Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Don't Look Now, But...

North Korea is going to start lobbing things (nuclear things that go bump in the night) soon. Colin "I'm No Houseboy, Massa Belafonte" Powell is wagging his finger at crazy Kim and parroting the company line. "We will not be intimidated by their claims and threats. As the president has said, we will not be blackmailed." I am going to make a big assumption that anyone reading this knows that North Korea is not BLACKMAILING the US. The American Heritage dictionary defines blackmail as:
1. Extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.
2. Something of value extorted in this manner.
So no blackmail unless they have photo's of Cheney with his hand up the Resident's ass like some sort of Rick Santorum Howdy Doody nightmare.

The present administration does not want to attempt to cajole (to urge with gentle and repeated appeals, teasing, or flattery) them as the Clinton administration did; the Resident and his advisors are afraid of being bamboozled (to conceal one's true motives from esp. by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end). So they will not attempt to wheedle (to persuade or attempt to persuade by flattery or guile) or to palaver (to talk idly or deceitfully) the North Koreans. No, this administration would rather play the role of importuner (one who pleads or urges irksomely, often persistently) or of hector (a bully; a blustering, turbulent, insolent, fellow; one who vexes or provokes). This jackbooted (the spirit sustaining and motivating a militaristic, highly aggressive, or totalitarian regime or system) pair of governments only threaten and demand - no diplomacy allowed.

I hear its nice in Greenland this time of year...

Monday, April 28, 2003

Literature for the Pre-Pubescent

At some recent point young adult literature has received a level of acceptability. Not that there haven't been exceptions throughout the 20th century - C.S. Lewis' Narnia chronicles, Tolkien's The Hobbit, and Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series all spring to mind. But there has been an explosion in recent years of critically accepted or acclaimed works. There is of course Rowling's Harry Potter, but also the Lemony Snicket books (soon to join Harry Potter in the world of Hollywood), the prize winning Philip Pullman series Dark Materials, Artemis Fowl, and more. What achieved the breakthrough - was it Potter, and if so, how? What made this series succeed beyond the field of children's literature?

I've been thinking about this a good deal lately - I've come to realize that these books have been some my most recommended over the last few years, and the most recommended to me. And no one I know has children of the right age to read them. I think the reason they appeal to adults so much is they capture the sense of wonder and adventure we get pounded out of us as we grow older and "put aside childish things." Some people I know have grown into historical fiction (an adventure story without the imaginary setting and with sex), some turn to sci-fi (an adventure story with advanced technology, and sex), some to modern/post-modern fiction ( a lack of adventure story, where people talk about sex), some to memoir and biography (someone else's adventures and sex), or popular supermarket fiction (adventurous sex).

So with Potter five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, coming 21 June, have we entered a "golden age" of young adult literature? Have we accepted the need to escape our lives is the prevalent desire of modern life? Can we use these "imagination aids" to spark the creativity we've let atrophy? Can this be turned inward to free us from passive entertainment - can we free ourselves from the Matrix?

A shout out goes to Jeff, who taught me that asking innumerable questions is the best way to avoid formulating my own answers.

Saturday, April 19, 2003

Back Tracks 11

The whole idea of writing these weekend music guides came out of an idea I had for a newspaper column - look back each week on the top albums or songs of ten years ago. Billboard posts their top albums and singles each week, and include links to the corresponding charts from five, ten and sometimes fifteen years back. I thought it would be fun to talk about what has stood the test of time, what causes me to cringe, or what makes me laugh. So, this week, I decided to give this a try.

Ten years ago this week we reveled in the ascendancy of the Snow man, and the tongue-twistin' Canadian dancehall reggae of Informer. It was the #1 single, off the #5 album 12 Inches Of Snow (oh, how witty! It has so many levels - snowfall accumulation, 33 rpm record diameter, crude exaggerated sexual metaphor - need I go on?). Regardless of how uncool it was, or how preposterously bad the album was (besides the #1 song, the rest was worse than filler), Informer was and is a great party song. I found a mix tape I made around this time ten years ago and found Informer on it. I turned up the stereo, started bopping along (cue trumpet: da dada di da da. Da dada di da da), and realized I still know all the words. I started doing that high knee raised straight arm stomp, bit my bottom lip, listened to MC Shan set the scene, and I rolled.

