Music — CD Reviews (October 28th)

Pink Martini, Hang On Little Tomato  **1/2

Heinz Records, 2004

Hang on Little Tomato is a musical written songs first, story later.

It has all the requirements—the love songs (well, they’re nearly all love songs), the happy songs, the big dance numbers, the end-of-the-second-act sad song, the big finish. But where and when and how do you construct a story that includes Italian, French, Japanese, English and Spanish scenes?

Perhaps this is why the Pink Martini’s latest release remains an album and not a movie?

Each track is unique enough that we could be listening to some zany movie compilation but the overall style is one of jazz smooth with orchestral sophistication and elegance. There is a decidedly retro, night-at-the Tropicana feel to some of the tracks, such as the harp-filled “Let’s Never Stop Falling in Love.” 

“Lily” is the background music to a Holly Golightly party, all bright-colored drinks and brighter colored dresses. “Hang On Little Tomato” sounds like something you’d slow dance to at the end of your senior prom, circa 1931. And then there’s the weird world music-ish treats, like the bouncy, happy “Anna (el negro zumbon)” or cha-cha ready “Dansez-vous.”

But then there’s “Kikuchiyo to Mohshimasu,” which has that Far-East-meets-western feel of Quentin Tarantino’s latest soundtracks.

Hang on Little Tomato is pleasant, charming and engaging—a perfect audio conversation piece for your next cocktail party.

- Amy Diaz

Drive By Truckers, The Dirty South  ***

New West Records, 2004

The South is haunted.

Listen to any an example of that whiskey-lubricated musical genre known as Southern rock and you’ll hear it. Even the happiest, most upbeat tunes seem to hide minor-key roots and ghost stories where the dead are as present as their living cohorts.

The Dirty South is a collection of songs about life in that spooky, dark landscape where history seems to have more bearing than the present. The characters are lawless family men, trying to get by with a factory job or a drug deal—whichever pays the bills first. The songs about Bufford Pusser (hero of Walking Tall) turn the big-stick lawman into another heartless sheriff. The songs about fathers and grandfathers glorify ancestors with a weird ain’t-nothing-special pride.

The dark isn’t just in the lyrics, it’s in the hard-driving guitar and drum that would be as comfortable in a backwoods bar as at a hunting party campfire. The moonshine that soaks through most of the songs—especially the drunken confessional “Goddamn Lonely Love”—runs into the melodies, creating songs that burn a little as they go down. 

Like the Jayhawks with a harder, rougher edge, the Drive By Truckers tell grittily alive stories against a backdrop of wailing guitars.

- Amy Diaz

Mase, Welcome Back  * 1/2

Bad Boy Records, 2004

You gotta love the Welcome Back, Kotter reference.

It’s just so happy, so corny, so…so damn cute!

The guiltily enjoyed silliness of the title song to the latest Mase album doesn’t, sadly, carry through the album. Mase has turned to the Lord and so has much of his music, though not so much that he loses the usual stuff about living the lush life and the girls who follow.  What we get is not necessarily Christian hip-hop but really a sort of bland collection of love and thankfulness tunes that sound very interchangeable not only with each other but with other songs currently on the MTV Jams/urban 40-style radio rotation. Sure, “Breathe, Stretch, Shake” will get plenty of at the clubs, but how is it all that different from Terror Squad’s “Lean Back,” the It song a few months earlier?

Still, morality-laced dance music? Mr. Kotter would be so proud.

- Amy Diaz

Various artists, Matador at Fifteen ****

Matador Records, 2004

Like a college radio station, Matador is where cool comes to light first.

The record label has been responsible for such solid indie-ish acts as Belle and Sebastian, Sleater-Kinney, Modest Mouse, Liz Phair, Spoon, Teenage Fanclub and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Introducing lesser known but highly talented artists to the public (and sometimes introducing British acts to the U.S. and vice versa), the label has consistently picked bands that, whatever else they are—punk, alternative rock, emo, some pop-ish blend of genres—are just really good.

