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Philly: Seen on the Scene

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

This past month I was out of musical commission for as long as I’ve ever been – longer than when I had my tonsils removed, though perhaps not quite as long as when I broke my collarbone (although I have many grimace-inducing memories of propping my back up against the cinder block walls of Calhoun hall so I could leverage my left hand up high enough to fret chords).

In any event, it was a long time without music – from when I came down with bronchitis on January 9th through when I started playing piano again on February 1st.

Three weeks might not sound like a long time to you, but in time without music it’s an eternity, so I’ve been happy to get back to my musical routine this past week.

Every Wednesday: LP Open Mic @ Intermezzo (3141 Walnut)
Last week was my first week back to our open mic after a three week recess, and also a week of my hosting duties.

It turned out to be an evening of great fun. I opened with a trio of tunes so new that I don’t even have lyric links for them yet, let alone recordings, plus a new Beatles cover I had dreamt up on an old guitar the night before.

The turnout for the night was much lighter than usual, which resulted in the open mic becoming an effective round robin of me, Arcati Crisis, Mike from Shackamaxon, and my most-adored band in all of Philadelphia, Blueberry Magee, plus two appearances by our friend and fellow LP Artist Ashley Brandt. All three of the artists on that list are some of my favorites in Philly, and it was wonderful to share an exclusive bill with them for the night.

This week Dante Bucci and his hang drums are the host, but Gina and I will still make an appearance. If you’re around University City between 8pm and 11pm you should drop by.

Thursday: Arcati Crisis Rehearsal!
Okay, not really much of a scene to be seen on, but from our insanity at the open mic it was clear Gina and I were craving a chance to catch up and work on some new material. We picked our next four AC songs (two of which are from my super-new trio from the prior evening), and got most of the way through a guitar arrangement of one of mine – “Better.”

Our arrangement decisions tend to take forever when we’re inside of them, but in retrospect seem like they occurred in a flash. On “Better” we started out moving Gina into different capo positions to find a good interplay against my open progression in E. She wound up on the fourth fret.

At one point in following my chords she fell one chord behind me, and I stopped her and said, “you’re on to something.” Twenty minutes later we had crafted a fanged hook for the song that sounds perfectly at home despite the fact that it is wickedly out of step for Gina compared to my part.

We were pretty satisfied with ourselves at that point, and just sketched in the idea of the bridge before calling it a night. We still have to break out harmony vocals, which tends to be where the bulk of our arrangement battles lie.

Friday: The Pretenders @ The Electric Factory
I have a short list of bands that I absolutely must see once at some point in my life, mostly because I have been lucky enough to see bands while they are at their peek – before they become a rarer commodity.

For a long time one of those bands has been The Pretenders.

Read more…The Pretenders were spectacular – muscular and mimeographic as they churned out faithful renditions of songs from the full range of their career. Chrissie Hynde not only sounded pitch perfect in comparison to her records, but also cut a svelte figure in her high boots and single-tail tux jacket – dancing an exaggerated sidestep in “Brass In Pocket.” It was plain as day the through line from her to PJ, Shirley, and Karen O.

It was also clear that she is one of the great, under-appreciated rhythm guitarists in classic rock – she’s effectively the backbone of every arrangement, even galloping time changes like “Tattooed Love Boys.”

The band played half of their newest disc, and nearly the entirety of their debut, plus all the notable singles between with the exception of “2000 Miles,” “Middle of the Road,” “Ohio,” and “Stand By You” (also, my manager saw them the prior night and got “Mystery Achievement,” which I had lamented not hearing).

One more band struck from the “once in a lifetime” list (the last prior cross-off was Cyndi Lauper, another stunning concert). I’m actually hard-pressed to think of who’s next at this point. I’m tempted by the Fleetwood Mac hits tour, but I don’t know if I could count it as the real thing without Christie McVie along for the ride.

Every Monday: Open Jam @ Connie’s Ric Rac (9th just under Washington)
Connie’s Ric Rac is my neighborhood open mic, as well as being the room that spawned my recent asphyxiation and the subsequent interstate love song that Gina is currently endeavoring to learn.

As the story goes, the Ric Rac (named thusly as a misnomer for bric-a-brac) used to be an Italian Market discount store owned by the titular Connie, and when the storefront closed down the shop stayed in the family. Later, her son(s?) proposed that they open the doors as a sort of counter-culture community center, complete with art classes, concerts, and open jams.

Thus, Connie’s Ric Rac. I was a little nervous about attending, because it’s a totally new scene to me, but I was encouraged by the fact that February’s guest host is the darling Katie Barbato, and the night was themed with Beatles covers as a tribute to the band’s first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show 45(!) years prior.

I arrived much too early to a Ric Rac family scene replete with snake-feeding, wine-drinking, and banjo recitals – all with the easy laughter and chain smoking that I recall from a childhood spent in my grandmother’s South Philadelphia kitchen. I was happy to remain a wallflower through the family affair until the night kicked off.

In addition to Katie (playing a sad, Across the Universe style “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and a new original with a killer chord change in the chorus) there was house band Discount Heroes (valiantly slaying “Revolution” and “Don’t Let Me Down” despite their singer’s flu), a freak-R&B act whose name I did not catch doing a remarkable version of “Savoy Truffle,” and Vince & Chuck.

Vince and Chuck were pure magic – performing note-perfect Beatles covers of a great selection of tunes – “Here Comes the Sun,” “If I Fell,” “Baby’s In Black,” and “Please Please Me,” plus another I can’t recall. I essentially pleaded with them to come to the LP Open Mic to share their Beatles tunes, and this was before discovering that Chuck AKA Charles Ramsey is a phenomenal songwriter in his own right.

Since the directive was early-Beatles I debated “Do You Want to Know a Secret” and “You Really Got a Hold On Me,” but settled on long-time favorite “All My Loving,” which I wailed like a fucking banshee. Katie assures me it was awesome. I also played the repeatedly aforementioned “Connie’s Ric Rac Love Song AKA Better,” “In My Life,” and later “Ob-la Di Ob-la Da,” plus a handful of other originals.

Katie will host out the month, and I’m going to make an effort to make it to the next two Monday’s to hang out with her and the Ric Rac family before shifting my attention to either Fergie’s or The Fire in March. She gave me a copy of the brand new full-length by her band The Sleepwells, and her voice is so freaking sexy on it. I might blush the next time I talk to her. Wow.

Every Tuesday: Open Mic @ Studio Luloo (916 White Horse Pike, Oaklyn NJ)
Yes, my friends, I got all the fuck around the scene this week.

Gina and I have had Studio Luloo on our to-do list for a while, and it was elevated by our missing an appearance from Year Long Day last week. We discovered that it is virtually around the corner from Gina’s abode, and tonight finally endeavored to make an appearance.

It was a completely worthwhile endeavor! Luloo is hosted and operated by the entirely charming Sara O’Brien, who shares songs, healing arts, and a tangible joie de vivre in this cozy shopfront slash recording studio with the best monitor mix we’ve ever heard.

No joke. We were first after Sara, so had no idea what to expect, and we started with “Bucket Seat,” which is not amongst the simplest of our songs, and the mix was just perfect. We could hear what we really sounded like, and not some faraway facsimile thereof. We also made a successfully epic run at “Apocalyptic Love Song” (click that link – Gina should win a freaking Grammy for that performance), and an entertaining jaunt through “Pocahontas.”

Playing first can be a curse if you want to get heard by the room at it’s fullest, but when you’re just out to chill it’s a wonderful pressure deflator. We had time to chat with some of the crowd, including super-sweet Dave from Never Trust, and Ryan Williams, who was the feature.

I’ve met Ryan before, but never heard him, and his songs are great. Like, actually great, not just hyperbolic great. He has a new one, “Audio,” that is pure aural dynamite. Scary-good.

I was sad to miss out on talking to a cool kid playing a Guild with a series of partial capos, his name maybe being Jeremy Hines? He had a really tuneful sensibility, and reminded me of Honorary Title – the sort of music I consistently fail at making when I write things like “Standing” or “Love Me Not.”

In other news…
I had designs on hitting the Tuesday open mic @ Time on the way home from Luloo, but Gina smartly deposited me back at my house so I can rest my voice a bit.

Not too much other news, other than I stopped by Cafe Grindstone over the weekend for a fabulous lunch of vegan kielbasa and a soy banana milkshake and spoke with Jerry at the counter a bit about how one gets selected to play there. It’s just about as close to me as Ric Rac, so I’d love to drop by to sing every so often.

Also, Battlestar Galactica. I could say a lot about this week’s episode, but right now I just have one thing on my mind: the return Ellen Motherfrakkin’ Tigh.

Coming up!
Hopefully some fucking sleep!

But, seriously, tomorrow night we’ll be at the LP Open Mic @ Intermezzo. If open micing is not your thing, get thyself to the Tin Angel to see Shackamaxon, awesome Mad Dragon recording artist Andrew Lipke, and a band called StereoFidelic which is likely awesome based on the company they keep.

Also, biggest news for last: Arcati Crisis will be splitting a bill with our friend and musical confidante Joshua Popejoy on February 28th at our much-beloved South Street venue Upstairs @ Zot! This will be a BIG SHOW – big sets from both of us, a big(ger) PA system, a big comfortable room for you to stretch out in, and hopefully A BIG CROWD.

$8, beer specials, awesome acoustic pop music. Mark your calendar. Tickets here.

What now? Oh, right, sleep.

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Peter is a Philadelphia singer-songwriter, half of the band Arcati Crisis, and Director of Communications for Lyndzapalooza (LP).

Also filed in Philly, arcati crisis, concerts, day in the life, elise, gina, lindsay, lyndzapalooza, philly music, weblinks | | Comments (1)

Le Louvre embrace les bandes dessinees et leur auteurs

Friday, January 23, 2009

The two exhibitions we’ve enjoyed the most both just opened this week – what luck on our part! Both played to our specific interests, which made them even more fascinating.

Today’s at Jeu de Paume was a phenomenal Robert Frank photography exhibit that perhaps I can get Elise to write up for you, as she would do it better justice than I could.

Yesterday’s deserves its own post not only for the conversation it inspired between the two of us, but also because it’s newsworthy – it just had just opened that morning!

Louvre initiated a groundbreaking partnership with a collection of famed French creators of bandes dessinees – comic books, though in this instance it refers to graphic novels – for the new exhibition Le Louvre invite la bande dessinée.

