Friday, October 01, 2004
Rob pointed out the other day that the Allmusic review of Green Day's American Idiot actually compared it to the Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat, which is weird and kind of interesting. They did make the comparison on the basis of "it's the only good contemporary comparison" but the main thing seems to be a love for mid-period Who and longer songforms that aren't expicitly prog or experimental. The only place I really see the Who thing in American Idiot, to be honest, is on "Homecoming," which has a pretty explicit reference or two (c.f. the acoustic guitar break around 3:30), but it's an absolutely fantastic track, full of not only lyrical but musical references to previous songs, and a really nice way of going from section to section. (The Furnaces, on the other hand, mainly took drum style, keyboard parts, and ambition from Daltry et al.)
The thing this suggests for me, though, is this, and I'm going to let y'all answer it cause I gotta go to rehearsal. If Cobain hadn't died, and when Nirvana had made their inevitable (I think) concept album, would it be more like Blueberry Boat or more like American Idiot? (Or, I guess, something else?) I wonder...
posted by Mike B. at 5:53 PM
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Thursday, September 30, 2004
ROCK 'N' ROLL BON MOTS #019
I feel that Snoop Dogg's "Murder Was the Case" would have been a lot better if its chorus went:
Murder was the case that they gave me
Now I'm gonna eat this baby
But maybe that's just me.
posted by Mike B. at 1:41 PM
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ONE-SENTENCE ADDITIONS TO PITCHFORK REVIEWS THAT WOULD HAVE MADE THEM FAR MORE HONEST
First in a series, maybe.
Travis Morrison - Travistan
"Also, we think he's a Republican!"
posted by Mike B. at 11:43 AM
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Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Wire writer Derek Walmsley was kind enough to drop me a line about the Fiery Furnaces, so let me mention his blog here: Pop Life. Definitely in the UK vein of music-bloggery, but that's cool too. Should listen to that Roll Deep track, I should.
posted by Mike B. at 11:14 AM
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Two new reviews on Flagpole for me: Clinic, and a local Athens band called Bugs Eat Books. Somewhat embarassingly, both reviews use the "well, these two songs are great, but..." technique.
Also, I get really nervous when I review local bands, especially ones that aren't, you know, local to me. I definitely got the sense from these guys that they'd be much better live than on record. But I'm a sucker for indie-pop.
posted by Mike B. at 10:55 AM
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Updated the post downthread, too, but regular comments are back up. Talk to me, people.
posted by Mike B. at 10:11 AM
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
For Jesse, and for others, comparative setlists from the recent Fiery Furnaces tour:
Eleanor's
Toshi's (the bassist)
Pretty interesting. I might do something with this, but it's pretty interesting to note how they refer to the different sections in the songs, and how each person refers to those sections differently! Although I assume Toshi's setlist includes some sort of notation of when he switches between bass and keyboard (the "b" or "k" next to some songs).
posted by Mike B. at 10:53 AM
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Tom Ellard's chime-in on the Franz Ferdinand thing below.
The writer is perhaps mislead. There are still interesting bands but
they don't get the same level of publicity. He may also be like the rest of
us - when we are young we work hard to find interesting music, as we get older
we tend to stick with what we have and let publicity direct our gaze. I would
have visited a record shop weekly when I was a teen, now I will graze about the
web a bit. I did not hear about the music I grew up withon the television.
[...]
If rock music is bland, then it's a general blandness of taste for which
poor old Franz Ferdinand shouldn't be singled out. They are just a sandwich
shop.
The sandwich shop metaphor! And with that, I decided to wholeheartedly endorse "Snack Shop" as our band name.
posted by Mike B. at 10:49 AM
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Comments are down but should be back up in an hour or so.
In other news, Squawkbox can kiss my ass. How about a little notification before you shut down my account next time, guys?
UPDATE: Lies, all horrible, horrible lies. If you wanna talk, drop me a line or just, uh, wait. At most it'll only take 2 days!
UPDATE 2: I turned on Blogger's horrible comments feature, just for shits and giggles. Click on the post's timestamp to leave 'em.
