Joseph's Picks Of The Week 6/22/12 - Superchunk and Van Dyke Parks

The “This Summer”/”Cruel Summer” 7-inch is the latest offering from classy ‘90s survivors Superchunk, and while not up to the level of the band’s finest work, that really doesn’t seem to be its intention. Instead, it’s one of the better recent examples of indie rockers gracefully adapting to middle age.

Superchunk, the enduring Chapel Hill NC based quartet whose existence served as the impetus for the creation of Merge Records, forms one of the biggest chapters in a book that’s yet to be written, specifically a detailed documentation on the topic of ‘90s indie rock. But the Merge connection is ultimately only a portion of Superchunk’s huge relevance to said movement, with the label’s first decade taking on a life of its own through defining records from names as disparate as Polvo, The Magnetic Fields and Neutral Milk Hotel.

No, Superchunk’s deepest importance is in how they wed classicist pop-rock songwriting to post-hardcore structures and energies and in their very no-big-dealness became very much a big deal. And clueless magazine writers were often caught guilty of misinterpreting the meaning of their early foulmouthed anthem “Slack Motherfucker”, detailing it as a celebration of calculated laziness and underachievement.

But those who loved the band already knew that one of Superchunk’s most appealing collective character traits was extra-musical, namely their tenacious work ethic; tour incessantly, write and hone songs, record albums and then tour some more. On top of all this fruitful activity Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance somehow found time to run a label.

With Superchunk there was no detuned guitar soundscapes, no EPs of trip-hop remixes, no exhausting 79-minute compact discs detailing forays into expansive conceptual realms, no unexpected detours into exploratory Krautrock-inspired jams; in some ways the group, purveyor of quality LPs though they were, was really a “live band” in the best sense of the term, particularly early on. The albums brought familiarity and solidity, but the foursome was at their strongest when plugging in, tuning and turning up, and finally throwing down.

Indeed, in the live setting they were a sight to behold and a sound to behear; I personally witnessed them turn the small stage of Lollapalooza’s touring incarnation (locale: The Charles Town Racetrack in Wild Wonderful West Virginia) into a immense dust cloud of sweaty pogo frenzy, interlacing their set-closing behemoth “Precision Auto” with a gleeful go-for-broke cover of Minor Threat’s “Screaming at a Wall” as sung by wiry, witty drummer Jon Wurster.

Superchunk has always been a self-deprecating unit though, often deflecting well deserved praise toward other bands or records they felt were more deserving of kudos. But again, their own releases were actually quite good and occasionally even excellent expressions of their small-scale essence as documented for home use. That documentation established a laudable trajectory of growth, even if their detractors basically chose to ignore it, those naysayers naggingly underestimating this bunch as a mere retread/update of borrowed Buzzcocks and Hüsker Dü moves given a contempo indie spin.

That chapter in the book again; in terms of the great big indie bums-rush of the ‘90s, Superchunk can be portrayed as one line in the sand between those who embraced the phenomenon and those who didn’t. Listeners in favor of the group found a crew of determined and intelligent rock fans kicking out their own rip-roaring jams for the enjoyment of themselves and an audience of equals. Detractors would instead brandish the band’s name as an example of indie rock’s low expectations, or to decry its elevation of attitude over results.

By now it should be obvious on which side of the line this writer resides. If there were lessons to be learned from punk rock and the ‘80s underground bands that soldiered on in its wake, then Superchunk embodied them, mostly because the live shows, the records and the label that released them were all so worthwhile.

And their growth really was a perceptible and rewarding development; from the young fresh rawness of the initial trio of LPs, 1990’s Superchunk, ‘91’s No Pocky for Kitty and ‘93’s On the Mouth, to the palpable leap forward of ‘94’s Foolish and the two expressions of maturity and breadth that followed it, ‘95’s Here’s Where the Strings Come In and ‘97’s Indoor Living, the quartet made a admirable sonic progression.

However, I’m somewhat in the minority in considering 1999’s Come Pick Me Up and 2001’s Here’s to Shutting Up as their finest works. And I don’t think it would be inaccurate to surmise that the band themselves would disagree with my qualitative assessment, based mainly on the Superchunk records to appear subsequent to that duo of underappreciated gems.

Both Here’s to Shutting Up and especially its Jim O’Rourke produced predecessor displayed the band at their most far reaching, and I find it a perplexing drag that the cumulative creativity of these efforts are far too often simply categorized as just two more LPs by Superchunk instead of accurately championed as a righteous combo-punch of shrewd and searching songs that greatly transcended the tag of indie.

Well, nearly a decade elapsed before they released another full length record (though there were occasional comp tracks, a few 7-inchs and an EP), and when Majesty Shredding appeared, it became immediately clear that Superchunk were reverting back to a more direct, less expansive period in their history. It was once again about the clarity of ungarnished melodic rock; the aim toward crafting bold advancements in depth and ambition was shifting elsewhere.

For in that hazy hiatus of the Aughts this aura of expansiveness once proffered by the ‘chunk was largely extended through Mac’s former side-project Portastatic, particularly on the excellent 2008 LP Be Still Please. Meanwhile, Wurster was drumming all over the place, most notably in The Mountain Goats and for Bob Mould, guitarist Jim Wilbur was pulling occasional spots in Portastatic, and Ballance, who occasionally gave off the vibe of a somewhat reluctant performer, concerned herself with Merge, the label having bloomed into one of our largest indie labels.

The appearance of the “This Summer”/”Cruel Summer” 7-inch finds Superchunk continuing their recent course and knocking out a pair of stray tracks en route to their next full length, and happily the results retain the standard of their work over the last decade. And to clarify, while the band has returned to a more stripped down approach, they haven’t regressed.