Just the idea of the exhibit is groundbreaking. Louvre is a classical institution, and it has heretofore neglected to recognize bandes dessinees as fine art worthy of mention. Yet, it isn’t just its inclusion that broke ground, but it’s execution. The exhibition is not just a static display of the work of famous comic artists. Instead, Louvre engaged a panel of artists to write and illustrate a series graphic novels set in Louvre, each centering on one of its specific works.

The result was a set of imaginative, fantastical, diverse graphic novels by authors Nicolas de Crécy, Marc-Antoine Mathieu, Éric Liberge and Bernard Yslaire – each with their own style and identity.

The exhibit features bios of each artist in French, English, and Japanese alongside of original plates of their work. Additionally, a series of video screens display the steps of digital illustration that went in to some of the books (said Elise: “Oh my god, Lindsay would love this.”).

One of our favorite genres of art in Louvre was paintings of the halls of the Louvre, because their artists had to painstakingly reproduce other artists’ works as seen at oblique angles and lighting conditions. The graphic novels do just that … arbitrarily, and on each page, all while imagining a narrative playing against that classical backdrop.

While many of the novels predictably featured the Mona Lisa, we were drawn in specific to Eric Liberge’s Odd Hours – partially because it is about Nike of Samothrace deciding to fly away from her moorings, but mostly because his illustrations are stunning. The plate of Liberge’s work literally stopped us in our tracks, which only a few other pieces in the entire museum managed to do.

This was a temporary exhibition, so we were prohibited from taking photos – and the comics are so new that I can’t even find any images online! I’ll try to shoot a page of Liberge’s stunning book to show you, as there’s no way I will be smooshing it onto my scanner at home.

Also filed in Honeymoon, art, comics | | Comments (1)

Amanda FUCKING Palmer

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

As to the rest of my awesome weekend, there was the bit where we moved an entire house of belongings from one place to another in less than 90 minutes of manual lablor, and then there was the bit where I slept for a really long time because I was not feeling super, and then there was Amanda FUCKING Palmer.

(Actually, I skipped the bit where I walked up and down South Street belting out Dresden Dolls harmony vocals to see if I could attract the attention of anyone on the tour who would introduce me to Amanda, which in my opinion is a way more effective version of stalking than most of her fans might undertake. But, I digress).

Elise and I (and many of our other friends) are tremendous Dresden Dolls fans, so we all took the news of Amanda’s impending solo record with several grains of salt. Would it be an indulgent glamour project where she indulged all the inane songs Brian refused to drum on?

In a word: no.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer? is a fantastically layered, nuanced album that runs the gamut from heart-rending ballads to two massive pop blitzes catchier than anything the Dolls have undertaken (and this is coming from someone who has “Backstabber” tattooed on my brain – it’s my #1 most-listened to song in iTunes).

I’d tell you more about the album, but I’m already entrenched about 2500 words deep into my review of it, so it’ll have to wait. Instead, a word on the concert.

It wasn’t a concert.

At least, not in the sense you would typically expect. It was truly a cabaret – songs mixed with spoken word, mime, question and answer sessions with the audience, and unplugged performances on ukelele. It was an interactive, unconcertlike experience. At one point Amanda and The Danger Ensemble did a choreographed dance to the entirety of Rhianna’s “Umbrella” (which I had mercifully escaped hearing up until that point).

If that sounds like a damnation by faint praise … well, only a little. There were definitely points where the act of Amanda got slightly tiresome, and the show visibly bled audience at those points. In the past that blood has been me. But, on Saturday it finally felt like cabaret and not a concert, maybe due to the absence of Brian, and maybe because of how much Amanda chatted directly with the audience – explaining the funding behind her tour, or asking us to send her a text message.

It was much about atmosphere and attitude, texture and taste, as it was about playing all the hits. Case and point, perhaps my favorite song of the night wasn’t any of the ones I was hotly anticipating, but a take on her hilarious collaboration with Neil Gaiman, “I Google You” (explained hilariously via a blog comment chain by Neil), the best bit of which is definitely,

And I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on the structure of the sun
I’ve read each one

At the end of the night she came out for an encore of her current single, the hot horny mess of “Leeds United,” slapped onto the record complete with an “Oh! Darling” losing-my-voice single-take vocal. Introducing it (or maybe earlier), she mentioned that her record company didn’t like the video as-is because she looked “fat.”

We’re talking about someone on my list of five famous people I’d sleep with. Fat doesn’t really enter into the equation. Behold:

Right. Fat. Sure.

In any event, I loved the concert, and I’m happy that Amanda is getting the chance to make her own music away from the Dolls. If any of this sounded interesting (even if you don’t love Amanda’s music) I would suggest you check out her mammoth story of recording the record, which is more detailed and frank than any episode of Behind the Music.

(wow, that was supposed to be a short post)

Also filed in Philly, concerts, dresden dolls, stories | | Comments (1)

Make You Feel Real Blue

Thursday, November 13, 2008

A few weeks ago Lindsay, Dante Bucci, and Bill McConney were playing a tiny living-room style show in a just-off-South coffee shop called Cafe Grindstone that had an entire vegan menu and a shelf of random used textbooks to peruse.

As I put back the book that taught me that pigeons are superstitious a flyer on a lower shelf caught my eye with a familiar logo – Alexandra Day.

I picked up the flyer and scanned it. A Monday night show at Tritone on South Street – not a twenty minute walk from my house – with one of the best songwriters in Philadelphia. Doesn’t take much convincing.

Then I continued to read. She would be splitting a bill with a band whose name I didn’t recognize, who would play the entirety of Joni Mitchell’s Blue.

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Improbably, I currently name as Blue my second favorite album of all time. That puts it above albums that I played on repeat for entire days of my youth. Albums that taught me what music was.

How, then, can that one LP – that I didn’t hear a single song from until college – come to eclipse all else in my collection?

It’s the color of it. Blue is rooted in a palette of different blues, explicit and implied: midnight sky outside of a plane window on “This Flight Tonight;” the melancholy emotional blues on “All I Want” and “My Old Man;” the twinkling blue tinge of frost on “River;” and the blue tv screen light in “A Case of You.” It is music that makes me see color, every single time I hear it.

It’s also the sureness of it – the way threads of blueness and yearning to get back to California are woven through the album. The sureness of Joni’s indelible performance, and the perfection of the tracking. In my opinion it is nearly the ultimate in a singer-songwriter album, and if you are assembling an album you ought to spend some serious time listening to Blue to understand how to make its formula your own.

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I mentioned the upcoming show to as many people as would listen, but I have other promotional duties as well, and I couldn’t seem to hook anyone with the play-through of the Joni album. I wound up tired and alone Monday night, installed in the back corner of the Tritone wrapped in a jacket and scarf, sipping cranberry juice.

Alexandra came by my table, her usual whirlwind of energy and vinyl pants, but she immediately caught on that I was at an unavoidable ebb.

“This is a good bar to just sit in,” she advised. “I’ve come here many times just to sit in the corner. And, you’re really going to like the band.”

The band, I learned, was Ellipsis – a local jazz trio. They assemble the second Monday of each month with as many additional players as necessary to make it through the entirety of an album. In the past two months I had missed a swing through Jeff Buckley’s “Grace” and Neil Young’s “Harvest.” And, Alexandra said the word in the room was that next month’s artist would be Bjork.

My excitement was paired with skepticism that any band could replicate the magic of Blue, especially a jazz band who I discovered in short order did not have a guitarist: piano, upright bass, drum kit, and hand percussion, plus a young jazz vocalist. Joni Mitchell’s best album without a guitar?, I mused. Is there any point?

The band set up a projector beside the stage that shone a series of images – the cover of the album, long dusty fields, empty starless nights – across their bodies and onto the wall to their right. Without much preface, they began “All I Really Want,” possibly my favorite Joni song.

My skepticism continued for a verse – the arrangement on this one was measured mimicry, and the vocalist was treading delicately around Joni’s words. Then we reached my favorite point of the song, exuberant in new love even as it plumbs its unsure depths:

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause – life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see – do you see – do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue

I hadn’t noticed, but as the verse continued I leaned farther and farther from my seat, as if I thought the song could just reach out and envelop me. By the time Samantha Rise reached that melancholy pinnacle, “we both get so blue,” my ass was barely in the chair. I was in love and wrapped in the color of her voice.

The show that followed is one of the best I’ve ever witnessed. A silkier, surer version of “My Old Man” that sent a chill through my body. The quiet menace of the quickly descending fifth in the b-section of the otherwise pretty “Little Green.” A raucous, celebratory turn through “Carey,” stripped down to it’s upright bass and percussion and then built again (here I exchanged a glance of incredulous amazement with Alex and she just laughed and turned back to watch the show). A perfect, absolutely verbatim rendition of “Blue.” A saucy, jazzy version of “California” that transformed directly into a racing, free-form take on “This Flight Tonight” complete with scatting. “River,” bare of it’s jingle bells and with a frostier pulse. A subtle, measured read on the oft-covered “Case of You,” possibly the best lost-love song ever written. And, the sometimes superfluous “Last Time I Saw Richard” transformed into a incandescent elegy for the entire album, although in its narrative it perhaps comes first – her old man gone and married to some chick who skated around on the iced over river.

At the end I was breathless and teary. I witnessed something unique and transformative, unusual and terrific. I saw all of the colors that Joni painted into the album, and so many more.

It was a show that should have played to a packed club, or even on the main stage of the Kimmel Center, and I was watching it from the back corner of what is effectively a living room with a bar and a stage along with twenty, maybe thirty fans.

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I’m inexplicably nervous to talk to other musicians, a condition that’s becoming increasingly paradoxical as I play more frequently. I am one, so shouldn’t I understand how to approach one?

Samantha – delicate and composed on the stage – was twinkling and approachable off it it. I think I heard her boasting to another fan that she could defeat him at any Mario-based game. Eventually I noticed her by herself at the bar and plunged in.

“That was so good. Blue is one of my favorite records, ever. You really did it justice.”

“Wow, thank you. It’s one of mine too!”

And so we just talked, just for a minute or two – the easy chatter of two people who love music. She shook my hand and jotted down her information on the pad I had been sketching out my next Trios on, and parted with a nod and a smile, settling in to enjoy Alexandra’s equally amazing set.