In this compilation, the label looks back over the stand outs of the last five years—the years of Interpol, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Cat Power, The New Pornographers, Yo La Tengo, Mogwai. The connecting factor? Quality. Each of the groups has a unique sound, complex, layered and so much richer than the standard radio fare. Are you a fan of Guided By Voices? Dead Meadow? Mission of Burma? Get this CD and make friends with their musical equals.

- Amy Diaz

Various artists

Enjoy Every Sandwich, The Songs of Warren Zevon  **

Artemis Records, 2004

The tribute album is to artist’s music what a police suspect sketch is to an actual human face.

The basic idea might (or might not) be there but it’s very unlikely that you get anything more than a crude sense of the original. Also, as many tributes frequently come after an artist’s death, you can add to the mix the mediocrity-inspiring level of soppy emotion.

This proves true on a good half the tracks of this collection of Zevon classics sung by friends, family and musical admirers. Songs such as Don Henley’s “Searching for the Heart” and Billy Bob Thornton’s bizarre “The Wind” are completely skippable.  Springsteen’s “My Ride’s Here” (complete with introductory we’ll-miss-yous) is good enough but ultimately more Bruce than Zevon. The Wallflowers’ “Lawyer’s, Guns and Money” sound like a request from a middling cover band, not bad just missing that Zevon snap.

 Doing right, however, are tracks by Pete Yorn, Jill Sobule, the suddenly ubiquitous Pixies and Jordon Zevon, Warren’s son. His rendition of “Studebaker” is original while still featuring a good bit of his dad.

The big surprise? The guy who really tears it up and gives Zevon his smirky due is Adam Sandler whose relatively straight-forward rendition of “Werewolves of London” truly pays tribute.

- Amy Diaz

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Ruin Jonny’s Bar Mitzvah ***1/2

Fat Wreck Chords, 2004

I now seriously regret not having a band at my wedding.

Sure, it’s unlikely that my wedding band would have broken out with the kickin’ “Hava Nagila (Christmas Arrangement)” (set to the tune of “Feliz Navidad”). Or even the rockin’ straight (well, punk-band-straight) version of “Hava Nagila.”

But maybe, had I slipped this fantasy band of powder-blue-tux-wearing punk rockers singing the karaoke hits an extra $20 and liquored them up a little, they would have warbled through “O Sole Mio” with some of the lounge lizard fury displayed by the Gimme Gimmes.

The music is infectiously fun and even smart in a sort of South Parkian fashion. I dare you not to laugh during the angriest rendition (yet still with harmonizing) of Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time.”

And the liner notes/scrap book from Benjamin Rosenblatt, who documents the bar mitzvah and his parents’ reaction to it (his father’s take on the band— “Practice? Hell, I don’t even think these guys knew each other before tonight” )? A fantastic gift for a 13 -year-old boy or anyone with a love of drunken punk.

- Amy Diaz

The Zutons, Who Killed the Zutons  ***

Deltasonic Records, 2004

Hey, all my dad’s vinyls from the early 1970s melted onto an early Talking Heads CD.

Or did a bunch of British coffee-house-style-funk indie artists merely rediscover a surprisingly satisfying form of mid-1970s rock?

Sure, the Liverpool roots will inspire a bunch of comparisons, but these guys are reminicent of post-Beatles music.

Shades of Rolling Stones, bits of Queen, fragments of Led Zeprplin swirl around in a cocktail that includes early 1980s influences (their website professes a serious admiration of the Talking Heads). And then there are the parts that seem to come from nowhere (sweet melodies, jazzy saxaphone riffs, a cowbell).

Bouncy songs such as “Remember Me” show off how well all these seemingly unrelated scraps weave together. The music is, above all, fun and occasionally, even a bit silly (as with the zany, horn-heavy, mid-’60s-ish opening track “Zuton Fever”)

Sure the time-warpy feel is a bit strange, especially on songs such as “Confusion,” where you’d swear you’re listening to an undiscovered “Lovin’ Spoonful” track.

But why fight it? Find yourself a nice ketchup-colored Pacer and hit the road in search of some Billy beer.

- Amy Diaz

Duran Duran, Astronaut ***

Sony, 2004

I admit it: I was a teenage Duranie.

Go ahead and laugh. But I’d be willing to bet that back in the ‘80s, in the privacy of your bedroom (plastered with Dead Kennedys and Sex Pistols posters, of course, since you were just soooo cool), you bopped around to “Hungry Like the Wolf” and “New Moon on Monday” just like I did. You’re just too chicken to own up to it.

After about a decade of recording so-so and just plain bad albums with only a few of the original members, the original line-up of Duran Duran has reunited to make a new, all-original CD, Astronaut. And yes, I admit that when I saw the Fab Five posing on the CD cover, I squealed like the 13-year-old girl I once was.

Bassist John Taylor briefly left the group in the ‘90s, and listening to his fat sound on this recording reminds me of how was sorely he was missed. How the rest of the band managed to lure the reclusive drummer Roger Taylor out of retirement is a mystery to me, but it sounds like he’s been able to keep up his drumming skills while farming or flipping burgers or whatever he’s been doing since 1989. Astronaut also marks the return of guitarist Andy Taylor, whose disastrous decision to leave the band and go solo in 1986 made him the butt of jokes in the industry for about 10 minutes, and then he was promptly forgotten. He doesn’t get a whole lot to do on this album, but my guess is, just the renewed energy of having the old gang back together is what gives this CD its feel-good spark.

This isn’t the overexposed, bubble-gum pop Duran Duran of “Wild Boys” or “A View to a Kill.” This is Duran Duran before Tiger Beat got hold of them, when they were a weird but danceable new wave band, circa “Planet Earth” and “Girls on Film.”

The first track, the catchy “Sunrise,” which is also their first single, brings you right back to 1984 with its swirling keyboards and backing vocals. Even Simon Le Bon’s voice seem to have taken on a new, youthful sound compared to his last couple of CD’s. Is there such thing as vocal botox?

Nile Rodgers produced the CD. This has some advantages and drawbacks. The advantage is that Rodgers is a talented producer with a good ear for harmonies and funky licks. The bad news is that Rodgers is also a musician, with a definitive sound and style of his own, that sometimes seems to push its way into Duran Duran’s own sound.  On the track “Bedroom Toys,” the band sounds like they’re playing one of Rodgers’ old band Chic’s castoff songs. While the lyrics of the song are cheeky and fun, the sound is all wrong for the band. This was the same problem with the first album Rodgers produced for Duran Duran, 1988’s Notorious.

While the music sounds similar to what the band did twenty years ago, don’t get the idea that it’s all recycled sound with nothing new for the listener. One thing that has definitely changed for the better is the band’s lyrical ability. Another change is that today’s keyboards and vocal effects are much cleaner. Duran Duran was at the forefront of the keyboard sound back in the ‘80s, but the problem back then was that keyboards sounded so artificial and robotic. Today, keyboardist Nick Rhodes has better-sounding options that blend with the rest of the music, instead of sounding like quirky afterthoughts.

This is a great CD to pop in while you are cleaning the house or getting root canal surgery, or some other unpleasant task, because its upbeat energy will make whatever you’re doing seem a little more fun. If you grew up in the ‘80s, it’s totally worth a listen. You just might peg the bottoms of your jeans and blow-dry your hair really big. Of course, if you’re too cool, you can always do it in the privacy of your bedroom.

— Michelle Saturley

Le Tigre, This Island **

Universal, 2004

Take the baby doll voice of French singer Vanessa Paradis and mix her in with a little Hello Kitty on speed and you’ll have some sense of the oddly appealing voice of Kathleen Hanna, lead singer for Le Tigre.

They yell, they shout, they make you want to bang your head. They demand to be heard. They’re the kind of band you’d hear over the stereo system in a store and find yourself tapping your foot to, needing to know who it is you’re listening to, even as you’re telling yourself,  “This really isn’t the kind of music I usually listen to.” Barely able to decipher the lyrics, you sing along to them anyway.

The first four songs on their third album, This Island, are fun, if thin. A little too Go-Go’s meets…( insert favorite ‘80s band here). Like The Strokes, who harken back to the late ‘70s with their neo-punk, Le Tigre seek to become representatives of neo-80’s cool.

“Nanny Nanny Boo Boo” is the fifth song on the album and the point at which it kicks into a new gear. It’s Salt-n-Pepa meets The Beastie Boys, with rap that succeeds on sheer attitude, all the while laced through with synthesized beats.

“Tell You Now” is a feminist anthem in which a woman tells a man that his efforts to destroy her have failed, “Things you tried to kill/I found a way to grow.” Interestingly, it is one of the calmest songs on the album, as well as one of the best, building until you feel this woman’s growing anger like a volcano threatening to erupt. You should get out of the way, but you’re too transfixed to move.

Diverging yet again, “New Kicks” samples speeches made by the likes of Susan Sarandon and Al Sharpton at a peace march held in 2003. A protest song graced with a hypnotizing beat, “New Kicks” is a kick-ass song that has the potential to become a classic of the anti-war movement.

The theme of the album, from the cover photo to the illustrations inside, seems to be prom night sometime around 1985. And often, their voices, growling as if filtered through sandpaper, and their cheeky, if confusing lyrics, “That’s me, all night on stand-by/Three words, three things, oh please please!/Don’t, don’t drink poison,” remind one of a promising high school band that are still finding their way.

So, like a band flirting with finding their own voice, you stick with them, hoping you’re around when it happens, hoping that in the end they trust themselves enough to leave all the schtick behind and emerge as something all their own.

—Kate Pollack
 

Arcade Fire, Funeral ***

Merge Records, 2004

Arcade Fire is a new seven member band coming out of Montreal that wowed the crowd at the CMJ Music Festival in New York City this month.

Originally from Texas and Toronto, the band members seem to have run away from home only to find themselves in the middle of long, cold winters with nothing to do but muse on their pasts, marry each other (at least one couple) and record music. All the better for us.

Sounding like a combination of David Bowie and The Talking Heads, Arcade Fire is grander, more orchestral. They use xylophones, harps, organs, violins and various forms of percussion too. A track like “Neighborhood #2” starts off with guitars and drums but then an accordion enters to define the mood of the song, kind of sad, kind of surreal.

In the same song is the line, “When daddy comes home you always start a fight, so the neighbors can dance in the police disco lights.” What’s fascinating about Arcade Fire is the way they drop all the instruments but the drums and harmonize over “police disco lights.” If you haven’t read the lyrics it sounds like such a lovely part of the song. In this way, they are reminiscent of The Beautiful South, a British group from the mid-nineties.

Their sound is epic, but their songs are about small things. It’s like the soundtrack to The Ten Commandments is being played over the movie Garden State. The epic sound comes from a heavy use of strings, violins mostly, whose pleading sounds bring to mind all those Chinese love stories hitting the movies of late. The voice of Win Butler brings some of this forth too. Equal parts Bowie and David Byrne, Butler cries out sadly at the ends of his songs, quiet laments after lines like, “Purify the colors, purify my mind, and spread the ashes of the colors over this heart of mine!” In the song “Wake Up” there is a chorus of voices that you can hear a stadium of fans chanting along with, an encore walk-off if ever there was one.

For all of this, Arcade Fire has created a sound all their own. Like Mercury Rev, when you hear one of their songs you kind of cock your head and listen closely because you recognize it but not immediately, but you like it. Their songs draw you in like a half-lit room, rocking themselves in the corner. You feel compelled to go over and put your arm around them, and then you’re amazed at their strength.

If you’re happy, Funeral will sober you up. But if you’re sad, this album will sit down on the couch next to you and tell you it knows just how you feel. And yet, it’s so much cooler than that.

—Judah Pollack

2004 HippoPress LLC | Manchester, NH