What’s largely gone is the wider instrumental palate (plus Mac’s falsetto) from ’99-’01, the group’s most exploratory songwriting (beginning with Foolish and culminating strongly with Here’s to Shutting Up) and the two guitar tangle of McCaughan and Wilbur at its snakiest (heard best on Come Pick Me Up). What’s here is the unfettered maturation as detailed by Superchunk’s growth expressed through a reassessment of the no-frills attack they wielded so expertly in the ’90-’94 period.

To elaborate, “This Summer” opens with Mac’s well-familiar vocal rasp delivering lyrical sentiments undeniably derived from the school of Springsteen, with the first near-minute of the tune registering very much like something from an upstart songwriter circa ’83 that’s been blown away in equal measure by The River, Marshall Crenshaw, and the glories of straight-up power pop.

Then the full band kicks in, as heavy yet adept at navigating crucial pop hooks as ever they were via On the Mouth or even Foolish (probably their best album in the equality of songs and delivery). “This Summer” is over in three and some change, and if it doesn’t equal Superchunk at their absolute best, it’s still a very worthwhile proposition.

Just as importantly, the music sounds as inspired as always. And the flip is a well rendered cover, specifically “Cruel Summer” by Bananarama. For those unfamiliar with Superchunk’s modus operandi regarding the material of others, this seemingly unlikely song is no piss-take; the band has previously tackled numbers by names as diverse as Sebadoh, Bowie, The Verlaines, Government Issue, The Chills, Motorhead, Adam and the Ants, Misfits and Destiny’s Child, treating them all with the same level of respect.

“Cruel Summer” retains recognizable elements of the original, but its unabashed rock orientation is to my ears a big improvement upon the rather brittle veneer of Bananarama’s synth-pop gush. Interestingly, I can’t shake hearing a big similarity to the attempts of many early-‘80s SoCal punk acts to integrate elements of trad rock into their sounds. Difference is, those attempts nearly always sounded lousy and “Cruel Summer” sounds quite jake. It is perhaps a bit like something Agent Orange could’ve pulled off around the time of When You Least Expect It. But of course, they did not.

It’s tempting to evaluate Superchunk’s recent material as an admirable gesture for loyal fans, but the quality of the work has proven strong enough to continue roping new listeners into the fold. And with this seven-inch the trend continues.

Van Dyke Parks is easily one of the most eclectic and engaging musical minds of the last fifty years. Largely known for his involvement as lyricist in the resurrected phoenix that is The Beach Boys’ Smile, he’s also put his stamp on an array of important works, none better than his own 1972 masterpiece Discover America.

Please consider for a moment the impressive range of Van Dyke Parks. Yes, in addition to Smile there is his arranging for “The Bare Necessities” from Disney’s animated classic The Jungle Book. He’s also served as a producer and/or arranger for records as diverse as the debuts of Randy Newman and Ry Cooder, Phil Ochs’ Greatest Hits and Joanna Newsom’s Ys, and contributed as a player to Tim Buckley’s first album, The Byrds’ Fifth Dimension, Linda Thompson’s Fashionably Late and Vic Chesnutt’s Ghetto Bells. The guy even composed music for TV commercials, including work for Datsun automobiles and the figure skating mayhem known as the Ice Capades.

But to really crack the delicious and nourishing nut that is Mr. Parks, inspection of his solo work is an absolute must. Song Cycle, his 1967 debut is in obvious retrospect one of the truly amazing introductory statements in all of 20th Century music. I say obvious because hardly anybody bought the thing when it came out. This was due in part to his low profile. While he’d released a couple singles on MGM, he wasn’t exactly stormtrooping the era’s cultural radar.

But the main reason Song Cycle was destined for a second life as a cherished cult magnum opus lies in how Parks’ thoroughly non-trite baroque pop and gently psychedelic sensibilities synched-up with both his uncommonly deep and diverse interest in the history of popular song and the man’s shrewd ear for value in the contemporary (the record featured covers of both Newman’s “Vine Street” and Donovan’s “Colours”). With tenuous ties to the rock scene and a lack of capital with the rising tide of youth culture, it’s really no surprise Song Cycle took four years to recoup its admittedly large for the era $35,000 budget.

Ambivalent about his lack of success but undaunted, Parks bided his time by working with other artists through Warner Brothers. He did release a single in 1970, “The Eagle and Me”/”On the Rolling Sea When Jesus Speak to Me”, combining the A-side’s ‘40s-era Arlen/Harburg Broadway show tune with the flip’s radically interpreted cover of a gospel song by legendary Bahaman guitarist Joseph Spence. If the deck was stacked against Song Cycle in ’67, then by 1970 this single didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in a Hollywood hot tub. Needless to say, the record was scarce, apparently even at the time, to the point that many of Parks’ fans didn’t even know of its existence until Rykodisc utilized it as bonus tracks in their compact disc reissue program of his stuff.

If it appears that I dwell on this seeming one-off obscurity, it’s for a very good reason; the record sheds crucial light on what’s often been perceived as Discover America’s severe change in direction (and I’ll add that both tracks are now available on Arrangements Volume 1, a brilliantly enlightening collection of Park’s early collaborations and MGM stuff released on LP and digitally through his own Bananastan label). For if his second solo effort’s levels of stylistic departure still leave some people stumped, that once neglected single provides a key to understanding.

