Delta Sierra Review

Thicker Than Oil

2008-01-21T08:04:00.000-08:00

There Will Be Blood. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. 4.75 of 5 Wildcatters.

P. T. Anderson's epic new film, loosely based on Upton Sinclair's Oil!, is a wholly original, engrossing, triumph of filmmaking. It practically laughs in the face of traditional movie storytelling with its long periods of silence, an amazing and piercing score by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood, and disinterest in normal conventions. Along with No Country for Old Men, it is a 2007 film that will be remembered as a classic for decades to come.

The movie tells the story of the turn-of-the-20th-century rise of Daniel Plainview, played by Day-Lewis, a vision of hardscrabble American grit and capitalistic determination who buys up property to drill for the oil beneath. He adopts the son of one of his workers who dies in a mining accident and utilizes the child to soften up less-than-sophisticated landowners into forfeiting their potential fortunes. As Plainview's oil empire grows, he buys slightly nicer clothes and occasionally eats at well-to-do restaurants, but his burning hatred of fools and his perceived enemies, along with his all-consuming passion for wealth, never diminishes.

Putting aside his "spirited" competition with other oil barons (one of the film's most uncomfortable scenes unfolds when a rival attempts to buy him out by arguing it would be good for his adopted son), Plainview's real foil is Dano's Eli Sunday, a young evangelical minister who leads his flock in a remote, dusty community where Plainview's operation has come to town. At first they forge an uneasy truce and the community essentially becomes a company town. But tensions increase over time as the two men struggle for supremacy among the populace. Both men are users of others - deceptive when necessary, inspiring at other times. Their interactions form the best scenes in the film.

Surely some of those seeking a deeper meaning or political message here will intepret the film as a savage criticism of oil and its addictive properties that continue to this day in American society. This seems to me to miss the point of the film, which I saw more as reflecting the dawning of modern America and the tension between the pillars of capitalism and religion. The movie approaches that tension in a way that leaves open room for interpretation as to just which of those institutions, if either, is a force for good or bad in the lives and hearts of men.

Or maybe it's just a character study of this possessed, driven, nearly horrific individual. I am at a loss to truly and fairly describe Daniel Day-Lewis's performance here. Is the word electrifying? Immersed? Frightening? As much as Plainview is larger than life, Day-Lewis is larger than that. Indeed, it's hard to tell he's acting as much as he is ... becoming. There may be those approaching his equal, but if there is a better actor in the world, I honestly have no idea who that could be. Whether there's an awards show or not, there is no doubt who should win the Best Actor Oscar this year (in a year of several other outstanding performances).

Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) does a good job as Eli Sunday, even if he is overmatched a little here. His sniveling, manipulative performance conveys the type of "manhood" that so obviously disgusts Plainview. He plays a dual role, also portraying Eli's brother who visits Plainview to tip him off to the oil that lies beneath the Sunday property and surrounding areas (this was a bit confusing at first as I wasn't sure they were two different people - in fact, were they?)

If you prefer movies wrapped up with a bow, this might not be for you. Greenwood's haunting score punctuates moments in ways that border on the terrifying. The performances are amazing and the scenery is authentic. It's a true American masterpiece that will leave you unsettled and uncomfortable. I have never seen a movie quite like it.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2008-01-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

I think we're heading toward the end of the horror film craze now, or at least I can hope. (I'm not counting Cloverfield - it's a monster flick.) The two that I've been seeing previews for are one about a cell phone message where you hear your death before you die and another about a website where people get to vote on your demise. If the deepest fear that a horror film can rattle in 2008 is the fact that you, yes you, are going to die, then the horror genre itself doesn't have much left.

Let's talk about something really scary. You're a bon vivant French fashion editor in your early 40s. You're dapper and charming. You've got a pseudo-wife and a couple of kids. You've got a mistress that would fill Nicolas Sarkozy with ressentiment. You wake up paralyzed from head to foot unable to speak or do anything other than blink your eyes. Then one eye is sewn shot over your silent objections.

The Diving Bell is the story of Jean-Do Bauby, a more extreme and more French version of Christy Brown. It is based on the novella that Bauby wrote using a series of blinks and a couple of dedicated assistants. It is a report from an unfathomable depth of hell called locked-in syndrome. Yet it isn't a horror story. It's a testament to the ability of the human will to overcome any impediment. Stripped of his ability to enjoy food and drink, cars and women, Bauby almost nothing left, but he still has the capacity for abstract thought and so he has the ability to write.

Julian Schnabel directed. He is an artist, and the movie reflects that. Everything about the movie, including the opening credits, looks appealing. It probably took an artist to make this film work. The thought of watching a man blink for 112 minutes probably may not set your weekend calendar afire, but the overall attractiveness of this movie is undeniable. Schnabel also keeps the urge to sentimentalize in check. Bauby is fully capable of treating the women in his life badly whether he can move his body or not, and the movie doesn't retreat from that. Nor is that the point. The point, it seems to me, is that Bauby loved his life and, in the face of the worst life has to offer, learned to love it without restriction.

The Top Ten Best and Worst Movies of 2007 - Angelo Nero

2008-01-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

My most recent post provided a list of my Best Albums of 2007. Today I focus on movies. That should just about cover the subject matter areas of Delta Sierra Review. I've been distributing a Best of/Worst of Movies List to a group of befuddled and skeptical friends for the better part of the past decade. Now that I have started a blog with Codfish and Bad Mojo, it seemed appropriate to provide the list here and add some commentary. Why should you care what I think? You shouldn't, but maybe you'll find something here to agree with. If not, well, that's what makes the horse races.

The qualifications for possible inclusion in the list are pretty simple: I must have seen the movie and it must be Oscar-eligible for 2007 (released during the calendar year in at least New York and Los Angeles). Sixty-eight films were eligible for consideration.

I need to make a special note here. As of this writing, I have not seen several potentially worthy films of 2007, but in particular, I have not had the opportunity to view P. T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood. It is a 2007 movie but has not yet graced the fine theaters of Atlanta, Georgia. I am anxious to see the movie and will provide a review after doing so. I suspect it will be a favorite of mine, given what I know about it, but we'll have to see.

Let's start with the best, in reverse order.

The Top Ten Best Movies of 2007

10. Sunshine. I read an article recently complaining that science fiction, while still as popular as ever, is running out of ideas and repeating itself. The author of the piece pined for a watershed movie from a great director who is not a real science fiction fan, much like Stanley Kubrick, whose 2001: A Space Odyssey reinvented the genre. With due respect, this person must not have seen Sunshine directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later). While hardly the first "philosophical" sci-fi flick to explore desperation and other complicated attributes of human behaviour in a sci-fi setting (see, for example, Solaris), Sunshine nevertheless felt fresh to me. A story of a hail mary mission to "re-ignite" our now-dying Sun and save all of mankind, it's tense, beautiful, amazingly realistic (given the outlandish premise), and best of all - like any great science fiction - a quintessentially human story.

9. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It sounds like an absurd premise for a documentary: two competitive video game rivals tussle to see who can set the all-time record high score on Donkey Kong. If you need a minute to re-read that and question my sanity, go ahead, but trust me here. This is a film that proves that good documentaries don't necessarily have to be about grandiose themes or political manifestos. It's a simple story about two grown men (along with several other video game afficionados) who are in a pleasant state of arrested development. The personalities of the two protagonists couldn't be any different, and as you learn more about them, you start - dare I say it - rooting for one of them. I saw this movie with a group of people whose interest in video games is best described as minimal to non-existent, and to a person, they enjoyed the movie immensely.

8. In the Shadow of the Moon. Just another movie about the Apollo program? Not quite. This documentary is great because of never-before-seen footage and the inspiring subject matter, but what really makes it tick are the testimonials by the Apollo astronauts themselves (despite the conspicuous absence of Neil Armstrong, a notable recluse). A treasure of a film that dazzlingly recounts one of America's finest hours.

7. Once. The sleeper surprise of the year. It's a low budget independent film set in Dublin starring Glen Hansard (of the Irish rock band The Frames) and Marketa Irglova as a street musician/vacuum repairman and a Czech immigrant, respectively. The story takes place over a week and, as their relationship grows, they start to write and record some incredibly beautiful music together. It's a great little movie that doesn't wrap things up with a bow, resulting in a refreshingly sublime piece of filmmaking.

6. Juno. As the title character, Ellen Page further demonstrates her maturity and a great future in Hollywood (see the disturbing Hard Candy for further proof) with her spot-on performance as a wisecracking high schooler who gets, in the words of another 2007 comedy, knocked up. The movie also reunites Arrested Development father-and-son Jason Bateman and Michael Cera, though they are never on screen together. Bateman and Jennifer Garner play a well-to-do couple who plan to adopt Juno's child. It's a charming story that never loses its central quality of showing people acting like real people do, warts and all. The supporting cast is fantastic, and the result is one of the best movies of the year.

