Adam
Green - Sixes and Sevens (www.roughtrade.com)
by Brook Pridemore
Sixes and Sevens,
the 5th solo album from former/current Moldy
Peach Adam Green, is simultaneously more
of the same blank-verse-in-bachelor-pad
rock music as his recent albums and the
most experimental, "lo-fi" outing
he's done since Garfield, the first solo
album he made while the Peaches were still
together. It's also Green's best album since
Friends of Mine, the sublime, string-laden
collection that doesn't have a blemish on
it, even five years after its initial release.
A native New Yorker, Green
shares a great deal in common with Bushwick
native Harry Nilsson. Green rarely plays
live (Stateside, at least), and Nilsson
never played live in his whole career -
both songwriters' rely predominately upon
the confines of the studio to convey their
sound. And sonically, Sixes and Sevens
shares a lot in common with Nilsson's magnum
opus, 1971's Nilsson Schmilsson
- both albums are wildly eclectic exercises
in genre acrobatics. Where Nilsson Schmilsson's
three singles ranged from pop-balladry ("Without
You") to rock freakout ("Jump
Into the Fire") to plain goofiness
("Coconut"), Green's disc jumps
from Beat-poetry-with-drums ("That
Sounds Like a Pony") to a Moldy Peaches
throwback ("Drowning Head First")
to psychedelia ("Leaky Flask").
Both artists don't seem to take themselves
too seriously, which seems to fit Green's
music very well-the guy who once rhymed
"brunch" with "cunts"
deadpans couplets like "I wanna give
that Michael Moore a dollar/Uncle Tom and
Jerry be my man" ("Be My Man")
and "It's alright what you do, but
you're beatin' 'em back/I'm going undercover
like a lumberjack" (the Lee Hazelwood-esque
"Grandma Shirley and Papa"). Any
greater gravitas lent to the lyrics would
render the songs pretentious.
Which is not to say that Sixes
and Sevens is an emotionless album.
I get the feeling on first listen that Green
is just now becoming comfortable with the
prospect of being an international celebrity,
and Sixes and Sevens is the sound
of an artist finally having fun in the spotlight,
thumbing his nose at convention and opening
lots of ears. Recommended.
The
New Dress - Where Our Failures Are
(www.redleaderrecords.com)
by Brook Pridemore
I remember once reading an
interview with Pansy Division's Jon Ginoli,
in which he said that his band was started
as a way to break down typical homosexual
stereotypes - the fey, Judy Garland-fanatic,
Will And Grace caricature. I don't
believe it would be reaching, then, to say
that Pansy Division was started out of necessity.
And, apparently, it worked. The Queercore
movement began sometime around PD's inception,
and disenfranchised gay punks had a niche.
Likewise, folk-punk, while
not born out of reaction to oppressive stereotypes,
stems from necessity. Sometime around the
turn of the century, gas prices started
going through the roof, and it became easier
to tour in a car rather than a van. Maybe
a shortage of dedicated drummers turned
some people toward a quieter sound (I know
this to be the case in the transition between
Operation: Cliff Clavin and Ghost Mice,
at least). It's quite possible that a whole
glut of disenfranchised, lonely kids wanted
to start bands, but were too awkward or
lazy to do so, and found the kid-with-guitar
route to be easier and equally gratifying.
Anyway you look at it, folk-punk has plenty
of advantages over punk-punk.
But therein lies the problem
- folk-punk, like ska, is simple to do,
but incredibly difficult to do well. A genre
that revolves around a group of untrained,
unrehearsed kids with short attention spans
is bound to produce its share of caca. I
have personally been stuck in countless
rooms, feigning politeness at some kid who
(really) just rode into town on a freighter,
stinking of box wine and hollering vaguely
political ideas in a Cookie Monster voice
over one endless chord on a beat up guitar.
It's too much to bear, sometimes. But sometimes
the kid (or kids) gets it exactly right,
and it's magic.
Brooklyn's The New Dress -
singer Laura Fidler and singer/guitarist
Bill Manning - are one of the latter. Their
first full length, Where Our Failures
Are, plays like the lost second side
to Billy Bragg's Life's A Riot With
Spy VS. Spy, only American and more
vitriolic. Unlike Bragg (covered by The
New Dress here) who often seems to be trying
to take down the "system" in one
giant explosion, Bill and Laura's lyrics
are less smash-the-state than smash-your-face.
These are smaller battles, being fought
by smaller people (in terms of cultural
presence), on smaller stages, with no less
energy or conviction. A choice lyric: "Oh,
how I suffer from having all the right love
in all the wrong places, like in my country,
humanity and myself...I know the way to
my heart is through broken ribs." By
internalizing the struggle, Bill and Laura
humanize the "resistance," and
bring it back to a grassroots level. The
harmonies intertwine over Bill's chunky
rhythm guitar and provide exactly the right
amount of sound for this band. Kudos to
The New Dress for realizing the best environment
for their songs. Recommended
LACH - The Calm Before
(www.antifolk.net)
For The Calm Before,
the fifth collection of songs from the Godfather
of Antifolk, and the first since 2004's
Today, Lach has delivered a deep departure
from the power pop of his earlier albums,
and certainly his best album since Blang!
(the previous high-water mark in my opinion).
Replacing the bombastic arrangements and
gang vocals of earlier tunes like "Teenage
Alcoholic" with tasty woodwinds and
mandolin, along with background singing
from former Analogue Lydia Ooghe, the album
immediately reminds me of Astral Weeks,
albeit Astral Weeks as sung by Joe Strummer
rather than Van Morrison.
Lach became a father between
Today and The Calm Before,
and maybe all of those hours spent hoping
the little guy would stay asleep are what
caused the man to turn the focus inward.
The album's opener, "Egg," describes
its narrator being born out of the placidity
of a safe, small and secure environment
into the big, ugly real world-and wishing
for a way back in. "George at Coney,"
one of the more upbeat songs on the album,
describes the real life afternoon the former
Beatle spent escaping from his band and
the pressures of mega stardom. Taking this
introspection as metaphor for fatherhood
(both biological and scene-centric) I can't
help but wonder if Lach's narrator (and
not necessarily the man himself) is growing
weary of the pressures of spearheading Antifolk,
and is looking forward to fewer responsibilities.
One small complaint: certain
elements of the recording sit too low in
the mix for my taste. Mike Visceglia, on
loan from Suzanne Vega, fills in the bottom
end with bass guitar that rarely strays
far from the acoustic guitar, and subsequently
doesn't bump as hard as it could. Now, this
is Antifolk and not hip hop, but I still
feel like there's some "oomph"
missing in places. Also, the backing vocals,
specifically Ooghe's, are mixed low-and,
while this is one man singing introspective
songs and not the gang singalongs of earlier
Lach albums, the additional vocals could
use a boost.
However, this is a small complaint,
and if this is The Calm Before,
I'm excited to hear what The Storm will
bring.
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