UPDATE 3: Regular comments back up. Comment away.
posted by Mike B. at 10:14 AM
1 comments
BB #06: I LOST MY DOG Intro, one, two, three, four, five. STRUCTURE Ends with a little bit of the last chord of "Paw Paw Tree" on piano, which then continues, following the vocals as the previous instruments decay, playing one chord per bar, with the whole thing a bit rubato (am I using that right?), i.e. not to a beat but just free-flowing. This is an intro, and it is capped with a wah'ed electric guitar noise that Eleanor describes as "This is where Matt makes a big jump and he says 1-2-3-4."
Then the piano comes in, plays a little vamp for two bars, is then joined by tom-toms and the Rhodes for another two bars before the vocals come in. It's a pretty basic blues progression, staying on the I (which I think may even be an E major, but no guitar here, rats) for 4 bars while Eleanor sings a descending, half-spoken line. It then shifts up to the IV (A) for 2 bars and the vocals go up proportionately, and finishes on a iv (A minor) unless I'm being retarded and it's a iii. Eh. Anyway, the IV-iv/iii bit of it are the chorus, where Eleanor says "My dog was lost but now he's found" twice. A hand-muted crash is played all metal-style on the chord change. This all goes around twice, the electric guitar comes in, and there's a little instrumental break formed around a descending line on the Rhodes for 3 bars followed by a one-bar descending line on the electric. Then we do another two verse-chorus pairs and a break, with the electric chiming in sparsely.
After this second break, the tempo drops considerably all of a sudden, and the chord changes are played by an acoustic guitar strumming a swinging, eighth-quarter pattern, with the electric soloing over. This goes for a verse/chorus, and then a drum machine beat drops in, strongly reminiscent of the one that starts "Quay Cur," with a gabba-ish reversed sub-bassy kick and a crumpling snare, and the guitars drop out, with an organ droning on the chords. This again plays for one verse/chorus pair, and then a bunch of the previous instruments come back in for the break, with the electric guitar and bass playing the line, the Rhodes doing something different (rising and falling lines, sounds like), plus a bass and a tambourine.
Then for the seventh verse it's back to the form of the fifth verse, i.e. just guitars, with a little phased noise on the threes accenting, and another electric added for the chorus. Then the eighth verse is like the seventh, with organ and drum machine, but for the chorus the electric kicks back in. This is followed by a break mostly like the second one, with the main melody line a bit more subsumed for some reason.
Following the usual electric-and-bass bar that ends the breaks, we're into an outro that's just organ and vocals, again somewhat (but less so than before) out-of-time. Same melody as the intro. Then some delay noises that bear no particular connection to what came before nor to the following track, although they do sound a bit "Turning Round"-y.
In chart form:
0:00-0:13 Intro
0:14-0:28 Verse 1
0:29-0:34 Chorus
0:33-0:40 Verse 2
0:41-0:46 Chorus
0:47-0:53 Break
0:54-1:04 Verse 3
1:05-1:09 Chorus
1:10-1:15 Verse 4
1:16-1:19 Chorus
1:20-1:28 Break
1:29-1:43 Verse 5 (slower)
1:44-1:50 Chorus
1:51-1:57 Verse 6 (drum machine)
1:58-2:04 Chorus
2:05-2:15 Break
2:16-2:30 Verse 7 (guitars again)
2:31-2:38 Chorus
2:39-2:45 Verse 8 (drum machine again)
2:46-2:52 Chorus
2:53-3:02 Break
3:03-3:29 Outro All told, this three and a half minute song orchestrates the same basic verse chord progression four different ways. Which is impressive, but since that's for 8 verses, it doesn't really match up with the Pitchfork theory.