Informer
You know say daddy me snow me-a (gonna) blame
A licky boom-boom down
'Tective man he say, say Daddy Me Snow me stab someone down the lane
A licky boom-boom down
Was I cool? No. Did I look the fool? Probably. Did I care? Not a bit. Never again will a white Canadian homeboy have a number one dancehall rap/reggae hybrid monster jam. While we will all remember grunge, and Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden have their place, I won't hide my Snow-y side.
Take me to the station, black up my hands
Trail me down 'cause I'm hangin with the Snowman
What an I gonna do, I'm backed and I'm trapped
Smack me in my face, took all of my gap
They have no clues and they wanna get warmer
But Shan won't turn informer

Sunday, April 13, 2003

Back Tracks 10

I decided to do a semi-serious record review this week, as opposed to the sort of "introduction to a favorite recording" style I've taken in most past posts. Through a little birdie I have in my hands an advance copy of the upcoming Cracker/Leftover Salmon album O Cracker, Where Art Thou?, scheduled for release May 6. For a quick background, Cracker is the band formed by Camper Van Beethoven guitarist/singer David Lowery upon that band's demise in the early 90's. Leftover Salmon is a self-described "polyethnic cajun slamgrass" band from Colorado formed in the early 90's. According to their joint press release:
In the Summer of 2002, Hickman [Cracker's lead guitarist and sometime singer] and Lowery met up with the members of Leftover Salmon in Cracker's homebase of Richmond, VA. As a lark they performed a version of Cracker's Eurotrash Girl. The crowd loved it and it inspired the two bands to work together.

"We hung around the studio for two nights and jammed like the old days when you have a bunch of friends over to jam and reinterpret songs," says Lowery.

So what are the results? a ten song album that would have been a decent 6 song EP. I've been an on-again/off-again Cracker fan for a decade, so I am familiar with the majority (7 of 10) of the original release versions of these songs. Now, none of these songs are drastic reworkings - Cracker has often had a touch of Lowery's country ramblings and Hickman's blues bases; adding a little bluegrass stomp or Southern rock guitar slide isn't a radical step.

Some great successes do emerge; Get Off This benefits greatly from it's transfer from "college rock" (it always sounded to me like a Spin Doctors song) to bluegrass. The little reverb heavy organ runs, almost reggae mandolin (a beautiful high chuk-chuk-chuk of muted chords) and more joyous and smiling lyrical delivery from Lowery. Likewise, the Louisiana boogie that lies just below the surface of Sweet Potato keeps the train on track, and again the Mandolin touches work well. The press release calls it a "Little Feat inspired jam", which is very prevalent in the Dixie Chicken rip-off piano solo (you can even hear Lowery say "be my Dixie Chicken" very quietly at the end of the solo). But Little Feat were better than this.

Which is the problem; Little Feat, or Camper Van Beethoven, or Union Station or Dolly Parton (on her last couple of CD's) have done this "reimagining" better. The novelty doesn't hold through the entire album - most importantly, it fails on the songs where it needs to succeed the most. Cracker has two song's that were moderate hits - Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now) and Low.

Teen Angst (which is arguably the song that put the post-mortem on "college rock") was an end of the world, screaming R.E.M.-on-steroids old school rock 'n' roll rave-up. Here, it is cast as a 4/4 bluegrass stomp, complete with lightning-fast mandolin and requisite buta-bup-bup-bump snare drum. It seems long. And pointless. And WAY too much a knowing wink - to something we (as listeners) are not privy to. Low is more disappointing. It starts great - 23 seconds of the low register of the Mandolin playing the guitar riff. Then the verses just kind of happen. A little haunting, but not menacing the way they are in the original. And the chorus is untouched - just an unplugged version. I always felt the original was a bit long at 4:36 - the redo is 6:26.

Song length has plagued Cracker before, most notably in live favorite Eurotrash Girl. The recorded version (originally issued on the Tucson EP before being tacked on as a hidden bonus cut on Kerosene Hat) is an 8 minute tongue-in-cheek travelogue of a college boy looking for his lost love. An amazing track live (I was, accidentally, at it's first unveiling in Richmond), the recording is great for 4 minutes. The reaction is "this is great! Funny, dry, perfect!" At 5 minutes, "it's pretty good", at 6 minutes, "HMMM", at 7 you say "why?", and it ends and you shake your head. The version foisted on the listener here is a country waltz. Even cut to 6 minutes, it's far, far, far too long.

I wanted to like this. And 4 or 5 songs (including songs I was unfamiliar with, most notably Ms. Santa Cruz County) are decent. Maybe throw on Teen Angst to interest the less dedicated fan. But 10 songs for a vanity novelty project is much too much.