5. Control. An amazingly powerful, starkly shot film about the troubled and brief life of Ian Curtis, the singer and frontman for the seminal English rock band Joy Division (whose surviving members would carry on as New Order). Shot entirely in black and white and directed by Anton Corbijn, who also just happened to take some of the most famous photographs of the band close to 30 years ago, the movie does an excellent job of making Curtis's depression and problems genuinely believable. It also contains, hands down, the most realistic live rock and roll scenes I have ever seen (outside of concert documentaries). The music is incredible, too. It's tough to watch at times, but hits like a sledgehammer.

4. I'm Not There. Also a "rock and roll" movie, but hardly a documentary, Todd Haynes's trippy, bizarre love letter to Bob Dylan is nothing short of breathtaking. In a story that ranges far and wide, in and out of various times in his life, Dylan is portrayed (interpreted, really) in various incarnations by several actors, including Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, and most impressively, Cate Blanchett. Blanchett's performance is mesmerizing. This is a hard movie to describe, but you know you're watching great cinema when you see it. I think even non-Dylan fans could enjoy it, but some background knowledge doesn't hurt.

3. Superbad. Crudely funny, this is the modern-day heir to the tradition best exemplified by Fast Times at Ridgemont High - the silly but smart teenage coming-of-age comedy. Lots of teen comedies have moments of humor in them, but every once in a while one comes along that not only produces gut-busting laughs, but also makes you care what happens to the characters. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera expertly play a pair of friends who are on the verge of graduating from high school and decide to have a hell of a last night. I laughed so hard I hurt myself in this one. Not for those who are easily offended.

2. Eastern Promises. Viggo Mortensen is electric in this high-tension drama about the Russian mafia underworld and the lives it ensares. The movie is an amazing insight into a subculture often overlooked. The plot is well thought out and there are some completely unforgettable scenes (if you've seen it, you know of one in particular set in a bathhouse - you practically could hear the jaws hitting the floor by the end of it in the theater I was in). Not for the faint of heart.

1. No Country for Old Men. Speaking of not for the faint of heart. The Coen Brothers' latest also is their best, in my opinion. Considering my strong love for several of their movies, that's saying something for me. Codfish wrote an excellent review of the movie here on Delta Sierra Review, which I recommend highly. I saw this movie for a second time the other night and liked it even more than the first showing. It's violent, but with a purpose. And while the performances by Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin are fantastic, Tommy Lee Jones is legendary as the sheriff who deals with a violent set of murders and individuals. With every pained expression, he conveys the movie's theme of old ways succumbing to new, incomprehensibly terrifying ones. Absolutely not to be missed.

The Top Ten Worst Movies of 2007

It's kind of pathetic that I see enough movies to make a list like this, but here goes:

10. The Invasion. Soulless remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Disappointing, since parts of the preview looked edgy and good. I was rooting for the body snatchers.

9. Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End. The first one was a suprisingly enjoyable pirate romp. The second one was an uneven but sometimes redeeming mess. This one just sucked. They should have quit while they were ahead.

8. Live Free or Die Hard. I like Bruce Willis, but he's chosen some stinkers lately. 16 Blocks or whatever it was called, that bad looking movie with Halle Berry (whose movie choices are the definition of terrible), and now this one. He always does a good job with what he has, but doesn't he have enough clout to get better material than this?

7. The Mist. This Stephen King horror adaptation is the worst kind of bad movie - one that thinks it's profound. It's not.

6. 1408. Very disappointing, given the presence of John Cusack. Another Stephen King adaptation. Hmmm . . .

5. Vacancy. Vapid horror/slasher film about a couple stranded at a hotel where unsuspecting visitors are preyed upon. Seriously, what did I expect?

4. Ghost Rider. Really, it's my own fault. I can't even blame the movie. I should have better sense than this.

3. Fracture. Anthony Hopkins + Ryan Gosling + legal thriller = crap? How did this happen? I hope whoever wrote this stays on strike forever.

2. Premonition. Laughably bad time bender with Sandra Bullock. Once you figure out the premise, you start trying to piece together the movie on its own terms. Quickly you figure out that no one bothered to storyboard this thing and make sure it held together. Imagine a movie where things are shown out of time, only there are elements at certain times that COULD NOT BE PRESENT BECAUSE THEY HAVEN'T HAPPENED YET. Sheer idiocy.

1. Hostel: Part II. I'm hardly a prude, but this movie was just completely gratuitous and disgusting. I guess that may not sound very credible coming from someone who liked the original Hostel, but it's the truth. The first one was very gruesome but also suspenseful and even Hitchcockian at times. The sequel was just an excuse for putting sadistic fantasies on screen. I urge you not to see it.

That's all for now. Thanks for indulging me.

Who is the Master?

2008-01-03T18:52:00.000-08:00

So I'm watching the election results in Iowa and my guy is . . . well . . . winning. [Disclaimer: candidates/teams I like tend to lose, and I want to assure Mother Karma that I know we have a long way to go]. Now I (speaking only for me and not for the management, writers, producers, families, enemies and other affiliates of the Delta Sierra Review) like this guy a lot, and I've been telling my friends that "He's Got the Glow."

Now that's a powerful statement to most black guys my age. It means one thing:

1985

Produced by Berry Gordy

Vanity was the leading lady (and this was Vanity before she went the Huckabee route . . . this was "I am Prince's girlfriend and he created a band for me, who are you?" Vanity.)

Julius Carry (you've watched him in other roles without realizing that you were watching one of the best bad guys in movie history)

Leo O'Brian (wiki or imdb him. I have no idea.)

Ernie Reyes, Jr. (the guy that was one of the youngest black belts in history (he beat adults in competition at one point) and went on to a 2007 New York Mets-type downward spiral after this high point that included "Surf Ninjas")

and

Taimak

who had done nothing to this point in his career. As legend holds, he successfully dropped his last name before the movie came out and didn't get laughed out of Hollywood. You watch it and know that he sat in a screening one day and thought to himself, I am so *^%$ bad in this flick that I can drop my last name and it won't matter.

And he was right. He wasn't a great actor or martial artist or anything. But every kid I knew who watched that movie wanted to be Taimak. It was the Black Karate Kid. The black kids in big movies at this point in my youth were initiating slow claps or serving their detention away from sight in a closet while the Breakfast Club was in the library kicking it. This was the greatest thing I'd ever watched. Not an understatement at all.

Long story short: Taimak's character (Bruce Leroy . . . it's so ridiculous it works) is a guy living in New York who idolizes Bruce Lee. He works as a martial arts instructor of some sort (whichever one requires you to wear cheap ninja costumes and use throwing stars), and his goal is to increase his skill by finding "The Master".

[Insert semi predictable family setup for comedy and introduce the bad guy.]

And it's a fantastic bad guy.

[Click Here]

And it gets BETTER people.

Bad acting (but so bad it lets you forget it's bad and buy into it). Check.

Ridiculous supernatural plot with 1985'ee, pre-CGI special effects (including penciled-in sparks when people get punched). Check.

Really good music (See "Produced by Berry Gordy" above). Check.

And the little guy (Leroy) gets the fame, a fantastic climatic fight scene, the right to wear a Ninja outfit in Harlem in 1985 without being beaten about the head, the block's respect, and Vanity singing him a love song at the end.

Yeah, I'd drop my last name too.

High point of the second to last fight scene: Ernie Reeves' character jumps off of a stage, kicks two guys in the face (one, I think, with the front of his foot, and then the other with the back OF THE SAME FOOT), and then lands.

Read that again. The sentence doesn't even makes sense, but it happened without CGI. The kid was well over 113.7% more skilled than Chozen in Karate Kid, II, and Chozen was bad as hell. Ralph Macchio would have been killed if he fought that guy in real life. I walked out of KKII confused that it didn't end with Daniel-son dying with a tiger punch sized hole in his body.

Which leads me back to the Iowa Caucus. "The Master" Leroy seeks is so skilled that he glows when he gets in the zone during fights. When you see The Glow on a guy, you know you're looking at a bad man (or a radioactive one).

Thus you get "He's Got The Glow". One of the top 36 movie lines of all time. No question.

I don't know if my candidate is going to win, but he sure as hell has The Glow right now.

- Mojo

The Top 20 Albums of 2007 - Angelo Nero

2008-01-02T17:34:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year, when America's obsession with list-making reaches a zenith. I have been making and distributing my own music and movie lists to friends and colleagues for the past several years. Now that three of us have started a blog, I figured I would enhance the content of my lists with a little more commentary for those interested (yes, both of you). This list is about the best albums of 2007, in my judgment, and there will be a subsequent post dedicated to movies. Coming up with this list is difficult, since there are a couple of dozen albums from 2007 I'm still wanting to check out. So my apologies if I've overlooked 2007's Exile on Main Street.