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Three days later and I still can’t get her and Ellipsis out of my head. In that last post I wondered if I still saw colors in the world, but Samantha answered that question neatly. Sometimes you just need someone to show you where to look.

Also filed in Philly, Year 9, concerts, introversion, lindsay | | Comments (3)

The Burn Ward Theater Company puts on its Mittens

Monday, September 8, 2008

Saturday night brought me to the upstairs at Plays and Players Theatre on Delancey Street to see the inaugural Fringe Festival effort from The Burn Ward Theater Company.

Burn Ward presented three one acts – two brief scenes, and one more substantial play. The scenes were well-acted distractions, and the play – Mittens Descending – was an utterly hilarious farce. I wish I could go back and see it again.

Mittens is named for an anthropomorphized, caustic, middle-aged, gin-swilling cat with an eye for mischief and an encyclopedic appreciation of classical music. He’s the debatably imaginary best friend of Lenny, who we first meet as a Batman-loving seven-year-old frustrated by the Barbies and make-believe of his little-girl neighbor, Rebecca.

Lenny and Mittens are an inseparable team when on adventures battling pirates and nightmare kings, but in the real world Mittens is more high maintenance than any friend or pet should be. He demands constant attention and obedience from his young charge, but in exchange offers only capricious, catty companionship. When the two have a brief falling out over Lenny’s weak streak for anarchy Mittens leaves in a huff, en route to other unspecified mischief.

We are then reintroduced to Lenny, now an angsty teen who hasn’t heard from Mittens in years. A breakup with his now-girlfriend Rebecca leaves Lenny’s life spinning out of control, which is compounded by the misguided efforts of his laughably inept therapist. After a disappointing visit to Dr. Goldstein’s office Lenny has hit rock bottom, and it’s at this moment that Mittens makes an ignoble return to wreak havoc on Lenny’s life.

From there the play escalates to a life-and-death struggle between Lenny’s actual responsibilities and the fey, narcissistic logic of Mittens, now on his eighth life and looking to relive past glories.

As a character Mittens reminded me perversely of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – a whimsical-yet-toxic antagonist so well-played that you hope he will show up in every scene. Rachel Gluck crosses gender (and species) to inject understated panache and a throaty purr into a role she originated at Drexel University. Bedecked in elaborate face paint, a shabby jacket, and tufted ears poking through her hat, she’s as much the charming Harvey as the chilling Frank of Donnie Darko.

Though the plot’s trajectory grows increasingly dire the script is full of humor, and not just from Mittens. Lenny is an amusingly thorough failure at everything from convincing his girlfriend why she shouldn’t leave him to writing songs for his ridiculous vampire rock band. And, while Lenny’s life is a black comedy, his visits to Dr. Goldstein are wry verging on slapstick. The doctor is a misplaced beach bum who will do anything to get his patients to leave him alone, offering kumbayas along with fistfuls of Wellbutrin.

Despite being a group of recent college grads who still throw keggers as fundraisers, Burn Ward’s presentation was all-pro. Fringe too often acts as an excuse for aimless efforts by groups that are more interested in making a statement (or a complete absence of one) than entertaining an audience. Mittens was the opposite – no ulterior motives, just entertainment in the form of a snappy piece of pop-culture still pervasively weird enough to be at home at the Fringe Festival.

While I expected better than amateur from a group of theatre junkies, I was honestly floored by the quality of the production. The acting was universally strong and clearly well-directed, even in the brief scenes that preceding Mittens. The entire ensemble was adept and entertaining, especially Mark Maher as Lenny.

Mr. Maher was so in-the-moment as a rambunctious kid and an over-medicated teenager that our fourth wall into his world was completely transparent. His major failings and minor successes were all-the-more resonant for watching someone actually be an angsty teen instead of just miming along to the archetype of one. His grounded performance made Mittens seem all the more real.

The upstairs at Plays and Players isn’t the kindest or roomiest space – more like a stuffy attic than a theatre. Burn Ward technical director Brian Browne made the best of it with a revolving stage that allowed Lenny to climb out of his window directly into his Rebecca’s room in real time, once even continuing conversation from one scene to the next.

The Burn Ward Theater Company is barely a year old but they have already figured out the formula for a successful show. Their biggest misstep was in choosing a venue with too-few seats; each of four Mittens performances was a sellout!

While other Fringe companies pack their bags and hibernate until next September, Burn Ward will continue to fundraise and perform throughout the year. Keep an eye on the company’s website or their FaceBook page for info on upcoming shows.

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Disclosure: Burn Ward was founded by Drexel grads, but I was never in a school production with any of them (though I later starred in show with Mr. Browne). However, I am good friends with one of the founders; she did not act in or direct this show.

I don’t think our relationship influenced my opinion, as I honestly had no idea of what to expect, and harbored a fear that it would be either painfully dreadful or dreadfully painful. Similarly, she seemed to be terrified that I would hate the show.

Happily, neither outcome proved true.

Also filed in Philly, theatre | | Comments (0)

Closed Loop

Sunday, July 23, 2006

This post will (temporarily, at least) close the loop my recent discussion of good music prediction systems.

One service that initially escaped my attention was Last FM, aka AudioScrobbler. Perhaps it went unmentioned because it’s a bit of a hodgepodge when it comes to features – it tracks what you listen to, but compiles only the vaguest (and in my experience, often incorrect) statistics about your listening habits. It features some free music, but not in a predictable enough fasion that i’d use it on a regular basis.

Since it doesn’t accumulate anything but playcounts, Last.fm can only predict based on your listening habits. For someone like me who listens to 1k+ tracks a month, the approach is fascinating but ultimately scattershot, as it isn’t weighting my likes and dislikes at all. Though it has the plus side of offering predictions based on a large network of users who you can either friend or “neighbor,” the lack of any rating scheme is a major turnoff.

That said, i return my attention to Yahoo’s LaunchCast Radio.

I have been phasing this out at work now that I have a new iPod, and it’s unaccessible at home since it doesn’t work in Firefox. However, i remain convinced that it comes the closest to being the best music service out there based on the strength of its predictive abilities. It has lead me to more than a few downloads and purchases in the last month, many of which have been surprisingly obscure.

I definitely recommending trying the service, and do so with the following recommendations:

  • When you first subscribe spend a day or two listening to one of the pre-set stations that’s nearest to your tastes in order to give the service some ratings to work with. Alternately, take a sampling of your record collection and add 200-500 ratings – probably enough for the services correlative powers to kick in.

  • Unless you enjoy a *wide* swath of music in one particular genre it’s in your best interest to rate genres very conservatively, especially high-level buckets like “Rock” or “R&B.” Rating “Rock” highly partially thwarts a rating of “Don’t Play” for “Classic Rock.” Furthermore, the system seems to prefer genre recommendations to song correlations, which is increasingly frustrating as you fine-tune your song ratings. Just as bad, if not worse, if you leave genres blank Yahoo assumes you like them all equally!

  • One positive impact is that if you have a subgenre you’re interested in hearing more of, like “Big Band” or “Zydeco,” you can rank it heavily for a few days to get served a bigger sampling of songs so you can develop your opinion.

  • Similarly, only rate an artist if you want them to impact the system’s choices. You might love Madonna or Depeche Mode, but if you aren’t interested in the terrible pop they’re correlated to you might be safer just rating songs and albums. Rating a smattering of songs by an artist has an equal (or better) effect on being served more songs by the same artist as rating the artist themselves.

  • Whenever you hear a song you really like, click the song name to view its entry, which contains its similar songs. This is especially fun when listening to classic music that you don’t necessarily own, as it tends to jog your memory for other songs you’ve forgotten. (When you hear a song you really hate you should do the same thing; you might kill ten terrible-sounding birds with one well place stone. Or, you could find out a song you love is too closely correlated to the distasteful pick).

  • There’s a fixed amount of time (or number of songs?) you can consume in any given month before higher features are locked out, leaving you only with your own station with a somewhat limited pool of songs. Our office seems to hit this point about 2/3 into a month. If your tastes run mainstream the limited pool is actually not so bad, but to avoid this make sure to shut (or at least pause) the player when you leave your desk.

  • Though Yahoo’s awesome correlations per Artist, Album, or Song help support predictions of your taste, the system seems to be incapable of adapting to a non-standard correlative scheme on a per-user basis.

    For example, what if I rate “Don’t Play” on every song over five minutes? The system would learn to avoid long songs that were similar to each other, but voting no to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and LedZep’s “Stairway to Heaven” wouldn’t necessarily protect me from Fiona’s “Never Is a Promise” or Tori’s “Yes, Anastasia.”

    A best-of-class predictive system would be able to determine your tastes not only based on correlated predictive data, but also based on your personal trend of ratings for certain song lengths, BPMs, producers, labels, or even mix levels and/or frequency response.

If you know of this promised land of music consumption, please point me in the right direction. Heaven forbid i learn enough programming/scripting to be dangerous, i might have a go at my own datamart, a la iTunes Registry.

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In Search of a Magic Music Bullet

Sunday, June 25, 2006

I love music so much that i’m starting to think i need to hire a part-time “music-loving assistant” to help me love music as much as i love music.

My CD intake has become truly ludicrous over the course of the last month; since my latest acquisitions post i’ve purchased another 20+ discs, hardly any of which are bad. Yet, i hardly listen to 200 songs in my own collection a week – i average about 700 a month with iPod, and without (as i am, currently) i hover around 300. That means i’m not even listening to all of my new purchases once through iTunes.

My music loving issue is a symptom of something Coolfer was discussing earlier this week – namely, that the scarcest resource artists are vying for is not listeners’ dollars, but listener’s time. Because, an album that’s bought (out of loyalty, or advertising, or whatever) but not heard is like a tree falling in an empty forest: it might make a sound, but no one will know.

What Coolfer only begins to touch upon in their writeup is the world of music filtering tools that help the time-pressed listener discern what’s good, not only in their own collections, but in the vast realm of songs they haven’t heard.

To this point i’ve taken the recommendations of sites like Amazon or RateYourMusic with a grain of salt, often more suspicious than curious of an artist they correlate to my tastes. Plus, they’re only correlated on an album-by-album basis, when i truly operate on the song level.