Discover America is a concept record, but not in the potentially frightening way familiar to rock bands with a surplus of aspiration. Simultaneously a tribute to classic Trinidadian calypso and a loose rumination on American history, it might initially (and for a while after that) seem to be totally out of step with the norms of 1972. But look closer and it becomes clear that it fell right into the decade’s breadbasket for nostalgic longing, a then somewhat new impulse that largely located the 1950s as The Good Old Days (think American Graffiti, Happy Days, Sha-Na-Na, chart hits by Chuck Berry and Rick Nelson, Grease).

Naturally, Discover America’s lasting importance is due in large part to its complexity and subtlety, factors that when combined with its seemingly casual, highly appealing music caused it to slip right by most critics at the time as merely an odd, inoffensive trifle. But make no mistake; Discover America is a rare and vital combination of sincere accessibility and bold, multifaceted ambition.

The proceedings start off rather strangely. A one minute clip of the great calypso singer Mighty Sparrow’s “Jack Palance” is immediately followed by “Introduction”, a twenty-five second bit of spliced tape recordings featuring an old man with a voice like heavy-duty sandpaper; meant to signify the talk of tour guides that frequented the busses of the album’s cover, to be frank the first time I heard it I was quite blindsided by its similarity to Captain Beefheart’s “The Dust Blows Forward and the Dust Blows Back”. And then to move directly into Parks smoothly crooning a cover of The Roaring Loin’s “Bing Crosby” provided a momentary study in sweet discombobulation.

Those worried over a lack of expertise regarding calypso need not be, for it’s as welcoming a musical form as there is. And it’s perfectly fine to ignore my advice; well done calypso reissues are numerous and widely available, with Rounder Records’ Roosevelt in Trinidad; Calypsos of Events, Places and Personalities being particularly illuminating as it includes originals of three of Discover America’s tunes, “Bing Crosby”, “The Four Mills Brothers” (also by The Roaring Lion) and “FDR in Trinidad” (by Attila the Hun). Parks shows the depth of his interest by including two from Lord Kitchener, three pieces of traditional origin and a fascinatingly strange tongue-in-cheek reworking of Sir Lancelot’s “G-Man Hoover”, a celebration of J. Edgar, late of the FBI.

But he didn’t limit himself to Trinidadian works. Two Allen Toussaint covers appear, “Riverboat” and a deliriously grooving cover of “Occapella”, very likely the album’s highpoint. And “John Jones” by ‘60s Trojan Records’ reggae singer Rudy Mills is given a lazily swinging treatment. But Lowell George’s “Sailin’ Shoes” is also present, and in markedly different form from the Little Feat original (released the same year!).

In fact Little Feat’s George and Roy Estrada both contribute to “FDR in Trinidad”, so fans of that band and George’s distinctive slide playing in particular should take note. But the most interesting instrumentalists included on Discover America are The Esso Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band, whose excellent Esso LP from 1971 was produced by Parks. Their mastery brings an authentic flavor that contrasts well with the record’s atmosphere of broad interpretation, specifically on the traditional “Steelband Music” and the quietly prescient statement on multiculturalism that is the LP’s coda, a short bit of Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever”.

What slowly becomes obvious is that Parks genuinely loves Caribbean music; while respectful the record is never self-servingly so. And its concept holds a real point-of-view, examining the value in how other countries see and celebrate American culture. I’ve played the album many times specifically looking for a flaw, but by the start of the second side have always forgotten the task at hand.

Okay, at thirty-seven minutes and change, it still manages to feel too short. But the results of combined listening with Esso and Mighty Sparrow’s very fine 1974 Parks-produced Hot and Sweet LP are simply splendid. They extensively detail not only the huge scope of Parks’ interest and talent, but also show just how much amazing music is out there just waiting for discovery.



Joseph's Picks Of The Week 6/15/12 - The Bizarros and The Melvins

It’s true that punk rock anthologies multiply like cages full of randy rabbits on aphrodisiacal meds, but for fans of the style The Bizarros’ Complete Collection 1976-1980 deserves a high place on the shelf. It makes a strong case for the band as one of Ohio’s finest “lost” early punk acts, and it’s a tribute to Windian Records’ good taste that their work can currently be easily found.  

Regarding punk rock, a whole lot happened between the release of The Dictators’ Go Girl Crazy!, arguably the first unhyphenated punk record (which hit racks in early 1975), and the screaming back-alley birth of hardcore (which reignited punk as a defiantly underground phenomenon for the ‘80s). And for some young pups in the here and now, punk rock essentially begins with hardcore, which is frankly a grave error in judgment; simply put, a walloping heap of the most interesting stuff in punk’s dysfunctional lifespan occurred early on, when discerning observers were cottoning to it as a necessary break from the staleness of the ‘70s, the new form having yet to become synonymous with commercial failure.

Indeed, early in the game the majors were more than willing to give punk rock a shot. Just look at the New York scene, where all the main early players with the exception of the Heartbreakers (who were doomed) and Suicide (who were just too freaking weird) were signed-up to big American labels. And it happened all over, not just in Gotham; Boston’s DMZ and Willie “Loco” Alexander & the Boom Boom Band were both successfully courted by the big leagues, in their respective cases by Sire and MCA.

The state of Ohio, now justifiably legendary for its early punk scene, also saw a high level of A&R guys sniffing around looking for the Next Big Thing. Much of this action centered on Cleveland. That’s where NYC-defectors and Sire-signees Dead Boys were from, and it was also home to Pere Ubu, the brilliant avant-garage unit that eventually signed to Blank, the punk-centric subsidiary of Mercury Records. Blank ceased operations after just two LPs, those being Pere Ubu’s masterpiece The Modern Dance and The Suicide Commandos’ brilliant and horribly slept-on Make a Record; that was how quickly the winds of negativity spread regarding punk rock’s lack of sales potential.

