morrissey’s narcissism, it seems that for every proper LP that the man puts his voice to, a compilation of some sort will follow. For the confused, an abridged guide to just some of Morrissey’s compilations follows:

1995: World of Morrissey
1997: Suedehead: The Best of Morrissey
2000: The CD Singles, Vol. 1
2001: The CD Singles, Vol. 2
2001: The Best of Morrissey
2002: The Very Best of Morrissey (my emphasis)
2008: Greatest Hits.

All this collating, repackaging, remarketing, and recycling of old material is palpably ridiculous. But is it wrong? Morrissey has a big target painted onto his back by virtue of his hard-line, limp-wristed positions on stuff like seal clubbing (Canada’s endorsement of which caused him to cancel a 2006 tour of that despotic nation), so he’s always ripe for parody and/or rancour from those cynical carnivores amongst us.

“Greatest Hits” is not exempt from such cynicism. To take the obvious example, it’s an utter misnomer to call a Morrissey album of 2004-2008 material “Greatest Hits”, when the guy’s prolific solo career began in 1987. But this is how it works: every Morrissey single is a hit, an album worth of hits is a compilation. There’s no point fighting it.

Beyond the inevitability of the thing, it’s not fair to make fun of Morrissey for releasing a new compilation every twelve seconds, for two reasons. First, people are obviously buying these records. That means they’ll keep getting made, thanks to capitalism and all, and PETA will keep getting its fat annual check from Morrissey. Second, notwithstanding the constant rape and pillage of his back catalogue, the man continues to make great music.

That Morrissey is still capable of penning a great tune is perhaps the point of “Greatest Hits”. Not everything that he does these days still works, but for an awkward, bullied Manchester kid come poet, musician, and androgynous vegan with three decades of groundbreaking music under his belt, we can allow some false steps.

There’s a couple of false steps here. One of two new tracks featured on the compilation, “That’s How People Grow Up”, is truly grotesque. Crunchy, pub-rock guitar is countered with dramatic-by-numbers rising strings and repeatedly interrupted by this horrible chorus from nowhere. It sounds like something a sleep-deprived Muse would squirt out late night in the studio. “In the Future When All’s Well”, which hit # 17 on the UK charts, is annoyingly repetitious and fails to reach Morrissey’s lyrical potential.

Apart from that, though, we’re in solid territory here, largely because Morrissey has had something of a renaissance of late. His 2004 album “You Are the Quarry” was stellar, and four of its tracks are featured on “Greatest Hits”. The wonderfully titled 2006 album “Ringleader of the Tormentors” didn’t reach Quarry’s zenith, but it’s singles, with the exception of “In the future…”, stand up well. Morrissey’s cover of Patti Smith’s “Redondo Beach” is also a treat.

And of course, the token pre-2004 tracks (all four of them) are fantastic. Thing is though, they’re so good that they threaten to overshadow the new stuff that, in all but name, this compilation is a showcase of. The two 1988 classics, “Suedehead” and “Everyday is Like Sunday”, are pretty much flawless, and feature some of Morrissey’s best poetry as lyrics. His call for nuclear Armageddon in the latter song still strikes me as the most poignant enunciation of subjugated teenage angst I’ve heard.

Don’t buy this album. If you’re interested in discovering Morrissey, pick up a Smiths record and try one of his early solo albums, let’s say 1992’s “Your Arsenal”. If you want to know what Morrissey’s been up to post millennium, buy “You Are the Quarry”. If you hate Morrissey and want him to die, then don’t go to England. He still gets played on the radio there.

Wam, Bam, Shoot Me in the Freakin' Head

Dull town, dull sound

Various Artists - Kiss My WAMi 2008

(see the published version)

Everyone loves the dole, but welfare isn’t always a good thing. That’s one lesson to take out of Kiss My WAMi 2008, the latest installment of the West Australian Music Industry Association’s annual Perth tunefest. There’s other lessons too: for example, if you have to play shitty two-bit hardcore, at least come up with a better name than “Tengo Fuego”. But more on that stuff later. For now, I’d like to make a pitch to the WA government: the West Australian Music Industry Association (WAM) needs to work for the dole.

Seriously. Your average lazy bogan or mentally ill user has to dig a few holes and fill them up again for that precious fortnightly cheque, so why not the State Government funded WAM? An annual CD showcasing WA’s musical talent is a great idea in theory, but every year the damn thing gets more bloated, less focused, prettier on the outside but more rotten at the core, like a depressed, botox-happy doctor’s wife or the Victorian police force.