To that end, lately i’ve become enamored with Yahoo’s LaunchPlayer customized station(at work only, as it doesn’t function in Firefox). In the player you can rate any level of music in a 5-point system – from the macro of Genres through Artists and Albums to the micro of Songs. Users rate via listening or, if you’re me, mass rating-drives to sync up to iTunes ratings (aside: why the fuck can’t i upload my ratings as CSV? Surely i can’t be the only person who worries about keeping ratings meticulously synced across multiple services?), and the customized stations spits out increasingly well-chosen songs (though it doesn’t plays only what you’ve rated, so rating every song by a certain artist improves its predictive abilities to find songs like those, but doesn’t mean you’ll hear more of those songs).

Even with about 2.5k ratings i’m obviously still in a calibration stage, as the player feels me out in various genres. It’s amusing how my current ratings (only synced through C in iTunes) are already yielding some of my favorite results from the rest of my music collection. However, it’s amazing how high the quality of recommendations become when the player gets on a streak; this week i was treated to a 5-song block of things completely new to me and completely excellent. Also, the player has a knack for reminding me of tracks i own but haven’t heard for years. If only i didn’t have to labor for hours on end to sync up its ratings to mine…

What i have a burning need to know is, why does this AWESOMELY PERFECT functionality need to be separated by my music collection by a brick wall of incompatibility and ratings mechanisms? The closest thing i can find as an iTunes plugin is LastFM (previously (or still?) AudioScrobbler), but the site is spotty in its tracking, can’t track my iPod usage, and doesn’t take into account my ratings (booooo). Since it can’t distinguish between a 5-Star Ani DiFranco track and a 1-Star Dave Matthews Band track, the service’s recommendations are nearly useless to me (i.e. I still manage to listen to a lot of things i don’t love, and it’s skewing my results mercilessly).

My great white hope was the iTunes Music Store “Just For You” beta feature – recommendations native to my music player! Except, they SUCK. iTMS doesn’t take your ratings (or any of your library) into account, just your purchases, and the only two distinctions it allows you to make are “Already Own It” or “Don’t Like It.” What about, “I bought it and it SUCKED!” or “Not my favorite album by that artist”? I need degrees, damnit.

I’m not sure of what my recourse is, short of a paying an assistant to make me daily playlists that combine old favorites with hitherto unearthed deep cuts and brand new singles. It seems to me like the majority of iPod users use iTunes, and a good deal of other music fans like it to, so i’m sure i’m not the only person hitting a wall in this regard.

What i’d love to know is: what’s in the pipeline? A Yahoo-like service that let’s music-head mass-upload their ratings and/or combines randomly streamed tracks with nuggets from your own library? Last.FM that also sucks in ratings and playcounts to become a better predictor (which can totally be done, as my NowPlaying sidebar is getting that same data live from iTunes as we speak). Or, an iTunes integrated monster that queues up iTMS songs as correlated to your Top 200 most played and/or highest rated?

Whatever the magic bullet is, i hope to get hit soon. Otherwise, the only thing standing between me and just listening to Immaculate Collection on repeat for days are iTunes’ Smart Playlists that mine my least-heard-but-highest-rated tracks.

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Consumption: Freakonomics

Sunday, January 29, 2006


Freakonomics is an entertaining reminder that correlation does not indicate causation, proof that not all economists are interested in the economy, and a valuable deflator of a few harmful common sense truisms. It is obsessed with subtly pointing out that the word “data” is plural. It’s commentary on apples that are really oranges is purely metaphorical.

It is easy to compare this book with the similar bestseller Blink, by dust-jacket endorser Malcolm Gladwell. Indeed, the subtitle, “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything,” seems to jive with Gladwell’s way of carefully evaluating the world through communications-theory tinged lenses.

The subtitle is somewhat of a misnomer. Levitt is considered “rogue” because he delights in applying microeconomics to thorny subjects that are not adequately explained by statistical analysis. He has no overarching theory of anything – just an endless series of slightly counterintuitive but highly logical facts about everything.

Levitt and Dubner’s “hidden side of everything” epiphanies are highly entertaining, and educational. You will certainly be the hit of the watercooler for weeks after reading this book. However, the epiphanies are not especially portable. Knowing that a swimming pool is more dangerous to children than a handgun does nothing for comparing the dangers of a trampoline against a hunting knife collection. All the authors have to say about that is that you’ll need lots of data.

Maybe the lack of long-term impact to your way of thinking wouldn’t seem like such a shortcoming if this book was anything more than a compilation of six over-long magazine articles – the main text barely tops 200 pages. Furthermore, though the book has an extensive works cited, it features no footnotes – meaning you have to turn to the back of the book every time you read something interesting to see if it came from another source.

If any of Levitt’s assertions are valuable beyond passing amusement, clearly that assertion is the link between available, legalized abortion and lower crime rates. This bombshell is dropped in the book’s introduction, and later discussed for almost a full chapter. Though the authors repeatedly disclaim that the data are not meant to support a pro-choice position, it is hard to come away with any other conclusion. Focusing on this aspect of the book might seem like an unfair attempt to politicize a exercise in economics applied to socio-politics, but you could say the same thing about books by Marx or Durkheim. Clearly, Levitt is on to something important, and the fact that he carefully disguises it behind a cleverly non-sequitur title and cover image rather than making it the focus of his first book is insulting, and maybe tragic.

The authors are clearly trying to build a sort of narrative (from drug dealers to abortion vs crime-rate, to parenting, to children’s names), but they clearly run out of steam in the sixth and final chapter, which drones on with lists of names for poor kids, middle class kids, black kids, and white kids. For every list, the findings get less revolutionary, until Levitt is pointing out facts that would barely rate as footnotes, if he had any.

Freakonomics is a quick, lightweight read chunked into six chapters that should each probably be read in only one or two sittings in order to gain their full impact. With a hefty $26 purchase price for it’s brief length it is a book that should be borrowed from the local library, unless one of it’s common-sense-deflators is extremely valuable to one of your social or political causes, or if its cover would look especially appealing on your bookshelf.

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Beekeeping for Dummies

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Do you want to hear a good album? Not a great album, mind you, and certainly the worst one you’ve heard by this particular artist, but one that will stay in your head for a little while and won’t disappoint? It goes a little something like this: Buy Tori Amos’s The Beekeeper. Listen to the following, in roughly this order: 1, 6, 4, 16, 19, 18, 14, 7, 8, 5, 12. Then, a few days later, sample the eight tracks i left off to see if you’d like to trade in anything.

Please, for the love of all that is Tori, just trust me on this one. Don’t do what I did; don’t sit and listen straight through this eighty-minute adventure in mediocrity twice in a row. Because, you will find yourself thinking Tori has lost her edge, or that she put out a terrible, horrid album.

Both of these things might be true, but you don’t need to think them. I thought them for you. I typed 3500 words to illustrate my point. But, much like the disc itself, it was too much of too little. Instead, as i highlighted Tori’s track listing for you, here are some of the hits.

1. Parasol (+)

What is she saying? She is saying “when i come to terms with this.” She is repeating her lines to drive them in. She is sending me a message. Do not rush, she says. Just hang in there.

Maybe it’s a self-preservation instinct. She knows this record will not survive my snap judgement, just like her past records have failed to connect with more mainstream critics. So, now it is my turn, and she is telling me about it in Tori code. She is that painting. Her pleasure is the wall that she hangs on. She has come to terms with it? She is safe in her frame. Will i keep her in her frame?

Come in, Spacedog. I can’t read you.

2. Sweet The Sting (-)

I think this is the song that got all the critics on board. Tori is playing against type; unsuccessfully i say, but perhaps just convincingly enough. The gospel choir here is a nice touch – the opposite of the soothing cushion on “Way Down,” this is the gospel that infused itself into Ray’s sexy strut – the thought that sensuality crosses easily between religious and secular, holy and sex, okay and obscene. Tori has always straddled that line, but here it is so subdued. She’s not challenging us. She is stating. It is a matter of fact.

Frankly, here you can’t see the forest of the possibly sexy composition for the trees, the cracks in Tori’s too-forward voice obscuring what she is even saying. You can’t fault the girl for not knowing how to produce funk, but you can eschew the product.

8. Mother Revolution (+)

This is a good song. I missed it the first time through, maybe because it was a little too slow-moving. I’m sortof a music-critic version of T-Rex from Jurassic Park – you can slip slow ones by me, good or bad, but if you’ve got a song that’s waving a flashlight around like a lunatic and then running into the outhouse i’m going to suddenly become real interested.

Anyhow, this is a good song.

9. Ribbons Undone (-)

Footnote: Tori, you fucking lied in your book when you said you don’t write autobiographically. You can keep telling yourself that, but we’ve all heard Little Earthquakes, and we’ve all heard “Northern Lad,” and now we’ve heard this. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that not every one of your tunes is a fairy creature floating into your head on a filament of light. Sometimes you just feel something and you write a song about your life

Just. Get. Over it.

13. Ireland (–)

In case you were tempted to think that “Cars and Guitars” was the worst Tori song ever, you have to allow me to reset your expectations. This, in fact, is the worst Tori song ever. You can even include the part of Y Kant Tori Read where she raps.

The nearly unbelievable thing is that it’s all a matter of arrangement. Tori is actually playing this wonderful legato organ part that would make the song sound dirge-like if the other instruments would stop freaking harassing it. Maybe i could stomach Tori singing about her Saab if it was in a dirge. But, this is all the kitsch of Ani doing “Wishing and Hoping” with none of the irony.

I just read a review that called this four minutes of perfection. Honestly, i would rather poke myself with something sharp for four minutes than allow this to degrade my opinion of Tori ever again.

14. The Beekeeper (++)

Just terrific – the kind of totally different but totally canonical song i buy Tori albums for. It reminds me of Bjork remixing something from choirgirl. This is the queer epic i wanted from Datura, or Happiness Is A Warm Gun, or I Can’t See New York, but the first time she’s actually delivered the epic goods since maybe as far back as “Yes, Anastasia” or “Little Earthquakes.” And, when Tori says, “I have come for the Beekeeper … can you use me instead” it sends a chill down my spine; “Plugged into a heart machine, as if you ever needed one.”

Where is the album that this was supposed to be the emotional centerpiece of? Three songs this good would be worth the price of admission, so i’d pay about $40 for that hypothetical album.