The city of Akron also fostered an interesting early scene, the most famous act being those Spud Boys from Devo. But there was also Tin Huey (whose debut Contents Dislodged During Shipment was issued by Warner Brothers in ‘79), the Rubber City Rebels and The Bizarros; these last two teamed-up for the From Akron split-LP on indie Clone Records in ’77. Subsequently the Rebels went westward in hopes of elusive fame and The Bizarros recorded material for a planned release on Blank, said album eventually hitting racks as their self-titled debut through Mercury proper in ’79.

That record, often discussed betwixt those with a heavy jones for obscure documents from the early punk scene, forms a hefty portion of Windian Records’ double-LP Bizarros’ anthology Complete Collection 1976-1980, another welcome reissue from a label that’s fallen into a fine habit of providing retrospective vinyl for underappreciated entities in US punk rock’s genealogy. And Complete Collection is easily their finest top to bottom excavation effort thus far, for a handful of reasons.

For starters and most importantly there’s the music, as worthwhile a batch of formerly underexposed early American punk action as has been released, right up there with such august names as Ontario’s Simply Saucer, Detroit’s Death, Davis CA’s Twinkeyz and from Boston a trifecta of the aforementioned DMZ, Nervous Eaters and La Peste.

Unlike some of their Ohio brethren, The Bizarros weren’t a self-consciously arty band, instead working in a mode clearly molded by Richard Hell. Both of Hell’s bands (remember that before the Voidoids he was an early member of Television) influence the majority of Complete Collection’s material, but not in a trite fashion; the main connection shapes up in the vocals and phrasing of lead singer Nick Nicholis.

Inspection of The Bizarros’ DNA also delineates the clear presence of The Velvet Underground, and it’s equally laudable how the band avoids coming off like a bunch of Reed-centric idolaters. This is perhaps due to the Velvets being “just” a vastly important band during this era, not yet having grown into a truly legendary one.

That is, these guys grabbed from VU but didn’t resort to copying them in the manner of many bands that sprouted up like urbane weeds roughly a decade later, so it’s therefore very wise to shun categorizing The Bizarros as an interesting curiosity residing quite a few rungs down the qualitative ladder from their more famous contemporaries. No, The Bizarros are clearly equals to not only more celebrated late-‘70s obscurities like fellow Ohioans Electric Eels, but they also deserve to be considered in the same breath as any first wave North American punk unit.

And it’s a very punk move to compile The Bizarros’ music in a non-reverent, non-chronological manner. I mean, hardly anybody bought the Mercury album when it came out, so why remained yoked to that LP as the only way to anthologize their work? And it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the band members themselves played a part in the decision to eschew a museum-like presentation of this material.

This isn’t intended to give off any anti-intellectual vibes. When the scholarly approach works, it’s certainly very cool (maybe the coolest), but Complete Collection was obviously designed and sequenced for a maximum listening experience instead of just being collector bait. And yet the fact that the music is spread across four sweet sides of surely collectable vinyl helps to easily elevate it over the often shoddily produced CD collections of punk-era stuff that flooded the market during the early-‘90s digital disc boom.

To expand; for every high-quality collection of needed punk-era stuff, there was a slew of crappily conceived productions that sounded muddy, tinny or sterile (poor mastering being an inescapable bugaboo of the whole CD era), looked like they were designed on some slouch’s personal computer, and invariably included liner-notes from a dodgy old nostalgist manhandling moves from a 5th generation Jon Savage fakebook. Ugh. But was there any real choice regarding buying these things? Of course not; it had to be done.

Thankfully we now live in a more enlightened age, and Windian Records are close to if not the current leaders of the pack regarding punk reissues as something other than mere product. Complete Collection just oozes punk love before it even gets onto the turntable, and once the platter is on the player the ambiance substantially grows. Of the previously released tracks (in addition to the spilt LP and the Mercury disc, they also pumped out three indie 7-inches), I particularly enjoy “Mind’s a Magnet”, which comes off very much like the early Pink Floyd if they’d grown up in Texas and recorded for International Artists (with Hell for a singer, natch).

But “Lady Doubonette”, with its sly, almost funky bass line and highly developed guitar playing for the period (not to mention some smart late-song keyboard) impresses because it doesn’t sound overtly like any other band operating at the time. Sure, there are the requisite VU touches, but the tune ultimately doesn’t connect like anything the Velvets would’ve concocted.

Plus, the vocals of Nicholis are too relaxed on this cut to be in the lineage of Hell; it’s almost like he’s an extremely relaxed, non-angsty Jon Richman. And “Artie J” nods toward the enduring pop sensibility that Television occasionally asserted, in the process crafting a reminder that in its earliest days, American punk was more than just the oppositional movement it’s often portrayed to be.

For those already familiar with The Bizarros’ extant work, Complete Collection also includes some previously unreleased live tracks of primo quality, presenting the band in tough, raw form. Of particular note is a swaggering cover of The Music Machine’s eternal gem “Talk Talk”; replicating the essence of that unimpeachable classic is no easy feat, and these cats do it with aplomb.

Some later demo material finds The Bizarros pursuing an explicit power-pop direction, most notably on “The Beat”, and if this prospect bothers you, well please loosen up, grouchy. As the commercial door was slamming shut on punk, bands subsequently reacted in a variety of ways; this was one of them, and it sounds far better than most avenues some thirty odd years later. “The Beat” is strong enough to satisfy any Plimsouls’ fan, and dare I say it, any partisan of The Nerves or Paul Collins’ Beat, so you know it’s on the right side of history.