So without further ado, here is my list of the 20 Best Albums of 2007, in reverse order.

20. The White Stripes - Icky Thump. I confess that I am not as devoted to Jack and Meg White as many indie rock fans are, but their latest effort is fantastic. The title track leads things off with an odd mix of Zeppelin, Yes and Eminem, and the ensuing 12 songs never let up. It's their finest record.

19. The Thrills - Teenager. See the full review earlier on this blog, but suffice to say that Irish kids with a knack for melody and a love for Neil Young and the Beach Boys makes a great recipe for sweet, mid-tempo rock and roll.

18. Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace. Dave Grohl and company have steadily put together one of the strongest catalogues of rock music in the modern era. Their latest has the expected ass-kickers ("The Pretender", "Let it Die", e.g.) and more restrained rock songs ("Long Road to Ruin"), but it's impossible to hear the simple ballad that closes the album, "Home," and not conclude that Grohl's maturity in songwriting still has tons of upside. Those familiar with his rock and roll pedigree and history may have a hard time keeping a dry eye by the end.

17. Interpol - Our Love to Admire. I suppose one might argue that this Big Apple quartet's third full length outing is awfully similar to their last album, Antics. That's a fair point, and one hopes this very talented band finds some new pathways, but in the meantime I think I'll just enjoy another great set of songs.

16. She Wants Revenge - This is Forever. Favorably reviewed on this blog, this album did not meet with much positive response from other critics. I think the critics missed the boat - if you like bands influenced heavily by Depeche Mode and the Cure, this is a perfectly good album for that genre. Not everyone has to be original to be enjoyable (thank goodness).

15. The Comas - Spells. These Chapel Hill rockers have been around for the better part of a decade, although they tend to release albums only every three years or so. I just discovered them this year and am glad I did. This is a great and diverse rock album punctuated by the highlight "Come My Sunshine," with a riff worthy of early Smashing Pumpkins. Chills down the spine.

14. Fields - Everything Last Winter. Boasting an Anglo-Icelandic lineup, this band achieved a buzz before ever getting in the studio. Rocketing to prominence in the UK on the basis of their initial live performances, the band was the subject of a label bidding war. Listening to their first full-length, it's easy to see why. Swirling guitars, hints of electronica, and crisp vocals are infused with a 70s warm vinyl sensibility. These guys have a future.

13. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond. I can't believe I'm writing this, but this is Dinosaur Jr.'s best album. The original trio is back together and making gut-wrenching, explosive heavy rock as relevant and smart as they have ever recorded. More please.

12. Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II. This guy has a future too. Seriously. I don't know how he keeps doing it, but Neil continues to put out records that are interesting and fresh. It's an even more amazing feat here, since some of the material on the album was written nearly 30 years ago. It's a sequel to an album that was never actually released (leave it to Neil). What's great about it is neither exclusively beautiful/acoustic/troubadour Neil nor hard rock/godfather of grunge Neil, but like many of his great records, draws firmly from both. A genuine legend with much left to offer.

11. Editors - An End Has a Start. I ranked 2006's The Back Room as my # 1 Album of the Year, and their sophomore effort is a worthy follow up. Produced by Jacknife Lee (U2, Snow Patrol), this release successfully plows the Joy Division-only-slicker ground of their debut ("Racing Rats" and the title track, e.g.), but adds some interesting twists including the intriguingly titled "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors," which starts with simple piano and vocals, explodes into soaring guitars, and concludes with a full-on choral arrangement that is as pretty as anything released this year.

10. The Maccabees - Colour It In. Solidly part of the post-punk renaissance along with fellow Brits Bloc Party, The Futureheads, and others, the Maccabees were one of the most exciting bands to debut in 2007. This album is just a delight to listen to - syncopated rhythms, distinctly English vocals, skittering guitars and stop/start song structures that just blow you away. A must.

9. The National - Boxer. I saw this band open for Arcade Fire and was hooked. Originating from Cincinnati and NYC, these guys have been grinding away for years, but are now starting to get some impressive critical recognition. Often slow-paced and quiet, they produce beautiful music with evocative lyrics. Highlights include "Fake Empire," "Mistaken for Strangers" and "Slow Show," but the whole album is really good. It's not high octane but it's perfect for contemplative moods (you have those, right?)

8. Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare. Easily the most hyped band to come out of England in years (and given the British music press's penchant for touting the "next big thing" every month or so, that's saying something), these extraordinarily young dudes somehow met expectations with their electrifying melodic-punk debut, Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Rather than succumb to a sophomore slump, Arctic Monkeys have made a record that is just as interesting, just as punchy, and just as clever as the first time around. They're about one great album away from becoming one of the very best bands in the world.

7. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin. Shoegazer rock meets Southern alt-country, and incorporates some U2-style melodies. One of the most addictive albums of the year, there just isn't a bad song to be found. Often compared to My Morning Jacket due to strong vocal similarities to Jim James, my feeling is that Band of Horses has surpassed MMJ. No small feat.

6. Black Kids - Wizard of Ahhhs (EP). You can read several posts on the blog about this sweet pop band. I normally wouldn't consider a 4-song EP for my top albums list, and I suppose it's technically not an album. But these four songs are perfect. Expect huge things from this band in 2008.

5. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky. Every new Wilco album is a revelation. This is their most confident, relaxed, and sublime effort. The guitar work on "Impossible Germany" has Duane Allman looking down from rock and roll heaven with a big smile on his face. Most of the album eschews the band's recent sonic experimentation in favor of simpler, tight-knit songs. I like all things Wilco, and they continue to impress and amaze.

4. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City. The best band on the planet not named Radiohead. Bloc Party's musicianship, songwriting skills, and clever combination of older influences makes them fascinating to behold. Some critics didn't fawn over this album the way they did over Silent Alarm. Well they should have. Perhaps nothing will ever match that classic debut, but their second full-length gets under your skin and into your bones with each successive listen. Even more amazing is the fact that the band simultaneously recorded around a dozen more songs - enough material to make up an additional album. If you know where to look (ask if you don't know), you can download these songs and create your very own "Another Weekend in the City" (my name for it). It blows me away how good the additional songs are - every bit as good as the main album. It's like they recorded a double album without a bad song to be found. See them live if you have not.

3. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible. America's premier indie rock band. Not counting a very excellent EP, Arcade Fire have now issued two albums, both of them instant classics. Ambitious, engaging, apocalyptic, Neon Bible is an unforgettable set of chamber pop classics that will break your heart and then restore your musical soul.

2. Radiohead - In Rainbows. The circumstances surrounding the release of this album were nothing less than earth-shattering from a music business perspective. One of the most critically and commercially successful bands in the world, currently untethered to a record company, Radiohead decided to release its new album in downloadable format, allowing fans to pay whatever they want for it (including $0, if one preferred). As fascinating an experiment and as dramatic a shot across the bow of the music industry that In Rainbows was, let's not overlook another key fact: it's a damn great album. It rocks like Radiohead. It mellows out like Radiohead. Like Wilco's Sky Blue Sky, it moves away from recent song deconstruction efforts towards tighter, more conventional arrangements. The result is the most powerful, straightforward Radiohead album since The Bends.

1. Bright Eyes - Cassadaga. Conor Oberst is 27 years old. That is a flooring thought when one considers the volume and quality of music he has produced already in his life. His latest with Bright Eyes is the pinnacle of his career. Named after a Florida community of mystics and spiritualists, it's an impressive mix of folk, rock and country, combined with devastatingly powerful lyrics and themes and stories straight out of every corner of America. The lyrics of "Four Winds" (see http://www.metrolyrics.com/four-winds-lyrics-bright-eyes.html) - the best single of the year, by the way - never fail to engage the imagination. Indeed, the whole album is terrific, and impossible for me to forget. The oft-made Dylan comparisons seem less and less fanciful with each passing year.

Notes for my best of 2007 CD

2008-01-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

So I put together a best of 2007 CD ("2007: The Year in Song") for a few friends and thought I'd offer a few comments on the songs here. It was a hard project putting the CD together. Really, it was a dishonest project. At some point I stopped putting on the songs I thought were the best and started trying to put together a CD that flowed song-to-song. One song per artist, trying to keep the tempo steady, etc. Because you know what? This isn't the damn Oscars. It's a mix tape. Anyway, as a whole, this represents the best of 2007, at least to me. A lot of stuff I was sure was going to be on here didn't make it, notably: Shellac, PJ Harvey, Liars, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Boat, QOTSA, and Band of Horses. Here it is:

1. Rainin in Paradize by Manu Chao: Manu Chao sings leftist rock and roll in six or seven languages, including languages I've never heard of. He spends a large part of this song repeating "to the extreme" over and over as if he were starring in a 1994 Mountain Dew commercial -- either that or he's singing some phrase in Catalinian that sounds like that. He also spends this song ticking off every area of political crisis on the globe. None of these things are reasons I like this song. They are all reasons I should hate it. But I find this song irresistable. Maybe it's the sirens, maybe it's the beat, maybe it's the guitar line that kicks in a little before the 1:00 mark. This song commands my attention. This song is an anthem, and I dig it, even if I don't really know what's going on in Moldovia.

2. Patty Lee by Les Savy Fav: Les Savy Fav is the successor to a lot of music that I like -- melodic post-punk, if you want to give it a name. Let's Stay Friends is a terrific album from a band that looked like it was going to fade. Honestly, I could have put a few different songs from the album on here. I had What Would Wolves Do? on for a long time. Pots & Pans led off for a while. These guys can seamlessly vary tempo, noise and mood. TIm Harrington seems to be as good as Black Francis in terms of mixing up singing and screaming. I'd like to see these fellas live in 2008.

3. No Dreams by Oakley Hall: I became aware of this song from a Merge Records sampler. The band's bio insists that they aren't Americana, but just American rock'n'roll. I don't know what it is, but this song grabbed me from the first time I heard it. It has some of that ol' dustbowl nostalgia feeling, but a more rocking sound than most of that stuff.

4. Peacebone by Animal Collective: This is my song of the year, I think. It's sublime. It flows back and forth between noise and harmony. It's random, but you couldn't imagine it being put together any differently. It needs a guy muttering "bonefish" five seconds after a lion's roar. Most people seem to be fonder of Panda Bear's solo work this year, but I love how these guys sound together. It seems like it would be pretty fun to be in this band. That's usually a solid indication that the music is good.

5. If Looks Could Kill by Camera Obscura: If Motown was a place in modern day Scotland, and The Supremes were a bunch of chicks with cat glasses and knit hats, this song would be the biggest hit of all time. This song sounds exactly like it was written in 1962. And the more I hear it, the more I think that this song sounds so happy because it's so depressed. It's Self-Consolation Scottish Motown maybe?

6. Veni Vidi Vici by Black Lips: O Katrina got this Atlanta band a lot of radio play (relatively speaking). I think after all that was said and written about Katrina, people were ready to hear it interpreted as Zombies/Turtles 1960s garage rock. But don't overlook that these guys wrote another garage rock anthem that treats an even more significant social issue even more cavalierly: "Mirror mirror/On the wall/Who's the greatest/Of them all/My man Muhammad/Or Jesus too?/Whose messiah/Be good for you?" Plus, this song puts the word "y'all" through a lot of interesting strain.

7. Little Cream Soda by the White Stripes: Five years ago, I really thought The Hives were going to be the band that emerged from the return-to-rock era. I didn't even buy The Hives album this year. The White Stripes are your winner, commercially and artistically. Icky Thump is another album that could have placed multiple songs on my CD, notably Conquest and Icky Thump. Little Cream Soda eventually distinguished itself for me through Jack White's lyrics, a bunch of world-weary verses wishing life was simpler, but most of all through Jack White's guitar riff, hard and thrashing with a little high-pitched part that periodically escapes involuntarily like a bubble. (Meg White on drums.)

8. Been There All the Time by Dinosaur Jr.: Did I say Peacebone was the song of the year? Forget that. I was lying to you. This one is. Original line-up back intact, Dinosaur Jr. is a loud, polluting engine of rock once again, spewing filthy guitar noise. By the end of the song, J. Mascis is just soloing all over the place, but having Lou Barlow around keeps it all hooked together and un-noodly. It's exuberant. It's awesome. Go buy Beyond. It's the best album Dinosaur Jr. ever made.

9. Threshold Apprehension by Black Francis: We got the Dinosaur Jr. triumphant reunion album, but we didn't get the triumphant Pixies album many of us wanted very badly. Oh well. Frank Black changed his name back to Black Francis anyway and put out a very good album (Bluefinger) with a return to Pixies-era vocals. This song sounds like a demo of a Pixies song with either Black Franny or some random woman singing the Kim Deal parts. It's about a European punk guy who I haven't heard of, but that's not really the point for me. The point is that it sounds enough like The Pixies, even if just in rough form, to make it one of my favorite songs of the year.

10. Misfits & Mistakes by Superchunk: In some parallel universe, in 2001, Superchunk's members would not have started having kids/becoming record moguls; they would have continued making albums and touring. Superchunk fans are left with one or two shows a year, and a couple of soundtrack or compilation songs. Misfits & Mistakes from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force soundtrack demonstrates that Superchunk would be blowing everyone away in that parallel universe. Mac would have returned to his pre-Come Pick Me Up vocal style; the band would have gone a little more Polvo/math rock; and they would still be among the tightest bands around. Come back, Superchunk, dammit. Come back.

11. I'm Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You by Black Kids: We've written a lot about these guys. We like 'em. I had a dream the other night that they put out an album. I can't see real good -- is that Nostradamus over there?

12. Melody Day by Caribou: Andorra is a great album that everyone loves. This song is really good. Reminds me a lot of Hazy Shade of Winter. Folk song with a good beat.

13. I've Got Some Friends by Akron/Family: This is the last song I added. I've been listening to it a lot lately. In about three minutes, it manages to sound like electronica, Joe Piscopo, Dave Matthews, Mark Mothersbaugh's compositions for Rushmore, They Might Be Giants, your local high school madrigal singing group, and the It's A Small World Ride at Disneyworld. And then there are a few elements I can't place. And yet it manages to be pretty awesome by listen number three or four. This is what they call freak folk. And none of the other songs on the album sound anything like this. I like it.

14. Fleetwood Crack by White Williams: I like the Akron/Family song because it has so much going on in it. I like this song because it has so little going on it. It's a little relaxed tune that establishes its catchy melody, gives you a languid vocal, and manages to work.

15. If the Brakeman Turns My Way by Bright Eyes:
16. Paper Planes by M.I.A.:
17. Your Party by Ween:

So here's how you listen to my disc: you listen all the way through up trhough Fleetwood Crack and then you pick one of these three songs to be your closer. I couldn't decide.

-The Bright Eyes song is in full command of the idioms of American troubadour/folk-rock music. It's all there, man: trains, brothels, opium dens, the brutal rain, empty cabarets, Death, Dreams, Conscience. Infinite Coincidence makes an appearance. We even get visits to Babylon and Augusta, Georgia (The Paris of the South). Most people wouldn't be able to get away with getting this close to Dylan.

-The M.I.A. song is a great mid-tempo song about total resignation with a nice Clash sample.

-The Ween song is a paean to something known only to Ween: maybe the joy of being the life of the party ("I spoke with fervor, embracing the evening"), maybe embracing being the kind of lame old guy who would love the adult contemporary party described in the song, maybe still being able to mock the sort of people who would enjoy this kind of party. What's fantastic about this song are the interlacing smooth jazz solos of Dean Ween and David Sanborn. I don't know whose work is more impressive: Dean Ween's because he doesn't play smooth jazz for a living or Sanborn's because he recorded after (and around) the guitar work. Whatever the answer, this is a pretty damn smooth song.

I Am Legend - Movie Review

2007-12-19T14:13:00.000-08:00

I Am Legend. Directed by Francis Lawrence. Starring Will Smith. 3.5 of 5 Dystopian Cityscapes.

The third adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 science fiction novel of the same name is the charm, or so I suspect. I have not seen "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price or "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston, but neither of them are heralded as especially good moments in cinematic history. This isn't to say that the latest version adheres completely to the plot of the original novel - based on what I know, there are significant departures (no, I haven't read the book either, making my I-Am-Legend-erudition highly suspect).

The basics of the story are pretty simple: Will Smith plays Robert Neville, a scientist-soldier who appears to be the last living human being on Earth after a supposed cure for cancer has instead wiped out most of the human race, and for the few survivors has mutated into a zombie-making, aggression-producing virus. He lives in New York City, speeding around in a sports car by day, "renting" videos and gathering supplies from various now-defunct retail establishments, talking to mannequins to preserve (or deteriorate?) his sanity, and hunting deer with his loyal canine companion. By night, he returns to his extremely upscale home, complete with generators for power, and proceeds to close up all windows and doors with metal barricades. Apparently the Big Apple still never sleeps. The creatures of the night stay out of the light, but run the city in places of darkness.

I Am Legend has two very strong attributes, the first of which is the mood of the film, with its strong sense of dreadful and quiet solitude juxtaposed with gripping moments of intense and horrifying action. The CGI used to give the impression of empty city streets and the inexorable return to a more primitive pre-human habitat is quite successful. The first night we see Smith curled up in a bathtub with his dog, clutching one of his many rifles, he listens to the ghoulish howls of the former humans - it's a bracing moment. When he has to follow his dog into a darkened warehouse and comes across a hive of zombies, the hair on my neck stood up. The entire sequence was as scary as it gets at the movies.

Its second strength - really the secret weapon of the movie - is Will Smith. It may not have occurred to most people, but Smith is rapidly becoming a very fine actor. Consciously avoiding lame projects like "The Wild Wild West" several years ago, he has hit his stride in smaller independent films and smart high-octane thrillers over the course of this decade. It is his humanity that keeps the film from becoming just another horror film. His emotional attachment to his family (seen in upsetting flashbacks), his loyalty to his dog, his desperation to find a cure for the virus - all of these come across as believable. More than just a likable guy in real life, Smith has developed the ability to elevate everything he's in, like a Gene Hackman or Paul Newman. It's a quality not possessed by even some of the best actors, and having it ensures him a long career to come.

There are some faults with the movie. A handful of the CGI moments, especially when focusing on the raging faces of the infected, look like video game cut-scene fare. And there are moments of implausibility, even within the implausible universe created for the story. But fuzz your eyes a little and don't get caught up in the details. If you do, you'll enjoy this taut, suspenseful thriller with one of the most dependable actors in the business.

For One More Day/Margot at the Wedding

2007-12-12T14:15:00.000-08:00

For One More Day: 1 out of 5
Margot at the Wedding: 4 out of 5

I didn't grasp how much I missed The Sopranos until I saw that Michael Imperioli was starring in the TV adaptation of For One More Day and made a point to watch it. In case you aren't familiar with For One More Day, it's another glurgy Mitch Albom novel adapted into a move by Oprah's production company, telling this light-on-its-feet story: kid is driven by absentee father to play baseball; father leaves Dear Sainted Mother; kid ignores school for baseball; kid plays in a World Series then suffers career-ending injury; kid becomes an adult loser; blows off his mother's birthday for another shot at a career in baseball; mom dies (at birthday party); adult loser becomes an alcoholic and a bigger loser; becomes estranged from wife and daughter; has a drunk driving accident; hallucinates about having one more day with Dear Sainted Mother; learns that the father was a bigamist; adult loser reconciles with his daughter, now a sportswriter; adult loser dies.

As this mawkish oedipal melodrama (MOM?!?) unfolds, the father becomes increasingly craven and Dear Sainted Mother becomes more dear and more sainted. I suppose the point of the movie is to move us emotionally, but it doesn't. No person is as pure as Dear Sainted Mother, nor as purely churlish as Christopfuh's dad. Life isn't a cartoon.

The former point seems to be at the heart of Margot at the Wedding, which tells the story of Margot, a Manhattan writer played by Nicole Kidman, and her son going to her estranged sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh)'s wedding. Her sister is marrying a well-meaning but ineffectual man played by Jack Black, whose core vocation is writing letters to the editor. The flaws of every character are on full display, particularly Margot's. Margot, while loving her son dearly, is deeply selfish and insecure and doesn't miss a shot to project her own insecurities as another's fault. She cuts most deeply toward those she loves. The story tracks the escalation and consequences of her sociopathic tendencies. Nicole Kidman continues the good work she's been doing for about the last seven years or so. Jack Black is particularly good, letting the absurdity of his character slowly develop over the course of the film until it's in full bloom.

But unlike For One More Day, Margot doesn't wreak havoc on holy loved ones. She wreaks havoc on people who have their own problems. Perhaps her sister really ought not marry a lazy and unambitious guy. On the other hand, maybe she ought to learn something from him or her sister. The movie doesn't hide anything, but it doesn't particularly tell you what you should think of the characters. Instead, it provides layered character sketches allowing the audience to connect with the characters.

Noah Baumbach, of The Squid and the Whale, wrote and directed this. It bears some similarities to that movie in that it depicts highly literate characters who use their erudition as a shield to hide their imperfections and a sword to bludgeon others, yet who also have an underlying well-intentioned sweetness. It also depicts the way those individuals' neuroses are reflected in their children.

Baumbach worked with Wes Anderson on The Life Aquatic. In some ways, his movies are an inversion of Anderson's. Where Anderson's movies are funny but tinged with melancholy, Baumbach's are melancholic tales redeemed by humor. Anderson and Baumbach currently are working on an adaptation of a Roald Dahl story. Hide the children.

Irish Eyes Are Smiling

2007-12-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

The Thrills. Teenager. 2007 Virgin Records. 3.75 of 5 Good Vibrations.

The Irish and Americans have a connection that often manifests itself as a mutual fascination. In addition to extensive genealogical relationships, there are deep cultural ties that bind the two. Nowhere is this more evident than with regard to music.

It doesn't take a genius to spot the clear influence of Irish traditional music on the bluegrass and country sounds of the southern United States, where the heavy Scotch-Irish immigrant history is unmistakable. Modern Irish music heroes have looked to our shores for inspiration - Van Morrison absorbing and redefining the footsteps of Muddy Waters and Ray Charles; Damien Rice putting his own unique touch on the American singer-songwriter formula (or did we take that from them?); and U2, who are not only influenced by America and its music, but have made multiple albums about the subject.

Enter Dublin's The Thrills. Their 2003 debut release, So Much for the City, was a catchy, sun-soaked tribute to the Beach Boys and Neil Young (ok, he's Canadian technically, but the man has lived here forever). It remains one of the sweetest pop records of the decade, with absolutely unforgettable songs like "Don't Steal Our Sun," "Big Sur," "Santa Cruz (You're Not that Far)" and "One Horse Town." Let's Bottle Bohemia followed in 2004 - a little more raucous and funny, including the minor hit "Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?" Now comes Teenager, a nice return to that sweeter sound, although far from a rote Beach Boys homage.

Not to say that the album eschews nostalgia - quite the opposite. It sounds out of time, with a gentle buzz and swirl of harmonicas, mandolins, piano and harmonies. While maintaining their "American" roots, The Thrills aim for a different nostalgia here - Teenager appears to be a concept album (or at least a consistently themed one) about memories of young love and the struggle between regret and the satisfaction of having survived it all.

The upbeat "Midnight Choir" opens the album with its catchy mandolin-led melody. "This Year" shows the band's penchant for harmony, while "Nothing Changes Around Here" and "Restaurant" display the band's slightly moodier side. On the latter track, lead vocalist Conor Deasy muses that "this will never be what I want, eating in some fancy restaurant . . . when all I ever wanted was you." It's charming in the slightly undeveloped way that a teenager might express love - but that seems to be the point. R.E.M. casts a long shadow over the music of "I Came All This Way," with its caustic contrast between "smug lovers" and longing memories of "backseat fumblings."

After a somewhat draggy middle portion ("Long Forgotten Song" sounds like an out-of-place Keane tribute, not to denigrate Keane necessarily, and "I'm So Sorry" which never seems to go anywhere), the album regains its wings with "No More Empty Words," a country-fied romp about moving on and forgetting the past. Then the title track brings down the hammer, with its gorgeous drowsiness and Leslie-speaker guitars. Deasy slowly metes out pearls of something approaching wisdom:

You rolled your eyes, teenage style; you said "I don't care for the past . . . but if I could go back, a teenager again, if I could go back, I'd trip over again. But where would I fall? And who would break my fall?"

It's a quintessentially Irish (translation: highly developed human) understanding - second chances only offer us the chance to make different mistakes.

The final two tracks perfectly illustrate the often incongruous nature of the way human beings process love, especially (but not exclusively) in our adolescence. The narrator of "Should Have Known Better" laments that he "once had big dreams like you girl, but they're hard to sustain in this world." Immediately the tone changes with the more hopeful and self-explanatory "There's Joy to be Found"/"The Boy Who Caught All the Breaks." The impact on the listener is a combination of wistfulness and recognition - the sentiments ring true in spite of, or perhaps because of, their inherent contradiction.

Teenager doesn't quite capture the exuberant, toe-tapping and can't-get-it-out-of-your-head quality of So Much for the City, but it is marked with a greater ambition and maturity. Ironic, I suppose.

Pimp C is Dead

2007-12-04T11:59:00.001-08:00

From TMZ:

"Pimp C, real name Chad Butler -- and one half of the rap duo UGK, was found dead in a hotel room this morning. He was 33. L.A. County Fire responded to a 911 call at the Mondrian Hotel, located on trendy Sunset Strip in Hollywood. They arrived to his sixth floor hotel room to find him dead in bed."

One of the best rappers few know about. UGK's latest video with Outkast is here: Video

That Killer B-Side

2007-11-27T13:31:00.000-08:00

The Killers. Sawdust. 2007 Island Records. 3.5 of 5 Flowers.

B-side albums are typically either muddled messes or enjoyably delicious non-sequitur collections. This is probably because there appear to be two basic philosophies when it comes to recording b-sides (since few people buy 45s anymore, I'm defining "b-side" to mean any song not included in an album proper - quibble with the definition if you so desire). One view is that b-sides are throwaways, non-essential, or incomplete songs; the other argues that b-sides have a life of their own and are worthy of attention and development just like a song destined for the album.

I make no Bones about it - I love the Killers. I love their melodies, I love their style and showmanship, and I love their willingness to do something different from time to time. Hot Fuss was a watershed release of the current decade, heavily dripping in 80s influence but with a unique spark that marked the band as truly gifted. I also found Sam's Town to be a great record, full of bombast and ambition. If there were failures on that album, they were greatly overdramatized by some reviewers. Their live shows have developed into must-see events. Add to this list of strengths the following: they know how to make a good b-sides album.

It's not always an easy thing. I can think of some bands that I absolutely love - some of my very favorites - who nonetheless don't have much in the way of great b-sides. The Police are an example. With a handful of arguable exceptions, there is no non-album cut on Message in a Box that would displace many (if any) of the songs that ultimately made it on their albums. Other examples in this regard include Oasis (minus "Acquiesce"), Cake (whose currently released b-sides album is largely forgettable), and, at the risk of blasphemy, R.E.M. (they have several good b-sides as a result of being great for so long, but on average rarely approaching the quality of the associated albums). Some bands I like are particularly adept at making b-sides that easily could be album cuts - The Cure, Catherine Wheel, and probably the best modern example, Bloc Party. It's time to place The Killers in this latter category.

The opener duet with Lou Reed, "Tranquilize," is a moody, grinding rock song that finely juxtaposes Reed's somber mumble with a child chorus sing-along. Several of the Sam's Town outtakes exhibit the arena-rocking flavor of the album - "All the Pretty Faces," "Move Away," the bouncy "Under the Gun," and most especially, "Daddy's Eyes." The Dire Straits cover ("Romeo and Juliet") is well done, even if the other covers seem a little unnecessary - "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town" and Joy Division's "Shadowplay" - although with regard to the latter, it's really not bad, and I take heart knowing Brandon Flowers is a Joy Division fan. The bulk of the Hot Fuss outtakes are perfectly sugary, such as "Who Let You Go" and 'The Ballad of Michael Valentine," and the 10-minute club remix of "Mr. Brightside" stands on its own, becoming a dance song but retaining the perfect, heart-wrenching angst of the original.

The two finest moments come with "Where the White Boys Dance," a soulful number from the Sam's Town sessions that achieves a truly different sound for the band, and the fantastic, shoulda-been-a-hit "Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll," from the Hot Fuss sessions. The latter is reminiscent of "All These Things That I've Done," its epic structure similarly punctuated with a gospel-tinged chorus.

Sawdust isn't perfect - there are a few misfires, but the unmistakable conclusion is that The Killers have a knack for carving out memorable hooks and harmonies. Even when they're leaving the extra shavings on the floor.

Classic City Heartbrake

2007-11-20T20:26:00.000-08:00

Black Kids at The Flicker Theater, Athens, Georgia, November 16, 2007.

4.25 out of 5 Next Big Things.

"The show starts at 9:30, and there's an opening act. So I guess that means the Black Kids will go on no earlier than 10:30 - probably 11?" This seemed to be a reasonable presumption on my part. But the guy from Wuxtry (known to me only as "Mike") promoting the show responded with indisputable logic, "well, both bands have short sets, so don't be late."

On reflection, I should have at expected as much. After all, as far as I knew, the band only has four songs, comprising their Wizard of Ahhhs EP that I had downloaded for free from their MySpace page after reading Codfish's review. I had become very familiar with these four modern pop classics after repeated spins. It's infectious and compelling music, making it nearly impossible to stop listening to Black Kids once you start.

Four of us made the seemingly dubious but ultimately sagacious decision to trek to Athens on Friday night and stay at a hotel, meet my sister, take in Black Kids and stay over for Georgia v. Kentucky at Sanford Stadium the next day. This review isn't meant to recount another epic tale, but suffice it to say, it was an epic tale. Let's focus on the show.

The Flicker Theater doorman at first was prepared to disallow entry to my 18-year old sister after revealing it was a 21-and-over show (a fact conveniently omitted at every stage of the ticket acquisition process prior to that). I calmly explained how far we had driven and allowed that "she absolutely loves this band." That seemed to do the trick. Perhaps I was exaggerating, but after seeing the show, I'm not sure that isn't an accurate statement. Black Kids will become a favorite of yours if you just let them.

The Lolligags were an interesting opening act - a guy with a guitar, a girl with a microphone, and a laptop making bouncy, cool little synth-pop songs. And indeed, it was a short set. The Flicker Theater is a great venue - two rooms, each as small as a decent-sized living room, one serves as the bar, one as the performing area. There's no stage and you can get as close as you want to be. In fact, mingling among us were the members of Black Kids. The intimacy is perfectly suited to experiencing a band at the nascent stages of what could prove to be an electrifying career. I was there when, and all that.

After a brief sound check in which lead singer/guitarist Reggie Youngblood presciently commented off-hand to his bandmates, "this is going to be loud," they broke right into it with the sweetly innocent-sounding "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You." Any concerns the show would end after four songs were quickly dispensed with when their second song (shorthandedly listed as "Listen" in the set list photo below) didn't sound familiar other than sounding good.

Over the course of an eight-song set, Black Kids did rousing versions of their remaining three EP songs - "Hurricane Jane" with its forlorn lyrics ("Friday night and I ain't got nobody, what's the use of hanging around"), the wry "I've Underestimated My Charm (Again)" imbued with shades of Motown girl groups, and perhaps the song of the year, "Hit the Heartbrakes" (commonly misspelled, even by the band - see set list below). But they also introduced three other new songs and I kept thinking, "is it possible the new songs are better than the ones I know?" The fact that I was asking the question is exhilirating to me because of the promise it implies.

A 9th song was added as an encore, and when the crowd pleaded for more, the band obliged with a spot-on cover of The Clash's "The Magnificent Seven." The band hung out and shared tidbits of information, like the likely release of a full length record next year. Then we filtered out into the cool Athens night, sweet teeth properly satisfied.

No Country for Old Men

2007-11-19T14:21:00.000-08:00

4.75 of 5

I said No Country for Old Men was my favorite movie of the year before I saw it. All I really needed to know was the Coen Bros. were writing and directing a Cormac McCarthy chase flick set in West Texas with Tommy Lee Jones as the sherriff and Javier Bardem as Evil Incarnate in a Davey Jones wig. I threatened to write the review before I saw the movie. Whatever I would have written before seeing this movie would not have been nearly positive enough.

The acting is first rate. Javier Bardem commands the audience's attention every second he's on the screen. Josh Brolin blends so well into his character that he scarcely seems to be acting. But even better than those two is that of Tommy Lee Jones. It is a subtle, growing performance. At the beginnning, he seems to be playing the same role he has played in a million other movies. By the end, you realize that he's pulled off an iconic performance.

But more than anything else, this movie is about the Coens. This was supposed to be their return to form, washing out the taste of the middling Intolerable Cruelty and the unwatchable remake of The Ladykillers. Here, they were to be returning to one of their favorite themes: the average guy way getting in way too deep in the underworld. By this point in their careers, they have achieved total command over their particular form of storytelling. The worst thing I can say about this film is that at times it felt like The Coen Bros.' Greatest Hits. There are conscious echoes of some of the best parts of their previous films.

Oddly enough, the strongest echoes in this intense drama are of their funniest movie. I expected No Country to take its cues from Blood Simple, but instead, I had the feeling that this was Raising Arizona, freed from screwball comedy and remade as ultraviolence. Javier Bardem is Tex Cobb's the icy, inhuman Angel of Death. Josh Brolin is Nicholas Cage's two-bit prey in the sights. On at least three occasions, there appear to be conscious homages to shots from Raising Arizona. But it is remarkable how differently a similar story can be told.

One of the persistent knocks on the Coens has been the claim that they show disdain for their characters and distance themselves from their material through veils of sarcasm and humor. This film obliterates that criticism once and for all. It delivers the most devastating emotional punches of anything they've ever done. I really ought to give it five stars.

Icelandic Pleasures

2007-11-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

Sigur Ros. Hvarf/Heim. 2007 XL Recordings Ltd.
Hvarf: 4 of 5 Guitar Bows.
Heim: 3 of 5 Guitar Bows.

Formed in 1994 but crashing onto the scene and upending musical expectations and possibilities in 1999, Sigur Ros have developed a dogged independence and unique musical style. Their impact has been tremendous, with many groups citing and exhibiting their influence, not the least of which was Thom Yorke, who has credited them for inspiring Kid A.