The whole thing is an unusual track in that it's a very Gallowsbird-y one, with sparse and short instrumental breaks, a bluesy chord structure, and speak-sing vocals. I quite like it, albeit in a different way than I like "Chris Michaels" or "Blueberry Boat"--left with an acoustic guitar, I often find myself playing and singing it, which is nice. I'm kind of interested what the songwriting process was like on this, given how much it sounds like a song from the first album, ostensibly Eleanor's, when it's actually from Matt's album. Was he trying to write in her style or is it a holdover or are they just simplifying things for us? Guess it don't matter much. Also: here is the old version of the song, which Matthew (who it comes courtesy of) says is a pretty accurate representation of how it was played before the recording of Blueberry Boat, and is from the SBN session. Totally driven by the electric guitar, no tempo change, no drum machine, the only keyboard part is a siren-y noise. I was going to map this but there's sort of no point--intro {[(verse chorus) X 2, break] X 4} outro is how it goes. I think I like the new version better.
ANALYSIS
The nicest thing about this song is the way the structure mirrors what little plot there is--the major events happen in the intro and outro, and in the very vampy and repetitive midsection, nothing actually happens aside from a lot of lookin' around.
The other nicest thing about this song (shh!) are the lyrics, probably, which are just wonderful and specific and free-associative and evocative. (Dude from Interpol, are you listening? More Super K references!) To presage things a bit, they're reminiscent of the first section of "Blancheflower," cramming a lot of syllables into a short space.
Plot? Uh, hmm. Eleanor is mean to her dog, kicked him, etc., so the dog leaves, like a woman, except a dog. Or like a man, I guess--shouldn't be sexist in my evocations of blues-mythologized domestic abuse. Anyway, she goes to the laundromat and asks either the actual or figurative cats there, then goes to the vet, then to the bar, then to the gym (where she thinks they might have offered her dog/man/woman some sort of physical exercise--whoho!), then to the dog run where they are too distracted by the existing dogs to pay attention, then puts up fliers, then to the either person or newspaper referred to as the town crier, then to a corner, the coroner, e-mails the police station to see if anything's turned up, the Dairy Queen, the Super K, the market they used to shop at, the adoption agency (or "dating service" if we're going with the man/woman metaphorical interpretation) where she got the dog in the first place, then mortgages her house and checks with the police, goes either into jail or into the police force (a bit of a "Blancheflower" presage here too) to see if the dog's there, goes the pound where she donates some money, twice, but during none of these visits or activities does she turn up the actual dog. Finally, at the end of her rope, she goes to church on a Wednesday, where the dog is preaching a sermon, having converted to Christianity. (Presumably.) She has found him, but he has already found himself, and is lost to her in an emotional/spiritual way.
I'm making light of the metaphorical implications for human relationships above, but in fact they're probably there, just cloaked a bit intentionally by all the comedy. It's obviously an inversion of the old blues/country songs about losing your woman, except unlike most of these songs, the other party was 100% right to leave, plus the other party is a dog, and so this particular bit of silliness paves the way to blow past a lot of the self-pity that typically accompanies such my-woman-done-gone narratives. Of course, such narratives also sometimes involve the male narrator's dog leaving as well, but usually for no reason--it's just a sort of sign of the particular malaise of loserdom that's settled on his shoulders, chasing everything away--dog, truck, job, etc. So it's a man's I-lost-my-woman song (a modern version being Poison's "Shut Up And Make Love"--more examples welcome), except it's a woman who lost her dog. Who then finds religion. Which, again, is a common theme in the particular genres being played with here, "seeing the light" and so forth, the salvation of the church, sometimes the only one for those whose shoulders bear the loserdom miasma. Except here the salvation is for the one who left, and so in this way it's almost this song from the woman's perspective. But with a dog. So it's pretty much taking this conventional theme and twisting it nine ways from Sunday while still crafting a song that's rocking, catchy, and smart. Good job kids.
The other other nicest thing about this song is the melody, although I don't know really why. But it's fantastic.
CONTEXT
Pretty much no narrative context--this is pretty much self-contained as far as I can tell, although I may change my mind later, which of course I am free to do. So let's talk themes.