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Gin, Rummy - Rummy, Gin

I was trying to decipher this quote from Donald Rumsfeld as reported by ABC News Australia:
We are in the process of trying to liberate that country and at the moment, when the war ends, and the Coalition forces occupy, the areas where those capabilities, chemical and biological weapons are likely to be, to the extent they haven't been moved out of the country, it obviously is important to find them.
I was unable to recognize this as actual use of language, so I tried using Altavista's Babelfish to translate it into German, because Rumsfeld's roots are German and I thought his grammatical structure may be similar. I don't speak German, so I then had to translate it back. In German:
Wir sind bei dem Versuchen, dieses Land zu befreien und im Augenblick, wenn der Krieg beendet, und die Koalitionkräfte besetzen, die Bereiche, wo jene Fähigkeiten, chemischen und biologischen Waffen wahrscheinlich sind zu sein, im Umfang, den sie nicht aus dem Land heraus verschoben worden sind, es ist offensichtlich wichtig, sie zu finden.
And back to English:
We are with trying to release this country and at the moment, if the war terminates, and occupy the coalition forces to find the ranges, where those abilities to be chemical and biological weapons are probable to the extent, which they were not shifted from the country, it are obviously important, them.
This didn't help. So I tried translating to French and back:
We are in the course of test to release this country and at the present time, when the war finishes, and the forces of coalition occupy, the sectors where these weapons of possibilities, chemical and biological are likely to be, until the degree which they were not moved out of the country, it is obviously significant to find them.
And spanish and back:
We are in the process to try to release that country and at the moment, when the war finishes, and the forces of the coalition occupy, the areas where those biological arms of the capacities, chemistries are probable and to be, to the degree which they have not moved of the country, it is obvious important to find them.
My last hope was Russian, especially with all the rumors of Saddam chilling at the Embassy and all (this rumor will not die, as reported in the Tehran Times). So (english to Russian via Paralink, back to English with Babelfish):
We are found in the process of the attempt to free that country and at present, when military ends, and forces of coalition occupy, the region, where those abilities, chemical and biological means, probably, will be, to the degree they were not peremeshcheny(tronuty) from the country, it is obviously important to find them.
As you can see, none of this worked. So I used my own patented BS Translation device and came up with this:
Syria has been cooperative in facilitating the movement of people out of Iraq into Syria, and then in some cases, they stayed there and found safekeeping there.
Sorry, that was actually Rumsfeld as well. Oops! Apparently, translating Rumsfeld requires knowledge of Orwellian Doublespeak, which I am, unfortunately, expert as I am, though not in Doublespeak per-se, unable, at present time, though if able would pursue doing, the translation of him.

Friday, April 04, 2003

Demos and Outtakes

I was thinking of High Fidelity, both the book by Nick Hornsby, and the film adaptation starring John Cusack. If you’ve seen the movie or read the book and you know me, you may have noticed some similarities between Rob and myself. One thing in particular is the habit of making lists of things. Not useful lists of things to do, mind you, but lists of favorites, best ofs, and the like. This morning, I found myself doing it again – making lists. Today it was music, and what are my favorite alternate versions and demos.

Five for Today

1. Table Top Joe - Tom Waits. Waits officially released Alice last year, but they were new recordings of songs he wrote for a Robert Wilson musical in the early 90’s. A friend made me a copy of the demos he recorded in Germany for the cast to learn from. That earlier version of Table Top Joe is a haunting, quiet song, with the main accompaniment of a tinny xylophone, sounding like a a wrench hitting a steam pipe.

2. Green Shirt - Elvis Costello. This demo is just Costello and acoustic guitar, recorded around the time of This Year’s Model. Rerecorded a few months later for Armed Forces with the Attractions it lost some of it’s menace while adding a polished veneer. The demo has found it’s way onto many a mix of mine, but the original never has.

3. Heaven (live) - Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. The live version added as a bonus cut to the rerelease of Fegmania! is brilliant. A wonderful Hitchcock spoken intro about floating cathedrals, a delicate acoustic guitar line and slightly slower tempo blow the doors off the overproduced, keyboard heavy album version. It also is head and shoulders above the live version from Gotta Let This Hen Out!

4. If You See Her, Say Hello - Bob Dylan. Released on The Bootleg Series, vols. 1-3, this alternate to the track from Blood On The Tracks is a little sloppier and more heartfelt. You can hear the pain in his voice, the longing and reticence of his heart. An amazing work, one that gives goosebumps.

5. Redemption Song (Band Version) - Bob Marley. If you’ve heard this version, I hope you understand why I put it on this list. It is so irredeemably bad, such a miscalculation on Marley’s part to even record it, that I had to include it for sheer ballsiness. The original, from the Uprising album, is one of, if not the, purest view of a man’s soul ever recorded. I sing along with misty eyes when I hear it. This atrocity, however, is soulless, heartless, and beautiful in its horror. Up tempo paint-by-numbers early 80’s reggae, it was the b-side to the acoustic single. Now available on the Uprising reissue, or on the collection One Love – The Very Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers.