Braid - The New Nathan Detroits
Texas Is The Reason - The Magic Bullet Theory
One Hundred Words For Snow - Collide

I don't think 'dissatisfied' is the right word; maybe I was just bored with the same old psuedo-political discussion in the punk I was listening to. Maybe I was getting over the boy-meets-girl, boy-losing-girl anthems of my favorite pop punk records. Maybe I was through with high school and trying to assemble a soundtrack to the larger campus with ashtrays known as Junior College. And while I must credit Dr. Frank of Mr. T Experience and Joey from The Vindicitives for starting the fire, I started looking for clever lyrics that weren't just about the same old stuff. I started getting more into, gasp, Boris the Sprinkler because say what you will, his lyrics and delivery are unlike anything else. But dude, how many songs can I listen to about Pabst Blue Ribbon while I'm reading Buckminster Fuller and Kierkegaard?

And while the bands that I gradually discovered certainly aren't on academic levels of T.S. Elliot or Walt Whitman, they seemed to encapsulate that same sense of being an American. It seems like saying anything about being an American is loaded nowadays. But I simply use the term as a means to reflect a common experience or culture. (While there exists MANY American Experiences, doubtlessly, I refer to some romantically vague notions of collected consciousness.) The concerns and values of 'mainstream culture' are radically different than they were 10, 20, or 100 years ago, but when we encounter artifacts that capture their time, we react. Some say that the history of art is simply each generation improving upon the last, taking what they like, and damning the rest. Each generation has its voice.

And for me these were the Ginsbergs and Kerouacs of my time. As much as I Iove to read Beat work, it feels like I'm engaging in fantasy; these bands were talking about me, right now. Their lyrics were challenging and poetic; and after listening to an entire album I felt like I knew what it was really like in Kansas or Chicago. And far from being preachy or straightforward, I found myself attempting to unpack and decipher the meaning in the lyrics like I was still in English class.

Eventually, a few of these bands ended up on a compilation called "The Emo Diaries." I wish I could say where I first heard the term emo, but I'm pretty sure it was a friend of mine making fun of another friend's new boyfriend. "Yeah, he's emo," Alan said," That means he listens to Jawbreaker and smokes Chesterfields." I took a mental snapshot of this emo-stranger's dress and pins and patches in an attempt to find out more. (Besides, I really liked Jawbreaker... where did that leave me?)

But the next time I encountered the emo-beast was at a One Hundred Words For Snow show at Koo's cafe. Redwood Records put on a veritable emo-fest spanning two-nights, and apparently 100 Words, another band I really liked, fit the bill. Guests could even purchase limited pressings of records with an "Emo Inside" cover that parodied Intel's most likely forgotten identity campaign. That night I took in all the t-shirts and stickers on guitar cases feeling like I'd entered a whole new world. I felt like I was alive and a part of something that was happening now. Luckily, I met some cool folks at work who clued me in to Moss Icon and Rites of Spring before I got too heady over this new 'emo' stuff.

And the more I thought about it (and the more clues I was given), I began to see similarities with artists who were on comps with Born Against. (Let's face it, I never would have bought an Ebullition record if it didn't have that Born Against entry point.) At this point, you could still sort of feel the 'hardcore' element in the music. (Like you could still hear the hardcore through the metal from Integrity.)

I'm not sure if I'm summing it up well, but it wasn't an embarrassing thing to listen to emo records. My punk friends didn't get why a band who's named after a classic Misfits lyric could sound so mellow, but they didn't make fun of me or call me 'emo' because I listened to Texas is the Reason.

But nowadays labeling a band, "Emo," is like a kiss of death. Too many bland and homogenous bands have emerged under the banner of Emo to willing mainstream audience. Same old story. When I mentioned the beats earlier, did you picture Doby Gillis or one of Fred Flintstone's amnesia induced personas? Every event in youth culture is co opted and sold for a profit. I think maybe it just happens faster now.

(Buy Braid Frame and Canvas at Amazon)

(Buy Texas is the Reason Do You Know Who You Areat Amazon)

Junior Walker - Cleo's Mood
Booker T & the MG's - Boot-Leg
Link Wray - Rumble

Tomorrow is my College Graduation so I went out and got a haircut. Maybe some day in the future I'll do a whole post on just haircut songs, like Smoking Popes "Brand New Haircut," Brent's TV "Hairdoo," Mars' "Hairwaves," The (international) Noise Conspiracy's "United by Haircuts," or Pavement's "Cut Your Hair," but today I want to talk a little about mods.

While I was downloading pics of The Jam for Wednesday's post I realized just how cool these lads looked. I can admit to a certain affinity for that clean and tidy Carnaby Street look for a good few years now and it just seemed like the appropriate move to make. College, which was a near decade long excursion for me, is coming to an end and I have a new job. Just seemed like I needed to make a clean break and so I cut off a good 6 or 7 inches of hair. Maybe nobody else out there puts as much symbolic significance on his or her haircut, but for me it says a lot.