As is this whole anthology. Is the music included here as strong as Blank Generation, Marquee Moon, or The Modern Dance? In a word, no; but those three records are in league with the greatest rock albums ever recorded. What’s highly impressive is that the sum total of The Complete Collection 1976-1980 ain’t far behind at all. Based on the evidence here, I’d rate these Akron gents as the equals of San Francisco’s Crime. And if that sounds like heresy, please listen before crying foul.

The music of The Bizarros sounds remarkably fresh in the present tense, and current hearing also lends a small taste of what it must’ve been like to bear witness as a vital new thing transpired to the joy of very few. Here’s to them for doing it anyway and to Windian for putting this stuff back in racks with panache.

It’s not a bit surprising that a band on a label called Ipecac has released a record titled Freak Puke. The pleasant twist is that in reverting back to a trio with bassist Trevor Dunn, The Melvins have delivered their best release since 2006’s (A) Senile Animal.

The Melvins, by my count eighteen studio albums strong (not including collaborations), have become one of the longest-serving examples of the “heads down/amps turned way up” mode of rock ‘n’ roll expression, a style not known for its survivalist tactics. While the vast majority of groups specializing in music of comparable heaviness understandably lack the stamina and depth of creativity for creating worthwhile records over a period of more than a few years, The Melvins have managed to stay interesting for close to thirty.

Part of the secret might just be their refusal to fall comfortably into one single camp. Often hailed in mainstream coverage as a “godfather of grunge” due to geographical location and their music’s motions toward a punk/metal hybridization, and most importantly because of their close ties to Mudhoney and Nirvana (if not to Sub Pop proper), The Melvins were surprisingly (and in retrospect, understandably) indifferent to cultivating a forefather-esque association with a rock movement that would inevitably culminate in a big ol’ nasty backlash.

Signing the rather predictable ‘90s major-label deal with Atlantic (who just as predictably didn’t really know what to do with them), the then trio of guitarist Buzz Osborne (aka King Buzzo), drummer Dale Crover and not long for the band bassist Lori “Lorax” Black (aka child actress Shirley Temple’s daughter) retained a close relationship to the indie scene that spawned them, again as if sensing that the tide would inevitably turn in the other direction, with bands of their ilk being hung out to dry if found too dependent upon the corporate teat.

But after deeper investigation The Melvins’ relationship with the indie landscape is one of the more unusual aspects of their back-story. While it made total sense to see their releases on such labels as Sympathy For the Record Industry and Man’s Ruin, and for the band to foster a long-term liaison with Amphetamine Reptile (one of the noisier imprints to soldier out of the late-‘80’s underground), it left some observers scratching their heads to find them amongst the participants in Calvin Johnson’s International Pop Underground Convention circa 1991.

The difference between Tom Hazelmeyer’s Am-Rep and Cal J’s K Records (where Melvins’ tracks could be found on cassette comps as early as 1984) can be illustrated by how each label’s fans might choose to spend their spare time: in the case of Am-Rep- target practice, cigar smoking, bidding on ltd edition Frank Kozik silk-screens on eBay; regarding K- vegan picnics, volunteer work, self-publishing zines.

I generalize to make a point; as an unabashed fan of both labels (and the quite important, still vital scenes they helped to document) I also understand how rare it was for a band to be a part of both. Indeed, the only other figure to gain similar acceptance from these highly oppositional (if not completely incompatible) scenes is Brit garage titan Wild Billy Childish.

All this wouldn’t mean much if it didn’t also signify the underlying breadth of the band’s sound, an expansive exercise in the heavy and the slow that’s too often summed up as just a variation on metal, be it stoner, sludge, doom or drone. But to reestablish the point made above, the greater number of bands caught simply dishing out predictable helpings of heaviosity nearly always expire creatively before they hit the five year mark. That these guys have been pumping this stuff out for nearly three decades is testament to the fact that they’re actually up to far more than the average post-Sabbath skunk-smoking muck-meisters.

This is all no great secret. However, The Melvins are more than a little bit self-deprecating regarding the significance of their activities and quite backhanded at times in referencing the experimental background of some of their collaborators. For instance, in the liner notes to 2005’s A Live History of Gluttony and Lust, a live in an empty warehouse in-sequence recording of the band’s ’93 Atlantic debut Houdini, Buzz tongue-in-cheekily describes the activities of the album’s bassist Trevor Dunn as being limited to the “drowsy, headache-inducing, goose-honking New York ‘jazz’ scene”.

In actuality, Trevor Dunn was a member of Mr. Bungle and the avant-metal supergroups Fantômas and Tomahawk while doing some of his most interesting work with his own group Trio-Convulsant (with incredible guitarist Mary Halvorson and superb drummer Ches Smith) and in the live context with such acts as The Nels Cline Singers and the amazing Rova Saxophone Quartet.

The Melvins in contrast, if a band willing to set the controls for outbound territory throughout their career, still generally kept those flights of oddness/abrasiveness well within the tradition of noisy punkish audaciousness, not at all far from the sonic strategies employed by such acts as prime Flipper and pre-crap Butthole Surfers. From this angle, it’s easy to have fun side-stepping the generic while ticking off the squares and coming up with some truly off-the-wall material, all while not having to worry about it getting taken too seriously by stuffy art-scene interlopers.

Hooking up with Greg Werckman and Mike Patton’s Ipecac label (roughly the left-field heavy rock equivalent to John Zorn’s Tzadik imprint, though far less prolific) changed this a little bit, though some punk rock attitudes do die hard. That is; if Dunn, a player born from the wilds of the mid-‘80’s Cali-rock scene, has no qualms about mixing it up with rockers, jazzers, “new music” experimenters or even restless contemporary singer-songwriters like Sean Lennon, it seems clear that The Melvins have been a little bit hesitant over getting unreservedly connected to someone else’s avant-garde.