Hoochie Woman (+)

“Hoochie Woman” is some classic shit. I know it might put you off at first, but hear me out: the thing is, it’s literal and a little bit lame, but it’s so perfectly well done. You might not like it, but like “She’s Your Cocaine” before it, you just shouldn’t bother arguing, because Tori has, finally, strutted all her lounge cred, finishing the kooky lark that began with “Bachelorette,” but in the most spectacularly amusing fashion possible.

The song is written for the Bridget Jones soundtrack. I can see Renee dancing to it in my head. Freaking handclaps and gospel baritones intoning “that hoochie woman” in the background. Yes. Oh, oh, yes.

18. Marys of the Sea(++)

I said i would pay the price of admission for three good songs, and now i can’t ask for my money back. We are adrift into Tori from that first note, and it just feels so right. Maybe i do expect something from Tori … maybe it’s not the piano, or the ballads, or the shock value. Maybe it’s something smaller – the spaces she leaves, or the imaginings she piques. I’m still not even hearing the lyrics on this one. It tricks you into thinking it’s over around a minute in, and then you are meandering in ballad territory for a second. You’re confused, almost lost, Tori’s speaking french. It seems like it’s going to turn into a bad scene. But-then-there-is-a-pound-ing-draw-ing-us-in and we’re roiling again.

Roiling is, in fact, what i love about Tori’s compositions. “Hey!” she says, and it gets my attention entirely, “for now you have hijacked the sun, and last time i checked he came to light the land for everyone.”

Preach it, sister. Buy yourself something nice with that $12. I don’t hold a grudge.

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In which i attempt to review a movie, but in actuality do no such thing.

Thursday, July 1, 2004

There is a certain romance to a love unrequited. That’s what we are taught, what has been ingrained in our heads since the days of cartoons with their eternal suitors, never suited, and in books and films where the protagonist strives but never to have.

And then there is Spiderman. Spider Man. Stupid red and blue comic hero who, truth be told, i never liked very much. He caught my childhood attention as a cartoon because he was smart, and witty, and had my name, but he never played a favorite in my world of superheroes. I eschewed his toys. I rarely bought his comic. But his movie. How could i resist his movie?

Overwrought, overly animated, amateurishly directly, but oh that acting. Tobey, sweet Tobey who i’ve hated in every role he’s ever played because in reality i suspect i don’t like him at all, he brought poor Peter Parker to life in front of my eyes. Peter, me, that space that we’ve always shared inside of my head.

It wasn’t really Tobey, though, not at all. It was Mary Jane.

Mary Jane, a big-haired, ever-changing cipher in the comics, once upon a time so patterned after a certain Julia that Ms. Roberts seemed all but cast in the role. Yet, times change, and people win Oscars for terrible boring movies with no momentum, and Peter remains eternally youthful. And so, you see, it could not be Julia.

That cipher was rewritten, scripted into the house next to Peter’s with the awful never-seen father yelling from within, eclipsing – nay – supplanting Gwen Stacey to ensure that this re-imagined Mary Jane Watson was and could be the one and only ultimate love of Peter’s life.

This changed the nature of Peter, and Spiderman. He stopped being the underdog – he never let Gwen fall off of that bridge because he saved her (as MJ) in the first movie when she was – by comic book rites – supposed to plummet to her death. And he killed Green Goblin in the process. What a debut.

Really, they had no choice. If they had killed the father-figure and the girl it would have been too punishing and, after all, they weren’t about to bring Uncle Ben back to life. Dead Uncle Ben is the cornerstone of all things Spidey. But, Peter was supposed to have lost so many things, to have lost Gwen and to be afraid to ever love anyone else again. So, to make Peter the eternal underdog, they withheld Mary Jane. Teased us with her adoration, baseless, lacking foundation, but so tangible in the ever-hurt eyes of the estimable Ms. Dunst, and proving her to be ultimately unattainable at the end of the first film in that crushing, crushing scene in the graveyard.

I may have liked Spiderman 2 less than I liked its predecessor. Raimi is a hack, with his horror conventions and his guest stars. It had its comic book moments, but it was also too heavy handed, never funny or fierce enough. Tobey as Peter worked only so much as Tobey as an everyman, and Dunst as MJ was limp. Lifeless. Not the headstrong MJ of the 300s of Amazing Spiderman.

What was perfect, undeniable true, was that longing. That always wanting, never having, delirious joy in seeing, pain in saying goodbye. The tension. The tension was true Spiderman, tearing him and her apart at once, weakening him in its strength and strengthening her in her resolve. It was the dramatic backbone of the first film, and the entire skeletal structure of the second.

It was all in Kirsten’s eyes. She took the girl, the too-perfect blind date oft-pushed by good old Aunt May in the comics, and turned her into something altogether different. Symbolic. Real. There could be no Spiderman without this Mary Jane. She was as instrumental as poor dead Uncle Ben or that nameless robber and ever-suffering May. In the cinematic universe, she had been woven in so tightly, so close to the center, that Spiderman could never exist without her. In her absence, he could do nothing but unravel.

Kirsten brought tears to my eyes in every scene for being that perfect thing – that unrequited, unobtainable love, eternally romanticized and forever untouchable. Only movies show us that touch, thrill us with that perfect kiss or that glimmer of recognition in her eyes, pools of unwavering truth and belief, frightening in their realness in every scene she plays.

I have had a crush on Kirsten ever since she played against Mr. Cruise. I fancy that i look a bit like him sometimes, sans snaggled tooth, i think because that would put me closer to her. The flowergirl in my father’s wedding was perfectly little and blonde, like her, and i juxtaposed the two in my fantasy-life until high school as the girl who played my unrequited love, unsuspecting but strangely dedicated to the eternal leading-on of me.

I feel sometimes that i live to be lead on. Did i get into the right college? Did i get the part? Did i get the job? The thrill was never in the answers, but in the anticipation. This site is about anticipation; it is my endless anxious wanting to know but loving the wanting and the not knowing, the delicious tension therein. My writing, at its finest points, is searching for something just outside its grasp, trying to attain the unattainable, to pen a sketch of an infinitesimal gap between me and something or someone else that at that frozen moment in time i cannot, and will not, ever have.

Kirsten’s eyes drew tears in my own, half drunk and staring at the screen, because in Spiderman she is it. She is my crush. She is the juxtaposition, the wanted but never had, the just two steps away. Maybe i should have acted. Maybe i should be in film. We are the same age, Kirsten and i. I could be her leading man.

We all aspire to have the perfect, filmic ideal, but we so rarely do. Now, staring into my twenties, i see joy in the successes more modest, and the achievements actually had rather than those merely anticipated. I suspect, nay, predict, that my lips will never touch Kirsten’s, in reality or as the wanly beautiful Mary Jane Watson. She, and the woman she played in the movie i did not like but eminently enjoyed, are the perfect representation of that unrequited love.

And then, at that teary wishing-it-was-me-in-the-ripped-up-suit-saving-her moment, i looked beside me, and realized that i have it. Her. That thing, that never attained thing, too perfect so that it can be endlessly redescribed by the imperfections that we call art. I remember the scant days between courting and kissing. I hid them from this website almost presciently, as if i knew that in describing the agony of the indescribable tension that i would eventually have to admit that i had overcome it, turned it from dreamed to dreamt. It’s on another page in a different place, and i rarely hint at it at all to this day. But I love Elise, love our stupid quirky banter from computers across the room more than i could ever imagine loving that unrequited, untouched tiny Kirsten-thing in my head. I reject the imagined perfection. Because, no matter how perfect our imagined life might be, how could it be better than what i am living right now?

I did not like Spiderman 2. You should go see it, and for every contrived moment, or bad shot, you should think about Peter, Peter Parker, and how he wants such simple things but goes to such extraordinary lengths in his not having them. And you should want to be him, swinging high above New York at twenty-four frames per second, twenty-four hours a day for all of your life. And, then, you should realize that like any art, Peter is a glistening imperfection, endlessly torn between want and have so much that we are drawn in droves, record setting droves, to watch him flail between the two, a gossamer moth torn between the Sun and the Moon.

You should go see it, and realize that your life is a higher art than art, because it is crystalline in its perfection, alive instead of celluloid, yours instead of everyone else’s. And you should leave pleased.

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Thursday, November 20, 2003

Tales of a Librarian: A Tori Amos Collection is neither a traditional greatest hits collection (it eschews the smash “Caught A Lite Sneeze,” among others) or a collection of fan favorites (as evidenced by a lack “Cooling”). Instead, it is a collection of twenty songs that Amos considers biographically important. The disc acts as a passable retrospective for newer listeners, but the allure for a longtime Tori fan is not solely the new cuts or the rerecorded songs, but the fact that sixteen old favorite have been remastered.

Aside from an across-the-board reduction on vocal reverb, Librarian’s “remastering” is as unscientific as its song selection — background vocals are eliminated on some songs and isolated on others, and the balance (and even presence) of guitars is subject to change even within single tracks. Some songs clearly benefit from the remastering. “Cornflake Girl” is chief among these, exploding out of its quiet former context on Under The Pink. Foremost in its improvements is a more prominent piano and a fuller vocal. The vocal arrangement on the “Golden Gun” portion of the song is mixed in reverse, bringing out an additional vocal nearly unheard on the original. Even the theremin-like whistling that opens the track sounds bigger and better.

“Spark” is mixed in the opposite direction, but with equally excellent results. Away from the dense production of from the choirgirl hotel, its layers have been stripped away to reveal a tone much more in keeping with the disconnected feeling it portrays. The edge on the prickly keyboard tone has been eliminated; verses are now dominated not by swirling keyboards and guitars, but by snares and toms that keep the song tottering forward in compound time. Once-obscure background vocals now made clear, and the deft piano work on the bridge is unearthed.

Some songs stay the same not literally, but for lack of significant changes. The half of Little Earthquakes that is present is all louder and closer. Additionally, “Silent All These Years” and “Winter” amp up their orchestral arrangements, while “Crucify” is improved immensely without its overbearing reverb. The balance of the strings on “Baker Baker” is more equal to the piano, which is interesting though somewhat obtrusive. “Playboy Mommy” wisely plays up it’s slide guitar and subtle backing vocals for a better emotional impact, but isn’t distinctively different.

On other songs, the results are more mixed. All the elements of “Precious Things” sound more precise, but its originally menacing atmosphere is sacrificed. “God” suffers a similar fate, less dense and with its background vocals mixed too close to the forefront. Live favorite “Tear in Your Hand” sounds superbly loud and immediate except for a out-of-place voice-over vocal which hijacks its excellent coda for an entire line. “Bliss” is the one track where the reverb is missed; without its obscurity the arrangement is revealingly unimaginative. The slight “Way Down” is exponentially more interesting with a beefed up mix and an extra gospel refrain, while similar Boys for Pele lark “Mr. Zebra” is clearer but still exactly as kooky.