Generally my rule for a good haircut is to take a style from the repertoire of The Beatles. There's a lot to choose from. I sometimes go for the Abbey Road era longer hair, sometimes I'll bring back the Cavern rock-and-roll look, but I seem to go back to the Ed Sullivan mod cut. I first cut my hair that way after a life-changing live show by The Makers the summer after I graduated high school. To a big music geek like me, having a 1960s garage haircut, or even British Invasion coif, seemed to draw a line of continuity to my little pop punk band through rock-and-roll history. Then The Locust came around and it seemed like everyone was into the longer bowl cut. It was bizarre when Justin Pearson finally razor cut his locks and suddenly ever person in front of you at their shows now had a palmade bird's nest protruding off the back of their heads.

So I sit down in the stylist's chair and she says, "Let's figure out what we're doing." I think my keywords were "clean cut but not too clean cut," "still long on the top but short in the back," and "mod." She showed me some pictures and I picked out the one that looked closest to what I wanted. And since I'm already writing an entire blog about it, I don't mind telling you, she did an excellent. In fact, I almost went into a post-art-school diatribe about the need for contrast in order/randomness and how the shears represent order and clean lines, where the razor shears really make it all work with their element of randomness. But I just said, "Wow that razor thing really makes a big difference."

So on the way to and from work today I listened to my Live Jam album I had out from the other day. It was great to sing along to their classic originals and even more fun to hear their versions of classic 'mod' pieces like "Move on Up" (maybe you know it as the sample from "Touch the Sky,") and "David Watts." So I felt like maybe I'd give the blog a sort of mini-soundtrack for my new haircut.

So, if you consider the mod movement an outgrowth of the International Style or modern art or design, there are some certain tenants that prevail. In keeping with the idea of internationalism, a lot of best tracks are instrumental. Without lyrics adding a level of cultural meaning, a great floor stomper can get feet moving in Osaka and Oxford. And there's something very anti-nationalist about middle-class UK kids recreating or replaying the soul records produced in the impoverished (read: soulful) parts of the US. (Maybe it's like how kids today latch onto those strange card-game-based anime.)

But beyond all that, what the mods did was dig dancable soul music. And some of it fetches prices of over $2,000 and some of it can be picked up cheap at thrift stores and used record shops. And like Patrick said in yesterday's blog, we need a new oldies playlist. Sure I love most of the Motown artists that everybody loves and get played 5 times an hour on K-Earth, but you're lucky to hear Jr. Walker's "Shotgun" between all the Aretha and Monkees. Where's is "Cleo's Mood" on that playlist? Do they just have those Motown gas station comps over there? I'm not the most avid crate digger ever but even I found a copy of Walker's greatest hits on vinyl... and I don't have a new music accrual budget like they do. (Or maybe that's how they make their profit... by never having to buy any more music.)

Also, Booker T and the MGs need to be rescued from simple movie soundtrack fodder. Yeah, "Green Onions" is a great instrumental track... but this was a real band here. Most folks will recognize the tune but have no idea the name of the track or the band who recorded it. And for all you Clash fans out there, Mick, Paul, Joe and Topper cut a great version of The MG's "Time is Tight," which I believe was a song on their infamous jukebox of classic soul, ska and just generally rude music. (Note: though I'll take Grandmaster Flash's version of "Hang 'Em High" over Booker T's.)

And Link Wray's "Rumble" should be as well known as The Troggs... even if few people know the name of either. Those reverb soaked fuzz guitars were groundbreaking and should instantly recognizable. But I doubt even among the aging Boomer demographic if Link Wray is remembered. Seems I'd more luck with the racist misogynists at the annual Hootenanny. And, dude, that's just sad. (Especially since Wray was part Shawnee.)

And besides all that, my life would be near meaningless if it hadn't been for Wray's most significant contribution to the guitar wielding adolescent: the power chord.

(Buy Jr. Walker at Amazon.)

(Buy Link Wray at Amazon.)

(Buy Booker T and the MG's at Amazon.)

(PS... If there's anyone out there who can school me on mods or Northern Soul... or clue me into some less surface level acts than The Who or Small Faces, I'd absolutely love it. PPS... I heard the Royal Air Force actually copyrighted the mod target?! True? Does Ben Sherman pay the RAF a small royalty?)

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - (Love is Like a) Heatwave
The Jam - (Love is Like a) Heatwave (Live)

Unlike Patrick, I remember just about everything (aside, of course, from when my passive aggressive tendencies tend to rear their ugly heads.) The first girl I kissed was Laura Welzig on May 5, 1991 in the IMAX theatre at The National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Maybe I forced myself to remember or maybe it’s just easy because it’s Cinco de Mayo. But a lot like Patrick, if a song or band is tied to a moment, the two are inseparable and unforgettable. One bad example comes from the summer a few years after that first kiss. I can distinctly remember lying on a cot during our summer family vacation with my new portable CD player and the few CDs I had. One of my newer CDs was U2's Zooropa. Now maybe you can make a case for Joshua Tree or Rattle and Hum but you can't really say anything redeeming about Zooropa can you? I know a buddy of mine who I really looked up to was way into U2 and I wanted so desperately to like that CD. (Plus the $16 price tag was like a fortune to me then... wait, how much was a CD in 1993?) But there I am, on that cot with the hot smell of Northern California Summer in the air, realizing that I really didn't like this album. Then I can remember getting upset because I knew that whenever I thought back on this summer vacation I would remember that insipid, 'don't think, don't drink, don't drive, don't stink,' song that the guitar player spoke/sang. (Yes, I know his name is Edge, but I thought I'd sound cooler if I feigned ignorance.)

The very first song I can remember ever is "Let's Hear It For The Boy," by Deneice Williams, made popular by (and played on the radio a lot due to) the Footloose Soundtrack. I'm not sure exactly why that song stuck in my fragile little head, but I can remember a little story about my dad and me. (Which actually might sum up where my twisted sense of humor and music come from, as well as point out that I was always little 'different from the other boys.') When I finally got the Red Butler doll from Rainbow Brite I had pined after for what seemed like years, I was very excited to show my dad when he got home from work. Maybe I was conscious of the fact that this was a girl's toy or maybe I just couldn't communicate through all the excitement, but I ran up to my dad and said, "I got the boy! I got the boy!" I can remember his smile on a face that seems foreignly young now, as he replied, "Oh really. Like, 'Let's hear it for boyyy' ?" and sang out the melody.

Flash forward about half a decade and one day at recess my three friends and I decide that The Beach Boys are cool. Not based on the music, I don't think, I'm pretty sure that this was what we thought the surfers listened to, and we sure did think those surfers were cool. Now my dad didn't have any Beach Boys tapes so I borrowed his gas station compilation entitled Summer Surf. It had an orange and blue cover and a lot of great songs. It was definitely the coolest thing my parents owned. (The Sgt. Pepper vinyl hadn't entered in yet.) Needless to say I played that tape until it wore thin.

One of the songs on Summer Surf was "Heatwave" by Martha Reeves and The Vandellas. It's also, as you might know, one of the hand full of songs played on the Los Angeles oldies station. So I definitely got more than enough chance to learn all the words, and according to my mother, attempt to sing the lead parts and backing parts at the same time, resulting in a mish-mash of lyrics.

Flash forward yet again. My Jimmy-Z button up and Bugle Boy slacks are replaced with a Clash t-shirt and thrift store pants with patches. My friends and I liked a lot of the same bands from Devo to Crucifix, but none of them ever loved The Jam the way I did. It wasn't until years later that a little research and contemplation cleared things up. Apparently I couldn't hear it through my thick punk skull at the time, but The Jam were heavily influenced by Motown. (And it wasn't for a few more years that I knew what Northern Soul was.) In fact, their live record even includes a cover of the Martha Reeves track I fell in love with so many years ago.

(Buy The Jam Live Jam at Amazon.)

(Buy Martha Reeves and The Vandellas at Amazon.)

Run!!! - Two Songs
Run!!! - Bendy (Can't Wait)

I can admit to certain advantages to 'going out' to see a band. Some are taken for granted, like being to able to watch to your favorite musicians belt it out right in front of you, like experiencing the music with a group as it is created, or simply being able to finally hear the songs as loud as you'd ever hope for. Then when the music is over you get to go home and someone else cleans up after you. On the other hand, of course, is the trauma of trying to find parking, the drama of asymmetrical haircut cliques, and the barf-o-rama (sorry) of overheard conversations.

I can remember a letter written to Profane Existence that said something to the effect of, "I no longer hope to achieve a complete social revolution; now I focus my efforts on carving out a space for myself and people like me to exist." And while that certainly has a shadow-side sentiment of elitism or isolationism, the idea of creating a sort of 'safe space,' was something that resonated with me. A few years later I found AAA Electra 99 in a strange office complex right next to John Wayne Airport. An artist co-op/museum/gallery that seemed to literally be a space carved out of a landscape littered with office buildings, Electra offered space to whoever wanted it and was willing to pay a small lease every month. That location has since been turned into a parking lot and Electra was forcibly removed and relocated to Anaheim. (Trust me, that's the short version.) The new location allowed Electra to focus more on bands than they had before and it became the only venue I'd ever really go to. Nowadays I usually stop by at least one night every weekend.

Over the course of the five or six years Electra has been in Anaheim I've seen a lot bands come and go. I've seen a lot of terrible bands and a lot of really strange bands and a few really good bands. There's some bands who build up their chops on Electra's homemade 'stage,' (created out of discarded shipping palettes and recycled carpet) and then move on to be 'too big' to play a 55-occupancy warehouse next to the dump. But, seriously, good for them. Some end up in films by your favorite director and some trudge along endlessly without ever finding that big break. Some bands disappear as quickly as they came.

Run!!! was the greatest band that nobody got to hear. Consisting of two bassists, a drummer and a singer, Run!!! consistently kicked the shit out me every time they played. Fronted by an enigmatic singer who sounded like a schizophrenic evil Elvis or overly anxious Glenn Danzig, Run!!! delivered hard-hitting music with a strong arty bend. One bass player would typically lay out the melody or chords and the other would completely go off with the best use of effect pedals I have ever witnessed. I can't describe what it was like to see the straight-laced, white button-up, short-cropped-hair young main, affectionately dubbed "The Mormon" by the front-room crowd at Electra, open up his suitcase full of pedals and completely annihilate everything I thought about how a bass could be played. He kept a second set of strings already strung on his bass, but duct taped to the back, for a quick and easy string change at a moment's notice. Yeah, he played that hard. When you listen back to their recorded work, it's almost impossible to figure out the instrumentation used, but most often that strange sound you can't quite pinpoint is coming from his bass. And it never sounds like Guitar Center employee wanking... it always serves the song. The beats are constantly strong and innovative and loud. While I picture the rest of the band rocking out to Lightning Bolt or Black Dice, the drummer always struck me as more into Venom or maybe just Zeppelin... but definitely coming from a Hessian line of rhythm. But the thing about Run!!!'s music was that it works for both these sensibilities.

Run!!! used to drive three hours or more from Ojai to Anaheim to play for a room of 10 people, and they always gave more than their all... they took all the crowd had and served it back to them. Their sets were always loud, tight, blistering conscious altering experiences. And then they were gone.

I'd like to post all three songs from their final self-released CD-R EP, but I'd rather save some for Patrick, cus I'd love to hear his version of why Run!!! was so epic. (And I think I left some open spaces...right?) And the thing is I could write a whole week's worth of blogs about bands that came out of Electra or that I saw play there... Run!!! is the just the saddest travesty of what can happen to great bands. I have thirteen tracks from Run!!! and they are all worthy of posting, and as I listened to them as I write this, they seem even better a few years later. But we need bands like that for the Nuggets of the future. Maybe Rhino will even release an Electra 99 Anthology.

Maritime - Tearing Up the Oxygen

Let's dispense with the obligatory statements right up front. 1) Maritime consists of Davey von Bohlen and Dan Didier (formerly of The Promise Ring), and Eric Axelson (formerly of The Dismemberment Plan). 2) We, The Vehicles is a more focused and successfully rendered album than their debut, Glass Floor. 3) The majority of indie-kids and punk-rockers really don't want to be called "emo."

You can get any one of those points (and often, all three) from just about any review of Maritime; all three can be disputed or rebuked.

While Maritime was founded by two members of Promise Ring, this fact is just about as useful as knowing Davey was also in Cap'n Jazz. I suppose to a degree, if you are a fan of his writing, or just curious to see how he turned out, you might want to know that Davey is writing lyrics and music for this new project. But the vocal delivery is so developed and refined on We, The Vehicles, that one might have a hard time even believing this the same singer. It gives hope to those of us who cut our teeth with shredded vocal chords.

And sadly, Eric Axelson, well regarded as one of the best bass players in the indie scene today, has left Maritime. He cited a longing to stay home rather than tour and didn't want to hold the band back. Whether or not he'll appear on future records is anyone's guess, but it does make We, The Vehicles more essential. Axelson's basslines manage to be both humbled and humbling; they are neither showy nor simplistic. They add another layer of melody while laying the foundation for von Bohlen's sharp counterpoints and stripped-down-to-necessity arrangements.

Now I can't really weigh in on the first album versus this one; I haven't heard Glass Floor. I'm only writing about Maritime now because Patrick shared "Parade of Punk Rock T-Shirts" with me a few months back. (I believe the blog he downloaded it from has slipped our collective memory.) Seems a good number of internet trolls point to Wood/Water as an indicator of We, The Vehicles and deride the lazy reviewers' attempts to suggest the The Vehicles is a quantum leap from anything any of the band members have done before. (But other folks think Wood/Water was an experimental mistake akin to Glass Floor.) You'll have to make up your own mind... just wanted to let you know.

Finally, if 'emo' means Rites of Spring or even Promise Ring, hell yeah, I listen to emo. (I don't think I'd say I AM 'emo,' but that's ridiculous high school stuff and mostly semantics.) I suppose somewhere between genuine, sincere expression and hardcore kids growing up, emo became another fashion and ultimately ended up another mold to fill. That doesn't mean I won't sing out "Oh Amy! Don't hate me!" or "I don't know Billy Ocean. I don't know the ocean floor," driving down the freeway or alone in my apartment. Busted. I'm emo.

But Maritime really has nothing in common with 'emo,' unless you use too broad a definition. It's cheap way out of really reviewing a song. Next thing you know, the writer has told you all about the people in the band and their history without giving you much description of the actual music. Sort of like I just did.

(Buy We, The Vehicles at Amazon.)