Putting aside the mostly impenetrable Von (1997), Sigur Ros have been in the business of releasing majestic, mind-blowing albums since 1999's Agaetis Byrjun. I can remember my first few experiences with that album, one of which was listening to it while driving in a rare Georgia snowstorm. It's hard to imagine elemental conditions that could have been any better in terms of bonding with the music. Their distinctive sound evokes an emotional response that transports the listener's imagination to windswept landscapes in Iceland, complete with flickering atmospheric conditions overhead. The essential Sigur Ros song slowly builds, revealing its pieces one by one, with comforting warm rhythms and echoed guitar swirls (thanks to the use of a cello bow), punctuated by lead singer Jonsi's high-toned, nearly feminine vocals. Some of the songs are lengthy, all of them are beautiful, and every now and then they explode into blazing moments of truly memorable rock and roll anthem.

Nor was Agaetis Byrjun a fluke. In 2002, the band followed it up with eight untitled songs on an album simply named ( ). Fans soon scoured the internet to learn that, indeed, there were song titles to these eight masterpieces (not that many of us truly understand the mixture of Icelandic and made-up language - "Hopelandic" - that permeates the Sigur Ros catalog). 2005 saw the release of Takk . . ., a more upbeat and happy sounding set of music that nonetheless maintained the signature style of Sigur Ros. Altogether, these last three albums are truly gifts to the music world. Even if you've never listened to one of their CDs, it's almost guaranteed you've heard them if you've been to the movies in the past decade.

Perhaps these high standards are the cause of my mild disappointment in Hvarf/Heim. A double compilation album, the set contains no newly written songs. Hvarf is only five songs long and is clearly the superior of the two discs, containing (with one exception) previously unreleased material. "Salka" is a gorgeous mid-tempo ballad, while the rocker "Hljomalind" bucks the traditional formula of slow build up by getting right down to business. "I Gaer" is a tremendous effort that starts as a quiet lullaby reminscent of the sounds of a mobile above a crib - then from nowhere comes a frightening drum sound that transitions the song to something that would be completely at home on the scarier portions of The Wall. "Von" is a welcome and more accessible re-imagining of the title track to their debut album. Hvarf concludes with the epic "Hafsol," a song fantastically re-worked from its original version from 1997. I'm still blown away by "Hafsol," with its opening sounds of syncopated slapping of guitar strings with a drumstick and the musical journey that follows, but here's the thing - this version already appeared as part of a CD single two years ago.

Heim is a bit more frustrating, though not because there's anything wrong with the music. It contains six songs that are all live, partially acoustic versions of previously released tracks. The performances apparently took place in Iceland in 2006-2007. I cannot recommend a Sigur Ros show highly enough - they are an amazing live band. I have seen them three or four times and each time was a borderline religious experience. They are also really great to their fans and quite humble concert hosts. But the problem with most of Heim is that there is little to indicate that these were live performances. The atmosphere and energy of a live performance is mostly absent due to the production quality, which is terrific but results in most of the songs simply sounding like only slightly altered versions of the pre-existing studio recordings. The notable exception is the version of "Agaetis Byrjun," which relies more heavily on acoustic guitar and departs from the 1999 studio version quite a bit.

So where does this leave things? If you haven't listened to much Sigur Ros, Hvarf/Heim actually would be a fine place to start - all of the music is really, really good. But for those of you who are already fans, like myself, what you get is four previously unreleased songs plus some slight reworkings of older material. If you're a collector, it's a must have, and I have truly enjoyed listening to the unreleased material on Hvarf. But it can't match the overwhelming sense of discovery and wonder that accompanied their prior three studio album releases.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

2007-11-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

Rating: 6 1/2 Dranos

Nobody -- no matter who you are or what you think happens when the lights go out -- nobody wants to believe that life is futile. That's one of the things that's most upsetting about suicide, the idea that for some people life just doesn't work. Wristcutters: A Love Story is a darkly comedic meditation on this idea. As a movie, it does work, but just barely.

The movie follows Zia (Patrick Fugit) from his suicide through a journey in a melancholic afterworld, a Limbo reserved for suicides. This afterworld is the animating idea of the movie. It is a colorless, affectless zone where guys can go have a beer and play pool and talk on girls, but to no real end other than killing time. It's a world of high-strung roommates and incompetent car mechanics. It's a world where nothing really works.

Zia's main sidekick is Eugene (Shea Whigham). I was able to sleuth out that this character was based on Eugene Hutz, the moustachioed lead singer of Gogol Bordello because (a) his name is Eugene, (b) he's Eastern European, (c) he has a moustache, (d) he's a singer in a band, and (e) when he puts in a tape of his band's music, it's Gogol Bordello.

Beyond the idea of the suicidal Limbo, the movie has a few things working for it. Shea Whigham does a very nice job in his role, and Tom Waits comes in to add the requisite Tom Waits indie weirdness that he does so well. The movie also has some clever moments: figuring out how an entire family might have made it into the Limbo; dealing with the question of why you wouldn't kill yourself again; showing the mistrust with which Middle Eastern suicides would be treated. Probably the strongest part is the cinematography, which hits exactly the right balance of funniness and bleakness in depicting this netherworld.

The movie has problems though. Some of the performances are bad -- community theater bad. The direction was jumpy at times. What weighs the movie down the most, however, is plot. On the one hand, the movie relies on Anti-Plot, buoying itself along on a trail of happenstance, coincidence, and absurdity. On the other, the core of the movie is a pedestrian, predictable love story. You can't be El Topo and The Break-Up at the same time. Either have the courage of your art house convictions or give me a plot that follows the rules and conventions of drama necessary to create a compelling story.

With those complaints, I still say go see the movie. It's a clever idea, and it's got some good moments.

The New Math

2007-11-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

Mute Math at The Tabernacle, Atlanta, Georgia, November 3, 2007.

4.5 of 5 Fibonaccis.

It was not destined to be an enjoyable music experience. The day had been long and fun, but had taken its toll. It started at 8 a.m. as I picked up a friend for what would prove to be an epic Bacchanal.

First up: Brewhouse Cafe and English Premier Soccer. My love affair with Arsenal began about four years ago (thanks Nick Hornby!) and was now expressing itself in an obscenely premature rising on a Saturday to go drink screwdrivers and Guinness and watch the Gunners host Man U with a crowd of buddies. A late stoppage time goal by prodigy Theo Walcott preserved a draw and Arsenal's place atop the table.

Refreshed by the morning of sport, and subsequently buoyed by my usual Saturday midday repast at Taqueria del Sol, I was then ready for the annual Decatur Wine Festival. Arriving at the Decatur Square with a passel of companions (including my friend from Brewhouse that morning), I sampled . . . and sampled . . . and sampled. We rated tables by the level of pour and paid only intermittent attention to the quality of the wine.

By the time we needed to depart for the show, MARTA was the only option. There were more than a few moments of hesitation between us - tired, dehydrated, more than a little tipsy - crashing on the couch sounded more appealing in many ways. But we mustered the courage and slowly but surely made our way to the Tabernacle.

Best decision of the weekend. I had the pleasure of seeing Mute Math kick off the Bonnaroo Music Festival back in June (my virgin journey there), and they electrified that crowd. This night was no different. Actually, it was different - it was better. They played with a command and conquer philosophy - grabbing hold of the crowd from the first strains of their hit, "Typical," and never letting go.

Who the hell are these guys? Every bio I've read over the past 18 months since I discovered them always mentions (after the obligatory references to playing odd instruments like the keytar) the fact that they are from New Orleans. It's not like they're a zydeco band. The surface impression is that they are beholden to 80s alternative music with a little more of The Rock - like Ghost in the Machine on steroids. All of that is true, but if you listen closely, you hear new wave; you hear electronica; and you hear - dare I say it - jazz. The New Orleans connection becomes clearer.

But without a doubt their defining, championship-caliber quality is their live performance acumen. Completely at home on stage, in control while projecting a tantalizing image of spinning nearly out of it, they own the venue. Mute Math also possesses an ability and - more importantly, a willingness - to freestyle, to improvise, to seek the higher bliss of spontaneous live music. A Mute Math show is not simply listening to their record. The songs are all there, the connection between studio and stage preserved and recognizable, but the detours and forays and ad libs make it transcendent. Few young bands working today possess Mute Math's courage and confidence to lay it all on the line and depart from faithful recitations of their recorded output.

The show understandably leaned heavily on Mute Math's self-titled debut, with unyielding high energy from beginning to end - especially during high octane rockers like the above-mentioned "Typical," "Chaos," and "Break the Same." Even when they slowed it down, as with the fantastically beautiful "You Are Mine," Mute Math mesmerized the crowd. And merged with it, as when drummer Darren King stood high atop a drum supported only by the faithful below (see photo above). Singer/keyboardist/keytarist/guitarist Paul Meany also performed his patented athletic keyboard handstands (and eventually flipped all the way over):

(picture from a different show). It was bordering on wild and the fervor of the crowd built into a near-frenzy. And then it was over.