The four new recordings are solid, but not revelatory. “Sweet Dreams” is a weary update of an unexciting original, though “Mary” manages to retread old ground without losing any charm. “Snow Cherries From France,” ballyhooed for years by Neil Gaiman and Tori herself for, is an unassumingly simple tune that would have been more at home on the recent Scarlet’s Walk. “Angels,” though, is a much more congruous evolution — rendering oblique political philosophy alongside Tori obscurity, it fits right in.

Finally, as is typical of most Amos efforts, there is one massive misstep — the popular remix of “Professional Widow” is used in place of the original track, a strange concession to consumers given the fact that a similarly popular remix of “Jackie’s Strength” does not replace the original. The thumping bass and swirling electronics sound vastly out of place in an album of sweetened vocals and tweaked pianos; in short, it kills the mood.

With over a third of the remastered tracks comprised of remixed Earthquakes tunes, Tori could have easily self-produced a welcome reissue of the entirety of her debut. All of the other revisited tracks here are interesting, but far from essential. Some of Tori’s best sounds even better with age, technology, and some reconsideration; it’s not surprising. On the whole _Tales of a Librarian_ may have taken too many liberties with the balance of songs that Ears with Feet have been listening to obsessedly for years, and its newly produced songs are not even on par with the excellent web-only Bs from Scarlet’s Walk. Tales is a good back-catalogue substitute for new fans, and an unavoidable purchase for fanatics, but otherwise it’s just barely an adequate hits package.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Let It Be … Naked is an easy purchase to justify, as it’s something that i’ve wanted to hear for almost my entire life: Let It Be without Phil Spector.

For those of you not of the Beatlemaniac persuasion, the short of the story is that The Beatles completed the studio work used on Let It Be as a potential soundtrack to a groundbreaking live performance, but then shelved both the idea and the recordings. After Abbey Road was released, Spector was brought in to spruce up the comparatively unpolished studio takes for public consumption.

Naked ditches the Phil Spector polish of orchestras and choirs, as well as the multiple spoken segments and the brief “Maggie Mae” and “Dig It,” while adding a warmly analog digital conversion and a classic “Don’t Let Me Down” (currently found on Past Masters 2).

Spector-rectification aside, the restoration of the basic tracks is subtle but remarkable; rooftop concert vocals are all crisper (notably on “Dig A Pony”), guitar tones sound truer across the board, and Paul’s piano is more balanced on “Let It Be” and “Winding Road.”

The latter two songs also benefit the most from their remixing; “Road” is less periodic and more poignant without it’s loping string section, and with the added bonus of hearing more of the excellent piano work from Paul. “Let It Be,” on which the excess was less obtrusive, holds together fine with the quartet of Beatles ahhing in harmony without a backing choir. “For You Blue” sounds worlds different with the benefit of precise stereo mixing and digital EQ. Also noticeably different is “Across The Universe,” never slated for Let It Be in the first place before Spector stepped in, sped up to its original key and stripped of the airy scales and runs that had cluttered it.

Other revisions are less revelatory, though equally welcome. Aside from their vocals, “I Me Mine” and “One After 909″ have a perceptible added crispness, with the former losing much of its organ part — a faithful but jarring choice. “I’ve Got A Feeling” loses a touch of analog fuzziness but otherwise sounds the same.

The changes are questionable on only two tracks. “Get Back” is mastered phenomenally, but it still ends without the refrain present on the Past Masters version — a less objectionable choice on Naked with the song rightfully tracked in the first slot. Original opener “Two Of Us” sounds like it’s gained a slight boost to Paul’s harmony, though it could just be the effect of a clearer mix. Though this choice is consistent with Paul’s lead on the bridge section, the song is not as charmingly self-referential with a reduced Lennon vocal.

Let It Be … Naked is remastering done right — it is a boon to the casual fan, and absolutely essential to the serious collector. It is of a higher caliber than the at-times slapdash Anthology discs, and its omissions and inclusion are purposeful rather than arbitrary or sales-drive. Most importantly, though, Naked presents a picture of what The Beatles actually sounded like at the end of their career, with production that favors the clarity of their performance rather than any commercial or personal gain. Other Beatles discs may be completely retracked or remastered in the future, but Let It Be is surely the last truly essential Beatles release.

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Sunday, October 19, 2003

This morning i downloaded the newly released iTunes for Windows.

Now, we already know my feelings on MP3 exchanges, which can easy be extrapolated to P2P networks, but i’ve yet to form an opinion on iTunes, other than that nothing will ever truly render purchasing a physical album obsolete for me. I need to open the case, touch the liner notes, and remember how and when each scratch and crack on the disc and case were acquired. For me, consuming music is as much tactile as it is aural … i need to hear, but also to touch (which is probably why i like buying sheet music to my favorite albums so much; playing along is the ultimate tactile accompaniment to sound).

A service like iTunes does have its benefits, though (i’ll mention here that i’ve never even seen the Mac version; for a more comparative discussion, see Benjy). For example, tonight i was putting together a rehearsal disc for the Treblemakers and thought for a second that i hadn’t actually borrowed one of the source discs that included two that i don’t own. on it. I was about to tear apart my room apart looking for them when i realized that both songs would probably be on iTunes and, sure enough, both were available for just $.99.

iTunes will never be more than that to me — just a quick resource for making mix tapes. In a way, it is something i’ve dreamed of ever since i sat by the stereo, anxiously awaiting the chance to tape a new favorite song; it is a standing resource, a library of music that’s available at a moment’s notice. However, between my need for a tactile music experience, my uber-completist CD collecting behavior, and the fact that it currently has nary a song by Madonna or Ani DiFranco, i can’t say that i find it indispensable.

Maybe if it had streaming radio… (as if i don’t have enough things to listen to here already). On that note, TDavid has some praise for another new application, Rhapsody. If your a PC music fiend who doesn’t mind shelling out for the priveledge of listening, it seems worth looking into.

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Friday, August 22, 2003

I think most people enjoy attending concerts where they know all the songs. I know i do. As much as going to a concert is for experiencing art in motion, it is also a selfish pursuit: you want to hear your favorite songs, and you don’t want them fucked with. There is a certain thrill that comes with the anticipation of a crashing bridge, or the appreciation of an understated vocal ad lib.

This approach is sometimes prohibitive to hearing new music, whether it be a new band or a performer debuting new material. But, no matter how well prepared you are, there can always be an opened band or a strange tune that punches past your lack of karaoke intimacy with to make you fall hard into aural love.

I found myself at the NorthStar Bar with a motley assembly of some of the most talented people i know to see just such a stranger: Kaki King. Anthony had described her to me by email earlier in the day – “Imagine Ani DiFranco on crack … She uses her right hand on the fingerboard to tap out bass lines, and her left hand on the fingerboard to play melodies simultaneously. It’s pretty impressive.”

I’ve come to accept my mediocrity as a guitar player — i’ve been playing only two years less than both Anthony and Kaki, but i am still easily impressed by simplistic guitar pyrotechnics. I was prepared to see a few interesting tap solos and some intricate picking, and to generally have my playing be humbled.

Really, though, i was not prepared.

I’ve seen a lot of random opening bands, many of whom i’ve derisively blogged about the next day, but Kaki King is the first artist since Peter Mulvey (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Erin McKeown) to ever leave me with my eyes unblinking, my jaw hanging loose, and my fingers twitching just in contemplation of my inevitable attempt to replicate the performance before me.

Kaki is, in short, the most astounding acoustic guitar player i have ever witnessed. It wasn’t just the casually arrived at alternate tunings, the tap & hammer solos, or even her simultaneous strumming & drumming on the guitar. It was her personality — quiet and simply smiling, but with a quick wit hidden beneath her swath of out-grown bangs. It was her ease — the way that after the audience’s obvious favorite song of the night she remarked to the effect of “That isn’t really finished yet; sometimes i just play the songs live and let them go in the directions they want to.” The way that, as opposed to how people joke about it with me, i really could not tell when her casual tuning and fretting ending and her songs began because at any point her hands were on her guitar the performance was underway.

Kaki has some MP3s on her site for your perusal, and while they will not replicate the awe that i was in on Tuesday night, i think they still speak adequately for themselves. And, please keep in mind that i typically range from indifferent-to-resistant when it comes to instrumental music, so Kaki must be pretty damned good.

Must be? Hell… she is.

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Saturday, June 15, 2002

So, we’ve all seen blogs with comments via YAACS, like cool indy music blog Buzzgrinder, right? Even Kat has them. Well, have you ever noticed that they’re hosted via RateYourMusic.com? Really? Well, have you actually looked at it? It’s a site where you can spend endless hours ranking your favourite (and least favourite) albums and writing capsuled reviews of them. So, if you were wondering what i was doing with the rest of my night, just remember: i own approaching 400 cds :p

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Thursday, June 13, 2002

I am trying to land a position writing music reviews for the Philadelphia Independent – a new $.50 paper that has only released two issues so far. Their main page essays come off more like revised and extended blog entries, but their music section is brief and to the point. My challenge (from the editor)? Review two new records that aren’t my typical fare in a constrictive 100 words or less. My (personal) editors? Only the best: Martha, Andy, Jill, Maggie, and Liz. The results?

Wilco – Yankee Foxtrot Hotel

Grade: A+

Wilco is ambiguously labeled as an Alt-Country band, but more than anything else their newest release is a Rock record. Nearly every song is loaded with eclectic multi-instrumental riffing and studio buzz, but never enough to obscure the tunes at their root. The disc’s relatively vague lyrics are surprisingly introspective despite giving the sense of magnetic poetry assemblage. The album seamlessly combines sound collage techniques with catchy pop songs – sometimes within a single track. Borrowing as much from rock classics as from country standards, Wilco’s tunefully intricate acoustic sensibility is ultimately impressive and effective.