Supernova - Calling Hong Kong
Supernova - Long Hair and Tattoos

Maybe I'm starting to understand all those folks who get so into St. Patrick's Day. I suppose I just never got into it 'cus I'm not Irish, but now that a part of my 'culture' is being threatened I can sort of relate to those folks who have one day a year of cultural celebration. Most folks will recognize Orange County punk as a claustrophobic version of melodic hardcore and rattle off names like Agent Orange or The Adolescents, but like all scenes there is a lot more to it. Of course there are certainly seminal bands to the 'scene,' but those weren't the bands I was going out to see or recording onto mixtapes for friends.

Supernova stood out as an anomaly among the bro-core from the Beach Cities, the retro-77 striped shirt crowd, and the black-clad anarchists. Wearing homemade outfits constructed of tinfoil, Art, Jo and Dave sang songs about Wookies (which you may remember from the Clerks soundtrack), space travel and haircuts. It's no wonder they were apt to write a tune called, "Costa Mesa Hates Me." More Godzuki than Godzilla, they were about as aggressive and hardcore as low budget Hanna-Barbara cartoon from the 1970s.

As I write this, Supernova is in the midst of a giant legal mess. Seems the folks producing the second season of Rock Star for CBS have opted to compile an 'all-star' band this time around rather than resurrect a singer-less blast from the past. With Tommy Lee, Jason Newsted, Gilby Clarke and Dave Navarro signed on to play "The Band," the vocalist could be anyone... Hey, it could even be you! But where this program goes from just bad TV to an unethical assault on the icons of my culture is in naming the band.

Despite Costa Mesa's Supernova releasing a few albums and doing a few national tours (including a much hoped for appearance at SXSW a few years back), CBS has decided to call this amalgamation of bad-hair-metal Supernova as well. And according to Newsted on his Camp Freddie show, “That’s all been worked out, and we are the one and only Supernova.”

Of course, Supernova is not going to simply take this in a hyperbolic compression chamber. No, they have returned to our spheroid-home from the deep recesses of space to fight the case and engage in as much "legal neener neenering" as is required.

So download these tracks and then go out and support the one true Supernova by purchasing one of their records or go see them play at the El Rey, this Friday, May 19. Or at least leave them a message on MySpace and let them know you care.

(Supernova's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/supernova_army)

(Buy Pop As A Weapon from Amazon.)

(This posts relied heavily on Ziegler's piece from this week's OC Weekly. And the photo is from a fan on Supernova's MySpace.)

Electric President - Metal Fingers

I was having dinner with a friend at Red Robin, enjoying one of my favorite salads, when something different came over the PA. It was some poppy electronic stuff with a fair share of glitches, synths and video-gamey sounds. Maybe it only sounded so great in the context of the generally bad piped-in music, but it was enough to get me to ask if my friend knew who the band was. "I think this is Postal Service," she said.

And like the painter who thought he created a whole new art movement by splattering paint on his canvas because he had never encountered Pollock or the Ab.Ex'ers, my jaw didn't quite drop far enough for me to pull my foot out of it. (And I told the waiter no crow on this salad!)

So maybe I'm only half a hipster. I might let a band's reputation and fanbase keep me from actually checking them out, but if given a chance I will honestly assess how much I actually do like them. (And I could list off a ton of "lame" bands that I actually love... bands I'm "not supposed to like." And in full disclosure I often feel just as guilty for liking bands I'm actually supposed to like.)

I got the second hand details of conversation two friends of mine were having the other night. Essentially it was one of those uber-music-nerd debates over Jenny Lewis versus Neko Case. Now I don't think either of my friends would say that these two singers are mutually exclusive, but to sum up one end of the argument, "Why would I listen to Lewis when I could listen to Case?" And I'm not sure I have an answer. I know that I would, given the choice, go for Jenny before Neko... but hey, that's just me.

But it seems to bring to light some other issues, especially considering my Postal Service story. When I was bit younger I read a review for Zoinks! which described their music as "what Green Day would be playing if they had remained punk." In hindsight, that's probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but my 15-year-old self thought that sounded like the perfect band. I might secretly like this "sell out" band Green Day but if I say I like Zoinks!, I am that much more punk... that much cooler. (But then I actually ended up really liking Zoinks! but never forgetting that silly review.)

So on the way to work this morning I was listening to my new Electric President CD and I thought to myself, 'You know, this sort of has a Postal Service vibe going on.' But of course, Electric President's self titled release is on Morr Records based out of Germany, so I'm still cool. (And if someone in another car overhears what I'm listening to I don't look bad... c'mon, you know you think about this too!) And then I start to think about how ridiculous all that is. I start to think about what it is about Electric President that I like, rather than what he sort of sounds like.

Linda Rondstadt sort of sounds like Carol King and maybe Neko Case sounds something like Jenny Lewis, but that really doesn't mean all that much. A lot of oil paintings look like other oil paintings, doesn't mean that I don't respond to one artist over another. I think that you can like Picasso and Braque. It's just a shame really that more people know Picasso.

You can like Postal Service and Electric President. It's just a shame that any mall rat knows about Postal Service but Electric President, who are from Florida, have to have their record released by a German imprint. And like every artist's hand is different, every artist's view of the world is unique and every artist has something to say, I won't respond to everyone's work. Some bands work for some people.