As in a number of other songs, things don't work out like we'd expect them to--the dog is not regained, and, indeed, becomes a preacher, which dogs don't do that often. But plus, it doesn't even start from somewhere we'd expect--the simple fact that Eleanor's singing it calls attention to its oddness. In this particular case it's casting the woman out of the victim role and oddly enough casting her again in the kind of Jack-Lemmon-in-Glenngary-Glen-Ross loser role we also see prominently in "Straight Street." It's one that typically male, with the sort of failure leading to desperate grabbing that doesn't really characterize, say, the loser-archetype of chick lit. Viewed in the context of the I-lost-my-woman song (ILMWs), where the dog leaving is usually the sort of last straw, the one thing that will love you unconditionally finally giving up, what's striking is how they've given agency back to the dog, who not only makes the choice to leave, but makes a further choice to improve his lot in life (arguably). Dogs can get hurt, as can people, and it's a remarkably un-self-centered song, refusing to view everything that happens through a lens of your own near-infallibility. There are possibilities out there for all of us, and the unexpected happens all the time. This is all further reinforced by the particular references that pepper the lyrics, most far removed from the mythologized Southern gothic (or Weimar Sunset strip) setting that characterize ILMWs--Dairy Queens, Super Ks, and e-mail on one hand, town criers and coroners on the other. Some things remain constant, like the police, the pound, and the market, but the way this is all intertwined with solidly modern realities makes the whole thing grounded in what we actually feel and experience than what we'd like to feel and experience, something at the root, I've always thought, of traditional blues and country songs. It's anti-romantic, and it's very nice. But what separates this from the typical alt/art take on traditional forms is that it neither rehashes an outdated version of the form in miserabilist ways (the "Uncle Tupelo Thing") now does what I'll unfairly call the "Watchmen Thing," i.e. exposing the dark and troubling underlying assumptions etc. etc. The Furnaces make something related, undefensive, and new, gaining stength from the tangential connection with tradition but not depending on it. It switches so many elements it's no longer a simple twist or inversion--it's like an alternative summation of the form, a new history not interested in the old.
posted by Mike B. at 7:37 AM
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Monday, September 27, 2004
Interesting news. I'm curious as to whether or not Conan will be booking similar people when he moves to 11:30--and if so, whether that will be a sign of or an impetus to the continuing indie-fication of America. I mean, dude had the White Stripes on every night for a week, so, you know. Of course, there are glasses of milk that have better taste than Jay Leno, but Conan seems to be very particular in that way.
posted by Mike B. at 3:13 PM
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Incidentally, the interview with Sasha over at the New Yorker site is pretty fantastic.
Speaking of which, I'll be at his panel this weekend, if anyone else is going. Or did I mention this already? Eh, I can't remember.
posted by Mike B. at 3:07 PM
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ROCK 'N' ROLL BON MOTS #018
For all the times I get annoyed at the praise lavished on Kurt Cobain's voice--what I love about Nirvana is tied up pretty intimately with the songwriting and instrument-playing--right now I'm listening to some non- Unplugged version of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," and, I mean, goddamn. That's a hell of a voice right there. The arrangement doesn't make it as dramatic as it is on the album version, but when he jumps to the upper register at 2:02 and stays there for a few verses before a breakdown, it's just fantastic. The instruments are trying to keep up and failing, and that just makes it better, somehow. He croaks "through, through," and you get shivers.
posted by Mike B. at 3:03 PM
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Huh. Well, I feel a lot better about my own anti-PF obsession now, I suppose.
posted by Mike B. at 11:20 AM
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The Fiery Furnaces show on Saturday was indeed fantastic. Matthew's got a setlist and a review, but let me add a few more thoughts.