Naturally, this is utter nonsense. Groups like Sun O))), Earth, and Boris have stepped to the forefront of progressive metal largely because they’ve proudly refused to be defined by its restrictions. And based upon their new full-length, again self-disparagingly credited to Melvins Lite, whereupon Trevor Dunn stands in for the duo of Jared Warren and Coady Willis (collectively known apart from their membership in Melvins as the duo Big Business), it might be time for Osborne and Crover to ditch their issues with experimentalism once and for all and let their avant-freak flag fly.

Beginning with 2006’s (A) Senile Animal, Melvins included the pair of Warren and Willis, expanding the group for the first time into a legit four-piece with Crover and Willis acting as formidable double-drummers. Prior to this, the band hadn’t released a studio album since 2002’s Hostile Ambient Takeover, mainly due to the absence of bassist Kevin Rutmanis, and the fresh movement detailed by (A) Senile Animal was a welcome and successful wrinkle in their development.

This was largely extended through 2008’s Nude with Boots, but 2010’s The Bride Screamed Murder proved to be one of The Melvins’ lesser albums. To be blunt, too much consistency appears to be contrary to this band kicking out top-flight work. And in the past, they seemed to sense this, bouncing around from more straight-ahead “normal” albums like Stoner Witch and Stag to the screwy patience-testing of Honky or Colossus of Destiny. Perhaps hooking up with Warren and Willis proved so fulfilling that they temporarily lost track of what made Melvins tick.

Freak Puke does hold a few lesser songs, but on the whole it’s succeeds quite nicely in combining The Melvins’ stylistic attributes with the rather huge sounding and at times sweetly expansive amplified acoustic bass, especially on opener “Mr. Rip Off”, which begins with just the largeness of Dunn’s bowed instrument before shifting into an environment of relative rock tranquility.

The brief two minutes of “Inner Ear Rupture” is also essentially a showcase for Dunn, additionally serving as a preamble for “Baby, Won’t You Weird Me Out”; that track begins with some bowed bass that could possibly leave a smile on the mug of a Steve Reich fan before sharply detouring into some bold buzzsaw riff-rock and culminating in a short rhythmic exchange halfway between an arena-rock instrumental showcase and a post-jazz-fusion exaltation in chops, but with a crucial punk edge. The verdict; these guys are splendidly shifty in how they blend such a wide range of seemingly irreconcilable influences.

And there’s actually something more than sarcasm in the moniker Melvins Lite. This is mainly palpable through the singing voices of Crover and Buzzo. But a lot of the songwriting, if not pop inclined, does fall to the more melodic side of The Melvins spectrum. So it’s ultimately of no great shock that the band’s cover of McCartney & Wings’ “Let Me Roll It” succeeds so well. If the undistinguished rocking of “Leon Versus the Revolution” provides the record’s low-point, the band does get in some quality crunch on the title track and in much of the similarly broad “Worm Farm Waltz”.

But it’s the lengthy closing track that leaves a lingering impression of positivity, initially furthering Freak Puke’s melodic agenda before upping the tempo and taking flight into a fine mid-section that really doesn’t recall any of The Melvins’ extensively annotated prior motion. It does end with some spacious and attitudinally punk audio mess-around, and that’s certainly indicative of the band’s creative wheelhouse. As such it’s very cool.

As much as I’d theoretically love for these wily jokers to full-on embrace the experimental, in the end maybe I don’t want them to change too much. Perhaps Freak Puke serves as a happy medium.



Joseph's Picks Of The Week 6/8/12 - Public Image Ltd and Grass Widow



By its very title, This is PiL, the first studio album in over two decades from John Lydon’s post-Sex Pistols’ post-punk entity effectively becomes a state-of-the-band address. While nodding superficially at times toward the unkempt wilds of Public Image Ltd’s groundbreaking early work, there is far too much of the Lydon-dominated calculation and missteps that unfortunately defined the group’s later material.

Some will immediately balk that Public Image Ltd has always been John Lydon’s band, and in a sense that’s very true. But on their initial three studio albums, they operated as a real band not in the democratic sense but in the undeniable reality that a gang of immensely talented musicians were butting up against each other and creating something huge.

John Lydon, guitarist Keith Levene bassist Jah Wobble and drummer Jim Miller conjured up First Issue in December of 1978, an exceptional debut album and a bold maneuver in the development of post-punk. This was followed up less than a year later with Metal Box aka Second Edition, recorded by Lydon, Levene, Wobble and a shifting lineup of drummers, and it stands as not only the finest release in the oeuvre of Public Image Ltd, but also one of the truly masterful post-punk albums.

Following this Wobble was out, drummer Martin Adkins was in, and instead of following a route of refinement, the group came up with one of the more uncompromising records ever released by a major label, which isn’t to insinuate that their first two were mellow going. What made The Flowers of Romance so fascinating was how it largely made no attempt to replace the gap left by Wobble; the group essentially shifted in focus from one of the darkest manifestations of post-punk’s dub-reggae influence into an equally foreboding atmosphere of rhythmic experimentation that was very conversant with simultaneous expressions emanating from the industrial music scene.

Simply put, these three records cohere into an astonishing achievement, and it’s somewhat of a drag to find people underestimating them in the here and now, either because their vast influence has somewhat dulled the cumulative effect (though in my case at least, this hasn’t been the case) or due to folks’ aversion to Lydon’s persona and his later, lesser work subconsciously sabotaging their assessment of PiL’s most crucial documents.

On previous occasions I’ve likened my lingering reaction upon discovery of PiL’s early stuff to the impression of younger associates after they were first introduced to Radiohead. While older listeners more up to speed with dub, Can/Krautrock and experimental music in general were expectedly a bit (or a lot) more measured in their appreciation of Public Image’s first few records, for the fresh ears of me and others, they really sounded like something new under the sun. And please keep in mind that in my case the early PiL records were being digested simultaneous to hearing their later LPs like Album and Happy?

After The Flowers of Romance, the band basically exploded, with allegedly stolen master tapes resulting in the Levene-instigated The Commercial Zone bootleg LP, a frankly underwhelming record matched only by its legit counterpart This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get. Adkins remained as drummer, but it was increasingly clear that Public Image Ltd was now Lydon’s show from top to bottom.

It was this period that found the man’s attempted piss-take “This Is Not a Love Song” becoming his biggest chart single to date (#5 UK), an occurrence that’s perhaps indicative of the point where he began replacing the musically challenging with the merely vitriolic. From the point of First Issue, Lydon had made sure to mix his disgust with true antagonism (see “Religion I” and “Religion II”) and the presence of Levene and Wobble pushed it all very far into the deep sonic weeds.

This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get effectively ended Public Image Ltd as a band, but the nadir was the live record Live in Tokyo; as problematic as the group’s rather obscure ’79 live dip Paris au Printemps was, that LP’s contents simply blew the doors off of the blandness of Tokyo’s session-musician plagued undermining of earlier vital material.

So if the contents of Album were an undisguised move into pop territory, it was all much easier to swallow than the often blatant missteps of the prior two records. Plus, Album was undeniably aided by the production presence of Bill Laswell, who brought in a bunch of creative ringers to sessioneer and effectively stifle the genericism proffered by Live in Tokyo; if Lydon no longer desired a band dynamic, it certainly helped to stock the studio with names like Tony Williams, Ginger Baker, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bernie Worrell and Malachi Favors.

But his subsequent records, if created with a pretense of a working band, were all clearly situations where Lydon called the shots, and from inside the pop realm they were a story of diminishing returns, effectively ending with PiL’s studio low point, 1992’s That What Is Not. A few live records have come out since, but I honestly didn’t think I’d ever encounter another PiL studio release.

But here is This is PiL, and beforehand, being unable to do otherwise, I braced myself for the worst. And the opening title track still confounded me with the sheer level of its wrongheadedness. If “This is PiL” seems intended as a hearkening back to such early tracks as “Theme” and “Public Image”, it flounders threefold; the declamatory nature of Lydon’s early vocals benefited from being somewhat sparse, this sparseness was aided by the considerable levels of musicianship that surrounded him, and lastly his lyrics contained varying amounts of substantive content.

“This is PiL” is instead burdened by Lydon’s voice overstaying its welcome; it’s weakened further by a musical bed that’s uninspiring, and ultimately ruined by a lyrical sentiment that’s simply banal. Twenty years out of the studio and the best Lydon can come up with for an opening salvo is to incessantly tell us that this is indeed PiL (alternately spelled out or spoken as the word “pill”, maybe the most surprising aspect of the song), and that we’re “entering a PiL zone”.

Actually, that last bit sheds some strong light upon where Lydon’s inspiration, at least on this track, is derived; in ’82, shortly before it all hit the fan, PiL announced the imminent release of an EP to be titled You Are Now Entering a Commercial Zone. Please couple this informational tidbit with the return of Lydon’s proclivity from the same era to specifically inform the listener as to what they were or were not getting: this is not a love song, this is what you want, this is what you get, and now this is PiL.

It was easy to predict that our man would eschew jumping back into the dangerous waters of the group’s early material, but it’s disappointing that Lydon lacked the perception to avoid returning to the period immediately after Levene’s departure, when the music attributed to the group was at close to its lowest ebb.

Thankfully This is PiL improves somewhat from its ill-conceived start, largely because it doesn’t have much other choice. But the record is a study in often erratic ups and downs, and yet is also burdened by its leader’s desire to play it safe far too frequently. The lilting reggae of “One Drop” ends better than it starts, but it’s not very inspiring to hear Lydon in this mode, even after an absence of twenty years.

But the better tracks here, “Deeper Water”, “I Must Be Dreaming”, “The Room I Am In”, “Fool”, all display a desire to make an album of real value, and that’s commendable. Yet good intentions do not a great, or in this case even a very good, album make. This is to say that This is PiL’s is simply undone by too much subpar material.

John Lydon is back and those that deeply love him may find the contents of this LP to be enough. Those who feel the ball was fumbled after The Flowers of Romance should proceed with extreme caution.

Those with an unscratchable itch for stripped-down yet pop-savvy post-punk should give San Francisco’s Grass Widow a try. Their latest record Internal Logic hits upon many of that sub-genre’s best elements, all without being the slightest bit overbearing about the whole endeavor.

Grass Widow has arrived at their third full length in an admirable, tired-and-true manner; via gigs, practice, patience, networking and diligence. Debuting in ’09 with a self-titled 12-inch on the Captured Tracks label and a self-titled full-length on the Make A Mess imprint, they’d been playing shows from at least two years previous to those releases, as is evidenced by a demo CD-R that’s recently been discussed on the interwebs.

It should never be understated that one of the crucial factors in a band’s formative period is simply not being in a hurry. Far too many groups have let impatience squander their potential as manifested through the booking of studio time after just a few uncommonly smooth practices. And others have been given fatal advice by spurious third parties less interested in quality music than in the potential for profit.

Thankfully Grass Widow comes from a proudly DIY place. One listen to the angular, post-punk derived sound of those first two records and it’s clear that Hannah Lew, Lillian Marling and Raven Mahon march to the beat of their own drummer. This isn’t to imply the band don’t give off the vibes of precedent; upon first hearing them I heard the shaping influence of the UK’s unbeatable Rough Trade warriors The Raincoats filtered perhaps through some of the righteous ‘90s rocking of Washington DC’s underappreciated Slant 6.

Some of it was a trio thing, and much of it was the immediate feeling that Grass Widow didn’t have any qualms about their femininity. So it was no surprise that the band’s 2010 follow-up LP was on Kill Rock Stars, a label that since their ’91 inception has proven to be one of the strongest outlets for contemporary women musicians. And Past Time was a tangible advance in both songwriting and in execution.

To their credit, Grass Widow don’t make things easy for themselves; while never getting wonkily progged-out, their music undeniably possessed a palpable riffy complexity, and when coupled with the nature of trio rock (where nobody can hide, because everybody’s integral to the music’s success) they made it clear they weren’t just fooling around. Unlike the appealing shambolic aura of The Vivian Girls’ early stuff, Grass Widow’s music oozed like the product of a band that actually got a big kick out of practice.

If those ’09 records still featured an attractive hint of nervousness in the band’s delivery, it was gone by the very impressive Past Time; no sophomore slump for these three. And their new record Internal Logic posits that Grass Widow could easily become one of our best contemporary bands simply by emitting nary a trace of nonsense and getting right down onto tape and getting heard.

If Past Time was a record about growth, then Internal Logic is about boldness. It’s most immediately engaging quality (beyond the sheer strength of songwriting of course), is how they take a form of skeletal post-punk that’s often defined as a reaction against “pop” sensibilities and imbue it with a fully formed production sound that doesn’t detract in the slightest from the record’s heft. This is achieved mainly due to Grass Widow’s decision to not sacrifice instrumental muscularity. In other words, they haven’t forgotten they’re a rock band.

But all three members are strong of voice, and as their discography has progressed it’s been quite a gas to hear them harmonize; it’s this pop aspect of their sound that leads me to think they could come up with something comparable to The Raincoats’ third LP Moving. But Internal Logic is also a third album, and it’s become apparent that Grass Widow, unlike many of their post-punk predecessors (and I’m not referring to The Raincoats with the following) actually really enjoy what they sound like. Instead of bailing on it as they became more instrumentally adept and confident, they’ve instead honed their music’s considerable qualities through superb judgment into something exceptional.

For those already familiar with the band, the two most notable tracks on Internal Logic will be “A Light in the Static”, which is 1:30 of unexpected Spanish guitar, and the album’s solo piano outro “Response To Photographs. While they do much to broaden Grass Widow’s palate, they also serve as something of a red herring, for the LP’s real strides come from within territory already established; opener “Goldilocks Zone” runs those splendid harmonies through a noticeably Bratmobile-like zone.

But that’s just for starters. “Hang Around” features some gradually grabbing guitar work, and “Under the Atmosphere” is a surprisingly pretty tune that’s antagonized by tough instrumentation. And longer tracks like “Spock on MUNI” and “Whistling in the Dark” provide platforms for every instrument to shine, particularly the bass, which alternates expertly between rhythm and melody, and the drumming, which is precise but never predictable.

The significance of Spanish guitar on Internal Logic can be stretched a bit and compared to the classical guitar included on Minutemen’s masterpiece Double Nickels on the Dime. Some might find this contrast specious, but for every obvious difference there is a similarity; both are trios, both this and Double Nickels are third proper full-lengths, and like those Pedro dudes, Grass Widow are highly influenced by Brit post-punk. Hell, these gals even covered Wire’s “Mannequin” on their “Milo Minute” 7-inch from last year, and that song’s long been a staple of Mike Watt’s set-lists, even getting recorded by Firehose.

But I don’t want to push the issue too much. Unlike Double Nickels on the Dime, Internal Logic isn’t a masterpiece, and it’s somewhat imperfect. But its main problem is ultimately a minor quibble, specifically the brevity of the LP; two years in the making and the album is shy of half an hour, retreading both “Milo Minute and “Disappearing Industries” from singles. Sure, it’s always preferable for a release to leave listeners wanting more instead of wishing they’d gotten less, and a lean, quick record is very securely in Grass Widow’s M.O. However, it would frankly be nice to see them stretch out and away from the expected a bit.

But one of the most pleasant extra-musical aspects of Grass Widow’s recent development is how they have retained a deep sense of that DIY spirit by releasing Internal Logic on their own HLR label. It’s not only reflective of the band’s sense of scale and their preference for artistic control over fleeting notoriety, but it’s also indicative of a recent spike in artists electing to not just remain with indies, but in many cases taking the initiative to actually coordinate the release of their own product, a trend that I can wholeheartedly cheer.

The above comparisons between Grass Widow and The Raincoats were certainly aided by seeing them play with that legendary Brit band in Washington DC last year, and indeed some might complain that the two bands display too few overt similarities to make the connection. I disagree; to these ears it seems clear that Grass Widow fully understand that when drawing upon the template of the truly groundbreaking, the sincerely influential is antithetical to the spoils produced by the rote copyist.

Again, Grass Widow is scaled differently than The Raincoats (or for that matter, Minutemen), being a band whose best qualities grow with time well spent. All their records are worth owning, but Internal Logic is the most fully formed to date, and its running-time posits that more is to come.