The beauty of this current re-invention of the singer/songwriter with Pro Tools is that more and more folks like you and me can create quality, challenging and expressive music. I'm not going to be into every post-emo kid with a computer who puts out a record...but if it's good, I just might be. So don't hate on Bob Motherwell for Franz Kline; you can be down for both... and you don't have to be down for either. But don't suggest that everyone should pack up their paint cus Bob and Franz, Pablo and George, Electric and Postal, did it all before.

(Buy Electric President at Amazon.)

PS... I had my very last painting critique this week which means that I have now lost my outlet for artist, art movement, and obscure critical theory references... so expect a whole lot more to follow in the coming days. Bear with me as I adjust to a more concrete reality.

[Ed. Note - After writing and posting this I discovered this band has been featured in a Fox television series named after the place I'm from... which I think casts my argument in a whole new light.]

Figurines - The Wonder
Figurines - Wrong Way All The Way

Figurines could have been my new favorite band a whole year ago if I paid a little more attention to the indie scene in Denmark. Maybe I need a subscription to NME to keep up with all the new music coming out of Europe. Or maybe there's some uber-hip journal out of Germany that clues overseas readers into the latest from the old country.

And you know, Diesel jeans used to be those hideously fitting colored denim numbers oft accompanied by the ubiquitous fanny pack... nearly as fobby as liederhosen. But things shifted at some point. Diesel is totally hip and The Strokes can pull a Jimi Hendrix by making it across the pond first. Could Europe really be hip again? I mean, Prague, Paris and London have always held their bohemian chic, but what about the other counties that American students can't find on the map?

Certainly the history of rock music has been a dialog across the Atlantic, but in this era of globalization and borderless commerce, I don't think I should have to wait a year to hear the best new music from Luxemburg or Switzerland. (I suppose I should be grateful to The Control Group for eventually releasing Figurines Skeleton album here in the States.) "Silver Ponds" has already made an appearance on the Danish charts but for me they're a breaking new band... and it's not fair!

Now how do I even begin to address the music contained on Skeleton. Pitchfork went on and on about the indeterminent meaning of "catchiness" and used the word "signifier" three times...and gave them an 8.3. Rolling Stone had a difficult time listening through their thick rectal wall but said, "-like Franz Ferdinand but much closer to a first-album Strokes with Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue yelping at the helm." (And, goddamn, Rolling Stone heard this record before I did!?!)

The first song I heard was "Continuous Songs." It's one of those quieter songs where the vocal melody is doubled by the guitar... so the songs feels sparse, minimal. But what got me to scrawl down "Figurines - Continuous Songs" on my notepad at work was the genius chords at 1:05. The next song I encountered was "Rivalry," which is more representative of the album, but still restrained and mellow. I was expecting Figurines to be more like your typical indie pop but with their 'imperfect,' quirky vocals and musical moments. And that was enough to make we want to hear more... to buy the album.

Skeleton opens with "Race You," a disarming ballad. I didn't expect Figurines would go that route based on what I had heard and was prepared to be disappointed. But as soon as "The Wonder" kicked in I knew I was hooked. From the opening pick-scraping guitar lines when the drums kick in, you're in for a ride. There's a sense of urgency reminiscent of punk, a strange pre-chorus from the best of the indie rock annuls complete with voice cracking white-boy-melisma melody, and the strongest hook of a chorus since Cheap Trick. (There's those darn signifiers!) I defy you not to sing along with the Ahhhh-ah on that chorus... just try. And Skeleton is brilliant hook after brilliant hook with lots of genre-mutations and plenty of arty moments.

Besides the beautifully jangly guitars and bizarre arrangements, what I love about Figurines is vocalist Christian Hjelm's melodies. It seems he always manages to slip in the most unexpected note or two and make it work beautifully. It's like he's doing it accidently, effortlessly. But it feels so sincere... like the antithesis to The Strokes bedroom-luring coos. It's so anti-sexy; it's sexy. (And as a not-so-closet Neil Young fan and avid Talking Heads/David Byrne fanboy... these vocals are just about as close to perfect as you can get.)

So do your part to bring down the border and check out the "most hard working Danish indie bands at the moment."

Figurines official website (http://www.figurines.dk/)

Figurines MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/figurinesdk)

Buy Figurines Skeleton from Amazon... there's some used ones for $7)

Nightmares on Wax - Flip Ya Lid
Nightmares on Wax - Pudpots

I hope I don't get too conceptual on this one, but I want to mention something about the communicative power of music. I'm not talking about lyrical content or 'the way a song makes you feel;' this is about ideas.

I was asked in a job interview once, what's the difference between good design and bad design. I paused for an appropriate amount of time to think and then said, "Design" just means that someone has thought about the problem to be solved. A good design actually solves the problem; a bad design doesn't. (I'm sure my pitch actually went up towards the end, like I was asking if that was the right answer.)