Standout Tracks: I’m The Man Who Loves You, I am Trying To Break Your Heart

Lauryn Hill – Unplugged 2.0

Grade: B

Unplugged is an unusual record, featuring 13 new songs performed solo rather than a glossy hit parade. The stripped down medium allows for an undiluted delivery of this hip-hop dissertation, complete with both rambling and eloquent spoken interludes. Lauryn plays uncomplicated acoustic guitar, but her MC abilities prove to be difficult to perform while strumming along. Though her playing occasionally suffers, her superb vocals are still silky and soulful. A few cuts are too long or simply lack a hook, but the strongest songs stand stronger alone than they would on a produced studio album. Overall Hill has scored one for her talent and musicianship – if not for her ability to produce hip grooves.

Standout tracks: Just Like Water, I Find It Hard To Say

There’s also an erstwhile Sheryl Crow review on my hard drive that i practically had rewritten for me by my first three review reviewers, but that had no bearing on whether i get the job or not. So, seeing as my typical reviews are more in the realm of 1,000 to 3,500 words, i’m tempted to ask you how i did. However, as much as i’d love to see your comments, i cringe at the thought of editing either of these any more – especially considering the fact that they are definitely not the ready-for-print versions should i get chosen to review for the next issue.

Argh, they’re still cutting down trees.

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Wednesday, May 15, 2002

I’ve been very good this year about buying new records – for the most part, i haven’t. Sure, there was a purchase or two a few months ago, but when my music allowance for the first four months of a year is under $100 you know i’m acting with some amount of restraint. Part of what kept my wallet firmly in my pocket is the knowledge that the past two weeks would see the release of over a dozen records that i was definitely eying up for purchase, and on Monday i picked up a few between AKA and South Street. Here are first impressions, in ascending order of quality:

  • Weezer – Maladroit sounds as though it has years of sonic maturity on last years’ disc even though some of its songs were written before the album went gold. This can safely be traced to Weezer self-producing the disc, which seems to be magic for them (they produced Pinkerton as well). However, the lyrics of these thirteen songs are so sparse and inspecific that their sum total of nearly thirty four minutes could easily be condensed down to a five track EP that would feel weightier than this ultimately empty effort.
  • Wilco – Yankee Foxtrot Hotel is the first record i’ve seen hailed as a second Kid A, only this time acoustic and homey instead of electric and expansive. The album has a high catchy-to-crappy contrast, sometime within the same song, but it’s ultimately too dense to tell much from casual listening.
  • Lauryn Hill – Unplugged 2.0 is an odd record, a double disc of Lauryn alone onstage with just a classical guitar talking as much as she is singing. While the set as a whole is overwhelmingly long and repetitive, songs taken in doses of twos and threes will entirely bowl you over; in case you had wondered, Hill is one of the most talented folk singer-songwriters of our generation.
  • Sheryl Crow – C’mon C’mon has been reviewed as everything from weary to worldy, and the record is definitely a little of both. Crow’s solo lyrics sometimes leave something to be desired, but the arrangements on this record are some of her finest (especial with co-writer Jeff Trott). The few weak spots are entirely forgivable in the face of classic rock gems such as the title track and opener “Steve McQueen.”
  • Sarah Shannon was definitely an enigma to me at this time yesterday, but now she very well might have made my favourite album of the year. The self-titled release from the former Velocity Girl member sounds like PJ Harvey fronting an amalgam of half of a big band and an early Sheryl Crow touring crew. The album’s tracking is impeccable, subtly changing from jazzy songs to more rocking fare, and by the time it’s over you just know you want to hear it again.

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    Wednesday, February 27, 2002

    Speaking of Yum, lots of intelligent new pop music was purchased yesterday — primarily the new Alanis and Lisa Loeb discs. I don’t have any review quality thoughts on either yet, other than to say that both have solidly migrated away from “alternative” to a comfortable position in pop – Loeb with her roots in lush harmony and arrangements, and Alanis all psycho-babbly with shimmery guitars and boisterous bass-lines, both offer up pop gems that could easily deflate the newest Britney hit single.

    At a glance, Alanis’s Under Rug Swept scores with the strangely catchy “Hands Clean,” and again with the deadpanned dissection offered up in “Narcissus.” Second single “21 Things I Want in a Lover” and radio-ready “So Unsexy” are both undeniable in their hookiness while coming off slightly awkward… with lines like “do you have a big intellectual capacity” and “i feel so ungood.” The latter song could be Alanis’s new masterpiece; it’s easily as catchy as the equally odd “Hands Clean.” Softer endeavor “Flinch” is a retread of similar material on her previous disc, but will please more casual listeners with it’s simple arrangement. Obviously i’m too busy with the first half of the disc to pay much attention to the sleepy “You Owe Me Nothing in Return,” and the flimsy folk in three/four of “Utopia.”

    Lisa Loeb has Ms. Morissette beat hands down all around with Cake and Pie… not only in her mature lyrics & arrangements, but also in graphic design and production. In fact, her disc begins with erstwhile Alanis producer Glen Ballard credited with co-writing the music “The Way It Really Is” (he makes nary an appearance on Under Rug Swept, which Alanis wrote and produced solo). The song is sonically as lush as the more impressive tracks of Firecracker, but has a string laden sense of drama that Lisa doesn’t usually bring to the table. She doesn’t let up on second track “Bring Me Up,” which is as catchy as anything on her debut album with its simple guitar patter and sighing background vocals. Similarly, the melancholy acoustic riffing on “Underdog” gives way to a softly defiant chorus co-written with beau Dweezil Zappa. While the anonymous “Everyday” falls a little flat, lead single “Someone You Should Know” repeats the playfulness featured on her release from the Rugrats movie. “We Could Still Be Together” is resurrected from soundtrack limbo to offer a throbbing 90’s-style rocker to pin down the middle of the album, and “Payback” is an uncharacteristic blues number complete with guitar solos and wurlitzer piano. Nestled between the two, “You Don’t Know Me” sells the disc on its opening riff alone : Lisa’s sweet pop combined with Dweezil’s guitar heroics winds up as a Matthew Sweet brand of perfect pop, and it doesn’t get much more perfect than this ode the the geek girl with a new boyfriend.

    Lisa’s album is not as cohesive as her last, and Alanis’s is more rambly — i’m hoping Loeb receives well-deserved attention for her impeccably produced effort, and Morissette learns to embrace the idea of having a little bit of outside input in hers.

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    Tuesday, January 8, 2002

    Lately i’ve been spending a lot of time with my cd collection: reorganizing it for my new shelf, inventorying it to determine my average cost per song, and compiling my year end list. Oh, and listening.


    In this flurry of action i noticed that despite outstripping all previous purchasing years by a ratio of 3:1 in 2001 i wrote less than half of the reviews that i usually complete in a calendar year. This seemed greatly out of proportion, and just plain wrong considering i claim to be all about music reviews, so i’ve resolved to turn in two reviews per week via the dusty-but-still-functional Just Like Assholes. This not only assures that i’m actually honing my reviewing skills, but that i’m actually listening to some of the records that i’ve bought only to let languish in the wake of newer & better ones. Plus, it’s more stuff for you to read! And, it has built in comments!

    So, without any more chatter, the reviews for this week are:

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    Thursday, January 3, 2002

    The War Against Silence Best of 2001


    Go now!

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    Monday, December 24, 2001

    Tonight i’ve been assaulting various and sundry instant message windows with my wandering attempts at creating a list of five favorite albums of 2001. I bought more cds during this year by a factor of nearly four over any other calendar year in history, but the great majority of them were filling in blanks in my collection — that is to say, they weren’t new releases. 2001 saw me adding records by Radiohead, Weezer, Ben Folds Five, Death Cab for Cutie, Erin McKeown, Velvet Underground, Magnetic Fields, Juliana Hatfield, and many more than a dozen other artists i had never bought before. Even of the acts i just named, only four of them released new discs this year in the midst of the 27 purchases i made from their catalogues. Point being, compiling a top five involves a lot more sifting than i thought it would — and that’s still before i have to actually decide on five discs.

    The most obvious choice is Garbage’s Beautiful Garbage, which happens to be an excellent record in addition to being by my favorite band. Garbage didn’t make a record of the year, though; it’s consistently ranking on critic’s polls, but not in the top slot. I’ve honestly felt the same way about it since i bought it: it’s great, but it isn’t “best.” Something about the genre-hopping the band partakes in rubs my ears the wrong way, as if an album that at once acknowledges Phil Spector on “Can’t Cry These Tears” and Radiohead on “Nobody Loves You” while engaging in its own mischief on the instant-trash-classic “Silence is Golden” cannot possibly be my favorite of anything.

    Speaking of Radiohead… must we? Over a year after first hearing it i’ll finally acknowledge that Kid A isn’t a piece of garbage, but i still remain remarkably undecided about Amnesiac Despite featuring a more intelligible set of songs, it is definitely a less cohesive piece, and I seem to be holding that against it … i want the compelling nature of the humming “Packt” and the falling forward of “Pyramid Song” combined with the howling “Idioteque” and grooving “Optimistic.” Is the middle ground represented by the live record i have yet to get my hands on? Or, more likely, should i forget that the previous record ever happened and try to place this one in my cannon without comparison?

    If there’s any record comparison is helping its subject, it’s Photo Album by Death Cab for Cutie. Less aggressive and more cleanly produced than its predecessor, every song on it is a song in motion. It’s an album meant for a road trip, and i found myself playing it on every vehicle that got me to, around, and back from Florida with premeditation. Especially of note is the chiming “Movie Script Ending” and the biting romance-hinting travelogue “Why You’d Want to Live Here” (its having been written by someone who lives on the West Coast totally boggles me…). Photo is once painfully up-close and expertly rendered with broad enough strokes to allow a listener’s empathy. Of course, i have qualms about picking slight ten song albums by emo bands to top such a luminous collection … but i can’t very well ignore something i listened to every day for an entire month, can i?

    If we were to award spots to all of my most listened-to records, Ani and Tori would be shoes in. They aren’t. As for Tori Amos, Strange Little Girls simply just isn’t an album that distinguishes 2001 in any way. The explosion of opener “New Age,” the roiling and aggressive “Real Men,” and the title track stick out of it as incredible, but the on the whole the record is sleepy and off-its mark (as you can hear me detail at length elsewhere). Ani DiFranco isn’t so surely crossed off the list; her double-length effort is intensely personal, unexpectedly funky, and eminently arranged. At the same time, its length acts against it through Ani’s inclusion of sleepy instrumentals and a handful of wince-worthy tunes that she might not have engaged in on a shorter record. Condensed to a single LP featuring such swiftly flowing jams as “Ain’t That the Way” and “o.k.” combined with more thoughtful ballads like “Marrow” and “So What,” Revelling and Reckoning might have wound up as my favorite DiFranco disc of all time. As it stands, even its place in my yearly pantheon is uncertain.