This year, Kiss My WAMi is a whopping three CDs plus music video DVD. We’re talking 75 songs from almost as many bands. Now, I’m a proud enough Perth boy, but let’s face it: there aint 70 great acts in Perth today. Not even close. For Perth people, that should be no cause for shame: Perth is a small town that’s managed to export some stellar acts in recent years. But there’s a strong sense of overcompensation about this compilation, in the vein of the faded signpost at the roadside edge of your standard provincial backwater which claims that said backwater grows the best beetroot in the world. The beetroot may be good, but too much of it will make you shit purple.

In any case, having more bands on this album than talent is a fundamental error, kind of like inviting fifty people over for a party and only supplying a carton of beer. But Kiss My WAMi 08 suffers from more than just bloating. Conceptually, the thing is confusing. It’s flogged on the inside cover in typically meaningless political wank as a promotion of “Western Australia’s contemporary music scene”, but the choice of acts ranges from arbitrary to sycophantic to really mediocre. And God knows who the audience is for this mutant.

I mean, to take a random example, what the fuck is John Butler Trio doing on this compilation? Is Australia so covetous of minor talents that we can’t admit that John Butler is an American? And hasn’t the guy lived in Byron Bay, a lazy 4000km from Perth, for most of his career? Perth people have to face the fact that John Butler had a stopover in Perth on his way from Cali to Byron two decades ago during which he happened to busk a bit in Freo. He aint West Australian, but worse, he’s filthy rich. Butler made more money than Shannon Noll in 2004, so it’s not an exaggeration to say that he could buy the virginity of the first born daughter of every other act on this compilation, with enough petty cash left over for mung beans and tofu from an overpriced Byron eatery. Note to WAM and the WA government: John Butler doesn’t need the promotion [blog edit: please see sickening Rolling Stone cover above].

There’s three other points of Kiss My WAMi 08 where exposed bands are flaunted seemingly for the hell of it, but they aren’t as egregious as John Butler’s inclusion. The Panics excellent “Get Us Home” gets a gig on CD 1, as does the Waifs “Stay” and Little Birdy’s “After Dark”. Now, normally the Waifs make me want to hop into the bath with a plugged in toaster, but it must be admitted that when they ditch the Aussie blues and roots masturbation and write a proper pop song, as they do here, they aren’t half bad. As to Little Birdy, the less said about them the better.

There’s a lot of bad spread over these four discs, so much that it’s probably unfair to single out certain bands. Perhaps the best way to explain it is to say that every significant genre which is represented gets the apprentice butcher treatment many times over. Hair metal veterans Voyager, for example, don’t translate well to tape, because without the sense of humour inherent in their live shows, there’s just a very sincere, highly embarrassing wad of cum-soaked tissues jutting from the dustbin. Streetlight play low-rent emo for fat teenage groupies. The Justin Walshe Folk Machine sound like a Goon-drunk yobbo taking a wet shit on Johnny Cash’s grave in broad daylight. The Silents sound like the Vines without Asperger’s syndrome: that is, poseurs without even a hint of credibility. The list goes on.

There’s stuff to like here, but the problem is that you have to wade knee deep through diseased floodwater to reach the small islands of listenable music. In that regard, stalwarts Red Jezebel provide a workmanlike track, as do Zombie-obsessed freaks Snowman. Eleventh He Reaches London unjustly suffer by being lodged between metal cliché machine Pyromesh and the unlistenable Tengo Fuengo, but their 10 minute track is nevertheless a standout. Rollerskates and Delta Forse both do what Aussie hip hop does best by laying down chilled out Sunday barbecue tracks, notwithstanding that the boys from Delta Forse sound like genetic clones of Perth hip hop progenitors Downsyde. New Rules for Boats are refreshingly good.

Here’s the point: there’s maybe one CD worth of good, fresh, creative music on this four disc beast. For those acts that make the cut, it’s just bad luck that they’re forced to share space with some real hacks. By taking such a liberal, kitchen sink approach to its annual compilation, WAM is just hurting good Perth artists and alienating its possible audience beyond Perth music scenesters. And I can’t get behind that.

ADHD Urinal Piss-Match

Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders get competitive



Like a lot of great musicians, Lincoln Le Fevre has ideas about music. Not the vague, ecstasy-high fluff that we hear from the Australian Idol set like “music is what I feel in my bones”, but concrete theories about what music is, and what it’s supposed to be. “There are so many ways to value music.” Lincoln told A Fine Line recently. “Some see it as art, where the avant garde needs to constantly seek to break new dogmas; some as a thing to feel and dance to; others see it as a display of technical proficiency where learning to play music is not much more than a couple of little boys trying to see who can piss the highest at the urinal.”

Lincoln’s new group, the semi-eponymous Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders, don’t shy completely away from the urinal piss-match of guitar solos. But a cursory glance at their myspace reveals that the music has more to it than schoolyard shenanigans: namely, great pop hooks, an alt-country vibe and a good dose of down-the-pub storytelling. This last aspect is no accident: “for me [music is] about communicating something, and telling a story.” Says Lincoln. “I'm not much of a lyrical poet, so my songs usually have one quite literal meaning to them, but I try to give them depth. Sometimes they're autobiographical, but mostly they're just stories.”

In “Best Friends Girl”, one of the group’s myspace tracks, Lincoln tells the archetypal story of the bloke smitten by his mate’s missus. The plot is simple, with an obvious twist and a happy ending backed by a campfire acoustic riff, but the song is great because it’s sung in the first person, allowing Lincoln to explore the blokey delusion with which the protagonist denies his forbidden crush. Notwithstanding the country music aping plot arch, there’s something very Australian about this song. Lincoln explains: “I grew up as a bogan, maybe, but nowhere near the country.” The alt-country tag sits uneasily with him: “I love alt-country, and it has certainly inspired the new sound, but it's a totally appropriated persona. It's just an opportunity to tell stories in a context.”

That context is inevitably Australian, and Lincoln belts out his tunes in a distinctive Aussie accent that avoids the cringe-inducing twang of Missy Higgins. It says a lot about the American origins of rock music that this was a conscious choice by Lincoln, who originally sang like a Californian and had to train himself to sound like an Aussie when he picked up a guitar: “I'd have to slowly read the words aloud and listen to the accents and inflections, and then try and speak them in tune before singing them. It took a few months before I'd really nailed it, but now if I listen back to old college recordings, I cringe.”

***

Lincoln has been something of a stalwart of the Tassie music scene in recent years. In addition to front-manning Fell To Erin, Lincoln has worked his production and studio skills on Red Rival, The Scandals and Enola Fall, all the while teaching music to college kids. If that sounds stressful, it is: “I burned out pretty hard a couple years ago and didn't really want to play music any more” Lincoln told me, “and most of that came down to all the frustrations that go with the business side of things.”

In order to curb those frustrations, Lincoln, a born n bred Tasmanian, is taking more of a Holiday Isle approach to things lately: “I don't really want to 'make it' in the traditional sense anymore, so I can't see any real need to uproot” he confesses. “[Tasmania] is such a beautiful place to draw inspiration from, and frustrating as a small-town mentality can be sometimes, it seems to prevent the kind of rockstar egos that a bigger city might breed.” The isolation of Tassie has other perks too: “I wouldn't have had nearly as many opportunities anywhere else either.”

Those opportunities seem to be picking up for Lincoln and the Insiders lately, having been featured on Triple J’s Unearthed and building some hype on their aforementioned myspace. But in the arch-conservative, attack-dog vicious Australian music industry, this isn’t to say that it’s smooth sailing: “I'm recording [our] album in my lounge room with a bunch of hired and borrowed gear” admits Lincoln. And though he would be more than happy to free up some lounge space and record a high quality studio album, Lincoln isn’t waiting for it to happen: “If a record company offered me a contract, I've got no reason to turn it down, but I'm not exactly expecting any phone calls.”

While the phone remains silent, Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders’ debut album is taking shape. When I spoke to Lincoln, he’d been busy recording. “I just finished doing some banjo parts tonight” he said “We've got most of the tracking out of the way now, I've just got a bunch of singing to do, then I'll be able to start mixing.”

For anyone with an interest in trad rock, alt-country or Australian music, the album is going to be worth a squiz: “I think I have ADHD sometimes” says Lincoln. “If music is about those four things I mentioned before, telling a story, smashing some shit, making you want to dance and playing a meeedley-meedley guitar solo, then I want to try and cover as many of those things as I can to make it feel like a complete record. Jesus, I sound like a wanker, don't I?”

“This time round I'm trying not to worry too much about [business] shit; being a solo project the financial burden is only on my shoulders, so I can do what I like, and if I go broke, then fuck it.”

Maintaining the Rage

or
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine

Plenty of disgruntled kids first got hooked on Rage Against the Machine with the video clip for "Bulls on Parade". The song was a like big pot of crack-spiked honey to countless testosterone-happy teenage boys, and listening to it now, that’s no surprise. It bludgeons the listener from the outset with a heavy, see-sawing hook which segues into a nasty-as-fuck Zach De La Rocha rap backed by ominous funk. The clip was pretty sick too, combining Cliff Notes style left-wing political messages with MTV-friendly, sleekly produced rawk footage. I was fourteen years old when I first saw that clip, and I was a Rage junkie within weeks.

Thousands of black t-shirt wearing former teenagers of the 90’s would attest to the gratuitous stupor with which they embraced Rage. In what was a lazy, warless, beige era the band was pissed off, eloquent, loud, hard and fast. Like the early punks they deftly straddled left-wing elitism ("Tha power pendulum swings by tha umbilical cord") and meathead rebellion ("Fuck you I won't do what you tell me"). But instead of hocking tired three chord sanctimony like Green Day or The Offspring, they combined, like none before them, those two most archetypal of teenage genres: metal and hip hop. A veritable wet dream for angry, pubescent suburbanites like myself. Uncomfortable questions like why Rage were signed to a major record label didn't really come up.

Rage’s break-up in 2000 devastated fans, but no one was too surprised. Front man Zach's ill-temper is obvious to anyone who spins a Rage album, and by all accounts his anger was democratic: the band copped it almost as bad as his favoured lyrical targets. Famously, Rage had to be forced into an EMI imposed group house arrest to record 1996's Evil Empire, a full five years after their self-titled debut hit. This was no happy union.

But, more than that, Rage just wouldn’t have made sense in the Bush era. That’s not to say that their messages – distrust of government, anti-Americanism, rebellion, et al – weren’t appropriate for those eight vile years of international politics. On the contrary, Rage’s ideas have of late been more than appropriate, much more so than they were in the 90’s. But the point is that Rage pushed left-wing revolution at a time when liberal academics were blowing their loads over the ruined Berlin Wall. They were always fated to be a lone voice of dissent in mainstream music, and could never have survived the sycophantic violence of Bush’s first term or the gush of celebrity driven anti-war posturing a few years later.

So the break-up was long coming. Realistic fans were basically stoked that such a volatile group had managed to release three albums and a covers record. As with any break-up, though, there was the regret – in my case, the regret that I’d never seen them live. Like so many Aussie Rage fans, I missed them at the 1996 Big Day Out, and they never came back to Australia.

For a scary while there, the remaining members of Rage looked for a singer to replace Zach, with a view to maintaining the RATM franchise. But rather than signing up an angry rapper (among others, the names Chuck D and B-Real were thrown around) they went with Chris Cornell, the dastardly mustachioed prima donna who looked all weird in Soundgarden’s clip for “Black Hole Sun”. Audioslave were always pedestrian, dividing Rage fans between loyalists pissed-off at the watering down of the music and desperados clinging to anything produced by three members of their favourite band. After initially falling into the latter camp, I’ve accepted that the former had it right: Audioslave sucked.

And then, out of the blue and after a number of progressively shoddier Audioslave albums, Rage's 2007 "one-off" reunion to play Coachella. That show resulted in a dummy-spit by either Cornell or three-quarters of Rage, depending on who you believe, resulting in the dissolution of the supergroup and the sudden reformation of Rage. Next came the announcement that they were headlining Big Day Out. The concept of Rage back together was strange somehow, but die-hard Aussie fans were pissing their pants with excitement, and I couldn’t help but share it.

As Big Day Out approached, though, I had this weird dread about seeing Rage. Some of it was concrete: for example, accounts had it that Zach congratulated fans at some of the east coast shows for electing Kevin Rudd, a patently ludicrous position for someone so hard-left he’s lived with Mexican revolutionaries EZLN. But most of it was a vague looming apprehension. For the first time I was to see a band who’d meant so much to me as a teenager, but, truth be told, they didn’t mean so much anymore. After so many years, I’d gotten bored, kicked the habit, and moved on.

Rage took the stage at exactly 9:20pm on that stifling Perth evening of 2008’s final Big Day Out, right on schedule. Their sound cut out mid-intro, but they continued playing, oblivious, for a good couple of minutes before the boos of the crowd cut through their amps. It was about the most surprising moment of the show. Rage put on a workhorse effort, Zach leaping maniacally and stalking the stage like a giant-killer, his mic a sling; Tom Morello flawlessly executing ridiculous solos, his guitar screaming, moaning and breaking like Slash put through a DJ scratch set. Thing was, I’d seen and heard all this before.

Rage were just like they were on their live videos, only, something was missing. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was just me: the sweaty sea of shirtless, ripped, moshing bogans seemed to be enjoying themselves. But there was a palpable sense of death and nostalgia about the show. This was only enhanced by the fact that Rage played no new songs, nor did they do anything at all surprising or different. This was a bigger problem than it might be for other bands: for so long Rage demanded revolution, so it felt cheap that they’d decided to stick with formula.

Morello’s excuse is that Rage’s music hasn’t dated, and hell, maybe it hasn’t. But I was listening to it a decade ago, so it feels dated to me. Maybe fans should be thankful that we got to see Rage at all, or that they’re not going to release some terrible new album that will destroy their legacy. These are fair points. But nostalgia is a beast from hell. You’ve probably changed, but the music hasn’t.

Zombie Surf

Magnetic Fields - Distortion

(see the published version)

You get the feeling that Stephin Merritt, the singer-songwriter frontman of New York’s The Magnetic Fields, has got artistic sensibilities. Rather than jumping on the grunge/stadium rock bandwagons in the early 90’s, Merritt instead preempted his peers by a good decade by embracing the dreadfully unfashionable sounds of Kraftwerk and Joy Division. In 1999, just when the world was beginning to embrace the mp3 and music journo hacks were predicting the death of the album, Merritt released The Magnetic Fields’ ridiculously overwrought on paper but brilliant in practice triple-CD 69 Love Songs. Merritt’s a pop musician who can’t help but buck conventional pop wisdom, and for those of us who are serious about guitar and lyrics, this has been a good thing for a good while.

Distortion continues The Magnetic Fields’ love-affair with the unfashionable, drawing on 1960’s surf pop and drenching the music in the noun of the title. In case you’re unfamiliar with Merritt’s penchant for concept albums, be aware that Distortion isn’t just a clever name: the music sounds like it’s being seeped through the factory speakers of a 1987 Mazda 121 on a windy day. There’s something old-world or slow-food about this: you don’t need a good sound system to appreciate the intricacies of Distortion, but there’s not much that’s ‘immediate’ about it. In other words, it pays to invest time in the record, because like the music of The Beach Boys (whose influence clearly hangs over Distortion), what sounds merely like fuzzy pop on first listen turns out to be much more.

Which isn’t to say that Distortion is stuck in 1966. Merritt’s lyrics are too funny and there’s too much zombie flick or Grinch-who-stole-Xmas about the album for that. Almost every song on Distortion contains a LOL lyric, with a few ROFLOL thrown in for good measure. To take just one case, in “The Nun’s Litany” Merritt dons the habit and fantasises about alternative careers that our bored heroine might have pursued, each more decadent than the last. If you’ve never pictured a nun as a topless waitress, here’s your chance.

There’s other light moments on Distortion. The punchdrunk lovesick singalong of “Too Drunk to Dream” is the best karaoke song that probably (and tragically) won’t be coming to your local hit studio, and “California Girls” brilliantly reverses the premise of its namesake, with Merritt repeating “I hate California girls” over the promise that said girls will taste the wrath from his battle ax, all sung through a surging wave of guitar.

But it’s the dark, profound, surprising moments on Distortion that make this more than a good album. The aforementioned zombie flick sounds pop up everywhere, best exemplified in that squealing, screaming, distorted second guitar which rarely goes away. And then there’s Merritt’s much lauded turn of lyrical phrase, as adept at penning the ratfink dialogue of an abusive Spaniard (in “Xavier Says”) as he is at producing a stunning final stanza to a song that first appears nothing more than a schoolyard toss (in “The Nun’s Litany”). Just keep the lyric-book nearby.