A lot of art and design get so tangled up in the concept, they forget all about the problem. Now, I have my fair share of noise records, art-rock and glitch-core, but more often then not, their records fall into the 'sounds like a modem in a garbage disposal' critique so prevalent of avant garde music. But as some sort of artist-designer-musician hybrid, I can't always get into that.

When I first heard Nightmares on Wax, the musical brainchild of DJ EASE (aka. George Evelyn), I thought to myself, "NOW is going for the same thing I am with music." That's a loaded thought if ever there was one. What's NOW going for? What am I going for? How can I tell this just by the music? What's in the music that makes me think that? What am I responding to? Of course, I don't unpack the thought; I just keep grooving and wait till I have to blog about it for careful introspection.

So as I research NOW, I come across a lot of the ideas we have in common. I realize that we have similar concerns in music production and having attempted to solve similar problems, I can recognize them when they appear.

George Evelyn grew up in Leeds listening to his father and sister's soul tapes. He's a bit older than me, so when the b-boy crossed the pond, Evelyn was there for early hiphop records and breaking crews. Though I can still remember buying MC Hammer and Kid and Play tapes, and having my mom drive me to the BEST Grand Opening to see Sam the Olympic Eagle and a break dancing performance in the parking lot, I don't think it's quite the same. In fact, my true appreciation of hiphop didn't come from the streets or MTV, it came from a graduate's thesis released as a book, Making Beats: The Art of Sample Based Hip Hop. So when I launch Garageband to make a beat today, I'm thinking some of the same thoughts as NOW when they recorded their 1991 album, A Word of Science: The First and Final Chapter. "The album had to be something that identified with the b-boys," says Evelyn, "We wanted to do tracks that had hiphop beats but experimented with ideas."

NOW didn't release anything else for the next five years. George spent his time compiling his own personal collection of dusty records out of carboots, obscure vinyl and soul samples into his own version of Ultimate Breaks and Beats on two-inch tape. And the result was Smoker's Delight; an album that proved NOW was a contemporary reinterpretation of soul/hiphop rather than a techno group. And this next quote reaffirms my own attempts with blips and deconstructed sounds, "Although a lot of people labeled NOW as an early techno group or bleep group, we never did," says George. "As far as A Word Of Science went, there were so many different elements of music in there. It's an evolution from that album to this album. Everything was always about being funky. That's why the idea for Smoker's Delight is nothing new. I just wanted to do something with hiphop."

You'll notice NOW (and myself) never claim to be making hiphop, just recognizing how important, influential, and fun the music can be. And recognizing that we are outsiders to the culture, but that we do have something to say, something to bring to the table. It isn't about exploiting the soul classics laid down on vinyl before I was born. It isn't about re-treading the same ground as soul, funk or hiphop.

"Today's music is inspired by whatever has gone on before. That's what fascinates me. Soul music is the earliest form of hiphop. That's why I want to create it. It might seem like recreating what was done in the past, but what I want to do is merge soul and hip hop together. That's why I'll bring in the live aspect of what happened back then into current hiphop trends. That's the angle I'm arriving at."

But one key element NOW retains even with live musicians is the drum machine. It's not because NOW couldn't find a good enough live drummer, it's the sound of the beats that makes NOW. And George is very conscious of that. It's a far cry from The Roots being heralded as more legitimate because they play instruments; it's attempting to bring the entire history of hiphop into focus. It's about recognizing the disaffected youth music continuum. It's bringing the soul into hiphop and the hiphop into soul... and not forgetting the funk in-between.

Goddamn, Nightmares on Wax have some good ideas... and it's what I could hear through all the layers of "Flip Ya Lid." Maybe a simple way of saying it is, "This guy loves hiphop but isn't just making more of the same." (You can also hear a lot of dub influence on this particular track, which is another genre I feel is misunderstood.) It's downtempo but still chock full of soul and defies you not to at least bob your head if not scrunch up your face.

"Pudpots" seems to better encapsulate the ideas addressed in this blog. You have a beat that is totally hiphop, but not an unoriginal old school nostalgia or Timbo knock-off. Featuring a great horn-line and progressive structure, you can almost see men in all-black Blues suits, funky soul brothers in afros, and b-boys with shell toes all getting down to the same beat.

The rest of NOW's latest album, "In A Space Outta Sound," explores even more musical material. Referencing Vocal Jazz on "Damn,” more Eno-esque atmospheres on "Passion," a smidge of Motown on "Chime Out," and 'exotic' tribal polyrhythms on "Deepdown" and "African Pirates." None of the songs sound the same, but they all offer up alternative solutions to the same problem, how to take hiphop forward as an outsider.

(Buy In A Space Outta Sound from Amazon.)

The PC's Ltd. - Fast Man
The 'Great' Deltas - Tra La La

I'm sure this will come as no surprise to our loyal Cacophony readers, but independent record labels didn't start with punk or even the first wave of garage-rock. It's hard to imagine but there was a time most of the labels were 'independent,' and often generated regional hits and geographical stars. I'm sure Patrick could tell you more about this than I, but my point is simply that there is a ton of great music hidden away in obscurity. Sometimes 45s only had 1,000 copies pressed and once they were gone, they were gone. And while the collector's mystique still lingers on dusty records, the internet and the CD format has changed our relationship to these rare records. Before eBay, Google and Rhino Records, collectors visited thrift stores in every town, the swap meet on weekends and read the obits for hot tips. Now a simple keyword search can get you just about anything.