It was a definitely different experience from the other times I'd seen them, but I'm unclear how much is their different approach and how much is my different perspective. More specifically, given how enmeshed I am in the albums at this point, I think I longed more than I usually did to hear the actual songs played live instead of rearranged, rocked-up alternative versions. For instance, while usually they grabbed me right away, this time I took a while to warm up to it, and I felt like the audience did, too. In restrosepct, I think the first part of the show was actually the most impressive--if you look at that setlist, I'm pretty sure they did the first 10 songs in 5 minutes, and all with sort of minor, almost minimalist-in-a-hardcore-way alterations to the music, so for instance Eleanor would simply start singing a line from "Crystal Clear" over the beat they'd established for "Wolf Notes," and then there'd be the usual break, but then they'd go right back into the same or a very similar groove. It was breathtaking, but to me it almost seemed more impressive than involving. Later in the show, a girl yelled out a request for "Leaky Tunnel," which of course they'd already played bits of as the second song. Maybe people just need to get more used to the approach. It would be nice to see them with a group of hardcore fans.
That said, it was unquestionably a better set than they'd had before, and what they lacked (to my ears) in initial grabbiness they more than made up for with just general goodness as the set went on. "Blancheflower" in particular was great, as they had almost all the vocals but massively sped up the first part and had Eleanor sing it (which speeding up is especially impressive when you recall how wordy it is), and then just cut out all the instrumental breaks. As their jamminess on the album is part of its particular pleasure, this could be a detriment, but it wasn't--as much as I like Blueberry Boat, I'd definitely like to hear more of the songs this way. I'm particularly like to hear a start-to-finish version of "Quay Cur," given how fantastic the little verse breakdowns sound live.
ADDENDUM: Fluxblog review of a show from last November, with at least 8 at-the-time unreleased songs, including a bunch of BB ones. Just for comparison's sake.
posted by Mike B. at 11:17 AM
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From Carla Bozulich:
As you may know, I have a duo album in the works with the best drummer I know,
Ches Smith. It's about 3/4 done and is one of the fav things I've worked on.
It's turning out to be really fucked! (in the best of ways!) like if Alice (from
Wonderland) had a bastard daughter with a really mentally and emotionally
hyper-active Ingmar Bergman. The trouble is, I've been detoured by an obsession
with melodic, song-structured music writing again. I know from the mail I get
that this will be happy news for many, so top o the day to you! Some dark stuff
is bubbling up from the 6 strings and the little books and pens and gum
wrappers.. And, the Ches thing will be finished, in time.
More good stuff in the news section of her website. I'm excited, obvs.
And--and!-- new song!
posted by Mike B. at 11:13 AM
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Two good posts on Quo Vadimus (second one with great Graham links) about the new season of Gilmore Girls. What did people think of the first episode? I know Matthew was a bit disappointed.
posted by Mike B. at 11:11 AM
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Fairly stupid article on Franz Ferdinand from an Australian paper.
That Franz Ferdinand are fond of such unrock notions as politeness,
humility and a Blairite New Labour-ish sense of national renewal shouldn't be a
shock. Though their music (designed, in Kapranos's words, "for girls to dance
to") marks a welcome break from the drab balladry that dominated the airwaves in
the slipstream of Britpop, it is not as revolutionary as their champions are
wont to suggest.
Their records and videos are suggestive of a school play about the early
'80s. Scabrous guitar lines, side-partings, a bit of stilted white funk, some
Dadaist intellectual exotica. Franz Ferdinand are a pretty good group, but
they're depressingly conservative.
This was posted to the Severed Heads list and inspired the expected burst of "these kids today thinking they're making revolutionary music when it can't hold a candle to the truly revolutionary music of our generation and blah blah blah sellout," etc., but this particular crotchety-and-earned-it perspective is one of the reasons I love the list, even if I disagree with the consensus opinion on most things. It did evidence an interesting out-of-it-ness in that most people seemed to think the Mercury Prize meant that people with good taste did indeed think they were revolutionary, whereas meh, I think popists and rockists alike have been generally dissatisfied with the winners in years past. Did inspire some unexpected defenses, though, the best of which was along the lines of, "Fucking Britons, don't know how good they have it..."
But anyway, that article! Whipping out the "music for girls to dance to" like it's an indictment! Sheesh. Folks, can we all agree rock music ain't gonna change the world, please? Or at least not the way you want it to.
UPDATE: Also courtesy the list, here's the Guardian article it was adapted from, which says some more things.
posted by Mike B. at 10:54 AM
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