    Ani has some stiff competition for her requisite folk-slot on my list from close associates. One threat is in the form of the Ani-produced Bitch and Animal disc Eternally Hard, which is too self-aware of its knotted sexuality and ironic lyrics to be anything but a hilarious listen. How can you dislike “Best Cock on the Block,” a sordid tale of a oft-beeped transgender and her collection of variously sized dildos? Rest assured, there’s more standard folk-fare within — albiet, rendered in bass, fiddle, djembe, and chick-rap. The second folk threat is from Erin McKeown and Peter Mulvey associate Rose Polenzani, whose self-titled disc veers from PJ Harvey stomp on one end to fluttering Joni-descended folk on the other. Sideman extraordinaire David Goodrich enhances throbbing opener “Fell” and the frollicking “Orange Crush,” but the purer acoustic songs inbetween are not quite as momentous. The missing momentum can be found carrying “Heaven Release Us” on Rose’s collaborative effort Voices on the Verge, which finds her sharing a Philadelphia studio with Erin, Beth Amsel, and Jess Klein. Voices is inconsistent by nature (Erin’s songs are mysterious in comparison to Jess’s, and Beth’s are especially plaintive) , but alluring all the same. All three of these discs easily outpace Ani when viewed as cohesive efforts, but they all have their flaws just the same.

    I suppose there’s no such thing as a flawless record, though. Right? Really, it depends on the listener’s idea of a flaw. For me, a flawless record can be flawed in its own perfection. Case and point is Leona Naess, who easily produced the most effortlessly intricate disc i bought this year in I Tried to Rock You, but You Only Roll — a collection of folk guitars, electronic blips, and sugary melodies from a performer whose debut album i just as effortlessly declared as “Fiona-esque.” But, this disc is almost too-sweet … without anything jagged to get hopelessly hooked on. Similarly, Ivy’s Long Distance is a set of songs as excellent as it is undistinguished — when i listen to it i hear it as an entire album without isolating more than a song or two as it passes me by. Ben Folds puts in a similar performance, if an opposite one: all of Rockin’ the Suburbs’s songs are memorable, but most of them sound like they could come from entirely different albums from each other (while lacking the overall arc that Garbage’s disc has to make up for its similar problem).

    Alicia Keys’s Songs in a Minor is in a similar mess of songs, but is notable for hitting home with more hooks than the preceding. Closer still to perfection is Rufus Wainwright’s sophomore effort Poses, which suffers only from the fact that no album i own could keep up the pace that his first few songs set: “Poses” is a slice of melancholy perfection, “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” a lurid sounding list of things he’s avoiding an indulgence in, the faux-funk of “Shadows,” and “California”s hilariously extolling the not-quite-virtues of said state. By contrast, the back half of the album floats by in a haze while i’m still caught on the vicious riffs and open-mouthed pronunciation of the first few.

    And then there are the albums i was too stupid to notice when they came out last year… Erin McKeown’s Distillation, Coldplay’s Parachutes, Sarah Harmer’s You Were Here, Andy Stochansky’s RadioFuseBox, and the aforementioned Death Cab for Cutie’s We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes — a top five in their own right. Next, there are the almost-albums from this year — the discs that didn’t quite make an impact on me. This group is lead up by the lamentably lengthless Weezer disc, the inconsistent Moulin Rouge soundtrack, and the sleepy Skin by Melissa Etheridge. And, finally, the top-five albums i’ve managed to miss: Dylan’s Love and Theft, Jewel’s This Way, Elton’s Songs From the West Coast, and the ever-intimidating Bjork’s Vespertine.


    So, somewhere in that litany of stumbling blocks, chinks in sonic armor, and laments at unremarkability are my favorite five albums of 2001. What were they?

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    Sunday, December 23, 2001

    I finished Infinite Jest this morning on the floor of my grandmother’s bedroom in Florida. It’s over. Done. Completed. 1088 pages in a cover with the exact same colors as my second demo cd, starting while marooned in a hospital bed and finished while marooned in an retirement condo.

    Somehow finishing it only seems like half as much an accomplishment as starting it. Starting a 1k+ page book, especially this particular 1k+ book, you need motivation, interest, and all of your wits about you as you are introduced to a seemingly endless cast of characters in no specific order, chronological or otherwise. You also should probably keep a notepad and several bookmarks handy. And make sure to rotate your reading posture every few dozen pages so that you don’t lose any limbs.

    The great failing of Infinite Jest – and, believe me, it definitely fails – is two-fold. The first problem i (inevitably) had with it is that it featured a total lack of editing. Yes, everything was spelt as it should have been, and the grammar and syntax was impeccable where applicable. In fact, the writing was nearly perfect. The problem was that there was too damned much nearly perfect writing … too good to want to skim over, but absolutely non-vital to the story. Endless footnotes regarding the manufacturers of the umpteen prescription drugs each character is addicted to. Lengthy passages in ebonic street-slang to introduce a minor character who has no cumulative effect on the story at large. A complex subplot about the pursuit of happiness that is basically never resolved. David Foster Wallace is a great master of prose, but that’s all he seems to be … his plot doesn’t resolve it’s three major thrusts — my second major problem with the novel: the entire latter two hundred pages feel like a digression rather than a progression and the damned book ends with a wholly irrelevant flashback that would have been better suited as an introduction of Don Gately rather than an end to the book. I’m all for novels that leave readers with questions, but we are left in the dark about Hal, Orin, Pemulis, Stice, Wayne, Gately, Joelle, Marathe, Steeply, and all of the rest of our favourites; a re-read of the opening passage will give you an idea of where they all wound up, but not how they got there.


    Essentially, Wallace set up a Jest too Infinite to follow through on; namely, a riveting and perfect novel so grand in scope and scheme that he is unable (or unwilling) to end it in any way in keeping with the rest of the novel. Yes, this is part of the jest, but it is also the mark of a sloppy conceptualist who should have had an editor take a hatchet to revisionist US history, endlessly tepid passages about Himself’s youth, the 20+ little buddies introduced in one lump sum, Hal’s sidebar trip to teddy-bear-land, and what turns out to be a novel in itself about Gately. Yes to the hilariously unnarrated conversations within the Incandenza clan. Yes to the laugh-out-loud Estachon game that makes Quidditch look like bumper-bowling. Yes to Pemulis and his hat full of narcotic wonders. Yes to Marathe and Steeply’s debate on the pursuit of happiness. In fact, yes to the entire world-weary tone of a society that is addicted to everything, including entertainment, and doesn’t know when to stop.


    In a way the end of the novel is the perfect allegory for the the film that is the perfect allegory for the novel, but in failing to deliver the goods on any of the nearly dozen major plot threads he had been weaving together the entire time, David Foster Wallace ultimately proves himself an inept cock-tease of a writer who couldn’t help but throw all of his many tricks at the reader without every taking the time to bring anything quite to a climax.. Because, frankly, despite every indication that you’re headed there, you aren’t.

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    Tuesday, September 18, 2001

    The liner notes to Strange Little Girls contain 13 pictures, each representing a character from one of the songs on the album (with “Heart of Gold”s delegates being a set of twins). It is from this perspective that i am attacking the album… not as a concept work, or a cohesive disc, but as 12 “girls” linked together in their separation from their original creators and in that Tori has chosen to harbor them as her own for the time being. Each is its own soundscape and commentary apart from the others, and dissecting every one is almost the only way to be able to connect any of them at all. Each of the preceding reviews was written in the length of the song they describe, and edited upon a repetition. Mouseover the pictures to view their caption, and click for some possible extra commentary.

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    Tuesday, September 18, 2001

    All your tomorrows start here.01. Tori Amos albums always start with something indicative, even if you least suspect that it truly is. The reverberating wurlitzer starts Strange Little Girls in a cloud of forlorn restlessness, but the first chorus of “New Age” tells us what this album is really about… pairing those glowing chords with quick stabs at an electric guitar that sound displaced by three decades or more. After coming out of this first harrowing experience of Tori’s new sound… sans piano, sans Caton, electrictrified and sleepy but so very vital, the tiny muted drum thump that follows is just carrying us forward to the next phrase. This all builds as Tori intones “I’ll come running to you if you want me” and the guitar begins squawking and barking as if the notes are squelching out of the sides of the neck rather than the pickup.

    Suddenly, this unassuming song is proclaiming “the beginning of a new age” and Tori is riding the top of the wave, her voice rising to dominate the entire arrangement and carry it with her. And we are off.

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    Tuesday, September 18, 2001

    '97 Bonnie and Clyde: She wonders what her daughter will do.02. It is not Eminem talking to us as the beginning of “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde,” but Tori speaking on the behalf of the woman so startlingly trapped behind this harrowing narrative that boys all around the country are prone to chant to. Tori here enlists an outside arranger to compose primary instrumentation for the first time ever, and the result is a strange Bates’ Hotel swirl of strings that ties itself up in one Psycho stab at the end. Tori trips through the internal rhymes of the song hardly paying heed to the other elements, at once the voice of the apologetic mother and the sinister but possesively loving father. “Don’t play with dada’s toy knife honey, let go of it” is said in that off-handed motherly way that betrays the cold hard killer who originally narrated the song, and makes you wonder about who’s really speaking to us in this version. The ghost of this mother is creeping around in the cracks, peeking from behind the horror-music veneer of the song in Tori’s soprano “just the two of us” (that sounds too much like “choose the two of us,” which has even darker implications considering the baby brother that the narrator brings into the picture) but then retreating as the sinister whisper takes over again.

    Who is in charge of this car ride, this death march complete with a martial drum beat? Mama is speaking with daddy’s voice but in soft tones that no one could ever imagine coming from his mouth. And, whoever is speaking, they implicate the poor little girl that is along for the ride as Bonnie to Dada’s Clyde. What does this imply? The vision of the real life fugitive pair comes to mind, shot full of holes and draped over the interior of a car while their death was cheered.

    Eminem is making money off of songs about killing his wife with his daughter as an unknowing accomplice, but Tori turns them around to put blood on both of their hands. Children bear the sins of their fathers, after all.

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