Will "Quantic" Holland is one of those record collectors and a notorious musician with his band the Quantic Soul Orchestra. But lucky for the rest of us, Quantic is generous enough to share. He's compiled some of the rarest and best deep funk sides onto one party-strarting disk, Quantic Presents: The World's Rarest Funk 45s.

I've posted two tracks for you to sample, and it was pretty hard to narrow it down. "Fast Man" comes to us from 1969/1970 in Carolina and serves up deep, heavy funk with lip-smacking grooves and the oft coveted and allusive party-vibe. "Tra La La" opens with a strange, funhouse beat but moves into a howling Hammond, perfected bass-horn interplay, and some of the most pathogen-like grooves ever captured on wax. And I definately have a soft spot for tracks were the band breaks down to just the drums and then reintroduces the instruments individually.

Unfortunately, it seems this album was only released in Europe, so you'll have to pay import prices or find the mp3s. (Like at, let's say, allofmp3.com). But here's some links anyway.

(Buy Quantic Presents: The World's Rarest Funk 45s at Vibrantsounds.)

(Buy Quantic Presents: The World's Rarest Funk 45s at Jazz Man Records.)

Bix Beiderbicke - Why Do I Love You?
Miles Davis - Why Do I Love You?

I believe it's been well established just how much I love cover songs. And it may belie more than a pre-adolescent obsession with Weird Al, maybe it represents how I look at everything, maybe it's easier to recognize innovation in the form of a cover. Perhaps it's a symptom of my generation to long simultaneously for nostalgia and novelty, but the cover-song fills that void with ease.

While it's become passé now, there was a time when nearly every skate company and band had some sort of parody logo. The free fonts websites still have tons of these famous logo-mimicking typefaces as evidence. The phenomena became more widespread and I'm sure we've all seen the Marlboro box converted to read Marijuana, or Coca-Cola to Cocaine. Maybe it all goes back to Mad Magazine or Honoré Daumier... but simply mimicking a song doesn't a good cover make. I still have my Weird Al tape collection and I'm not looking to adding more to my Parody collection.

When a song is no longer played note-for-note or with minor changes for comedic effects, when a known song is used primarily as a structure or guide, and when new musical aesthetics are advanced by means of reinterpretation, you have more than a cover or parody. As each generation attempts to reinvent musical history for themselves, the cover songs are often encountered with varying degrees of success. It's difficult enough understanding how we get from The Untouchables covering "Stepping Stone" to any of the Fugazi records, let alone where are right now and where we might be headed. It's much easier to draw an analog from the past.

In the late 1940s Miles Davis began to tire of the limitations set by the conventional small jazz groups of the day. He was playing with Charlie Parker's quintet and began organizing live sessions with more players on the side. Eventually, he organized live performances of his nonet (nine-piece band) but they made no money so the group broke up. About a year later Miles reformed the nonet in order to record some 78s for Capitol, as he was contractually obliged. The twelve 78 sides were later collected and named, "The Birth of Cool." Besides the expanded instrumentation, what these songs demonstrate is Miles interest in retaining the vivacity and vigor of bop, but expand its range and possibility. And though these songs represent a more restrained, toned-down, and less aggressive style of playing, they don't get quite as intimate or romantic as their cool jazz progeny. (Which I'm really not that into.)

Wikipedia labels Birth of the Cool as "Hard Bop," so I'm not about to tell you it's a good example of "Cool Jazz." It's laid back departure from bebop, prevalent at the time, are what marks its place in history.

Nowadays you can buy THE COMPLETE Birth of the Cool, which includes some bonus live tracks recorded by nonet around the same time as the 78 sides. (Unfortunately, it also features a revision of the cover art which was a bad idea.) One of the songs features Kenny Hagood on vocals, a rendition of the DeSylva/Gershwins tune "Why Do I Love You?" As a manifesto for cool jazz, the nonet's approach to this classic tune, which their audiences must have been familiar with, surely comes close.

And since time will make the contrast stronger, I've also posted Bix Beiderbecke's ragtime version. Of course I wasn't there at the time, but Bix seems to be to jazz what Green Day is to punk. A wider audience was into Bix and listened to his work, but he was taking a lot from the underbelly of New Orleans. All this to say, Bix's version represents a popular tune in a populist genre. People liked it. (Even Miles was fascinated with him... and hey, I like Green Day too.)

A few decades later Miles reinvents the tune. What he changes and what he keeps speak not only about what Miles is interested in, but just how much the art form of jazz has evolved over such a short time.

(Buy The Complete Birth of the Cool at Amazon.)

(Buy Bix Beiderbecke, Vol. 2: At the Jazz Band Ball at Amazon.)