The long epic, which could have ended in a whimpering collapse, was redeemed by these crazy, non-categorizable chaps from The Big Easy. Wearily we wound our way back to our homes, assisted by a nice young Somali-American taxi driver. The bed felt good, the pillow crisp and cool, and my heart was still pounding.

Caetano Veloso - Ce

2007-11-08T19:08:00.000-08:00

iTunes doesn't have a bossa nova category, so it rendered the couple of Brazilian CDs I own as being in the "Easy Listening" genre. I eventually decided this was okay. There is a lot going on in an Astrud Gilberto or Nara Leao song -- the shuffle beats, the guitars, the horns -- but the essence of bossa nova is the combination of sweet melody and blase singing. I imagine I'm not the only person who heard "The Girl From Ipanema" for the first time on an elevator.

Caetano Veloso shares the seemingly effortless vocal abilities of the bossa nova singers, but no one would mistake his music for easy listening. He could certainly sing with sweetness and melody, but he could also plug in and play music that sounded like The Animals singing in Portugese. Before now, I was really familiar with Veloso's work primarily through five songs of his on a couple of Tropicalia samplers, and his fans. Oh yes, his U.S. fans. To them, he can do no wrong. And he's apparently something of a Brazilian political hero, having withstood years of being at odds with (and censored by) the government of Brazil.

This gave me misgivings about Veloso's last album, Ce, despite the extremely positive reaction it has garnered. A pop icon from the Sixties putting out an album in his sixties. And a revered political folk hero at that. It seemed highly likely that the moony panegyrics in support of this album were lifetime achievement awards. I don't speak Portugese. I don't have the full context. How could I tell if this was going to be a Paul McCartney Memory Almost Full type situation, with present failings forgiven in light of past greatness. (Honestly, I have no idea if this is the case with Memory Almost Full, but I totally imagine it to be the case.)

Coming at this largely from a position of ignorance allowed me to sit back and appreciate the album without worrying where it fits into an overall legacy. Its first song, counterintuitively named "Outro," announces that this is an ambitious album, not a resting on laurels, featuring multiple tempo and voice changes. The album balances Veloso's voice with punchy and sometimes dissonant guitar lines. The music doesn't stay in the same place for long. "Musa Hibrida" is Latin funk; "Minhas Lagrimas" is a haunting gaucho ballad; the intuitively named "Rocks" is rock. Of all the tracks on the CD, only "Rocks" is unimaginative and standard, a perfunctory run through power chords, redeemed slightly by the solo. By my second time through the album, I was skipping "Rocks." The mood of the remaining album is surreal, tropical, and elegant. I let iTunes know that this music was called Tropicalia.

Morrissey, The Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA, November 5, 2007

2007-11-06T07:12:00.000-08:00

"We can't wait until we're done either. Obviously we're fans too. We want to be out there watching Morrissey with you." The lead singer of the opening act Girl In A Coma was being overly defensive perhaps. The reception for her band was pretty warm, and the band deserved it. Despite being a little rough around the edges, Girl In A Coma was doing a workwoman-like job of bringing The Rock. And they were Morrissey disciples, these butch, tattooed rockabilly chicks from San Antone, so the crowd felt forgiving.

It's nice to see the catholicism of Moz's modern fanbase. There was a time when it was supposed that The Smiths' video for "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" accurately depicted the Morrissey cult. In that video, The Pope of Mope bicycles around some grey English streets, followed closely by a throng of floppy males with pomadours and cardigans and National Health glasses. And they were a fanatical bunch in real life too. In college, I saw news footage of a record signing Morrissey put on, featuring a bemused reporter trying to get some sense out of a hysterical weeping giant of a man. For a guy who knew every word to every song the Smiths put out (except Jeane, which I could never seem to obtain) and was familiar with large portions of the Morrissey solo catalogue, I always resisted an identification with Morrissey. I liked him fine. I just didn't want to be one of his fans.

As a result, I never saw Morrissey until this year. A few months ago, I saw him at Chastain where there was genuine antipathy between the Chastain season ticket holders who subscribed for the Foreigner tickets and Morrissey, the militant vegetarian, who complained loudly about having been turned into a cabaret singer. The Chastain show was a quick, hilarious affair, with Morrissey mentioning the Pig'n'Chik in hopes of gathering the crowd for a Meat Is Murder tirade, only to be drowned out by people cheering for their favorite BBQ joint.

Morrissey came back for a second Atlanta appearance in the course of a few months, this time at the Tabernacle. The show was excellent. He wasn't nearly as funny or talkative as he was at Chastain, because he's Morrissey and he has a lot more to say when he's pissed off. What wasn't there in banter was there in music. He ran through solo favorites like "Last of the Famous International Playboys" and "Irish Blood, English Heart," but also played five Smiths songs in a twenty song set: "Stop Me ...," "Death of a Disco Dancer," "How Soon Is Now?," and two Louder Than Bombs tunes: "Stretch Out and Wait" and "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want."

I missed out not seeing Morrissey in the late '80s and early '90s. At this point, he's a showman. He understands how to get maximum crowd response with minimum effort expended. He knows which words in his songs he can omit so the crowd can hear itself sing. He understands how to whip the mic line for effect and when to introduce the band. Don't get me wrong -- I'm a fan and it's great -- but it's probably not what it used to be.

The secret star of a Morrissey show is Boz Boorer, his longtime guitarist. Morrissey recently turned down $75 million to reunite The Smiths, probably out of a continuing desire to snub Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce. But, in a way, Morrissey can avoid reuniting The Smiths because he has a decent substitute for Johnny Marr in Boz Boorer. As his worst solo work proves, without a rock guitar accompaniment Morrissey is a cabaret singer. His crooning works best when it is hemmed in by a loud rock guitar. I'm not saying Boz Boorer is Johnny Marr's equal. Marr is untouchable, one of the true greats, as Angelo or any other student of the '80s will tell you. But, it is a tribute to how very, very good Boz is that he can allow Morrissey to dip as deeply as he does into The Smiths' catalogue without it becoming embarrassing.

Everything is Cool

2007-11-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Pylon at The Earl, Atlanta, Georgia, November 1, 2007.

2.75 of 5 Gyrations.

Pylon exemplifies the early Athens, Georgia music scene. They were the R.E.M. before R.E.M. - the band that was supposed to "make it." But before they were to tour with U2 back in 1983, they decided to call it quits, having concluded that playing rock and roll was no longer fun. Despite their too-short career, Pylon's unique blend of new wave and dance music left a lasting legacy and influenced a number of acts in their wake.

Being an Athens native myself, and feeling all nostalgic, I was excited to see Pylon perform. The band appears to be playing a few shows coincident with the reissuance of Gyrate, and having not seen them since I was in middle school (maybe at the show depicted to the right), I figured I shouldn't miss out. I gathered up a willing friend who hadn't the faintest clue who Pylon was or is and headed to The Earl. The crowd was a potent mixture of seasoned veterans on a similar mission to mine and a surprising number of younger folks trying to discern what the fuss was all about.

We made it to the show in time to catch the two opening groups. The first was Athens-based The New Sound of Numbers, apparently Pylon guitarist Randy Bewley's current project. Highly percussive and quirky, they were pleasant enough, in a DIY kind of way. Next came Atlanta natives The Selmanaires, who put on a great show, playing a set of catchy, bouncy indie rock anthems.

Finally, as the crowd size surged to near-full capacity, Pylon ascended to the stage (ok, the stage is only about a foot high) - Bewley on guitar, Michael Lachowski on bass, Curtis Crowe on the drums, and the legendary Vanessa Briscoe (now Hay) on vocals. They opened with "Cool," which was solid enough, but unfortunately the next 20 minutes or so were rather lackluster. Some technical problems caused significant delays between songs and there was a decided lack of energy for a while.

The disappointment quickly dissipated, though, as they recovered with several solid songs from their catalogue, improving with each successive one. The performances of "Crazy," "Feast on My Heart," (my personal favorite) and "Volume," among others, rocked with a solid intensity I had been craving from the beginning. Lachowski's bass, always the essential melodic instrument for Pylon, was in fine form as it interlocked well with Crowe's solid backbeat and Bewley's patented harmonics. Hay's vocals were as strong as ever, even if the thrashing about the stage has been toned down over the years.

It was hardly a transcendent show, but it was a nice trip down memory lane and a good way to remember a classic band whose quality and influence far outstripped its commercial success.

She's Lost Control (in a good way)

2007-11-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

She Wants Revenge. This is Forever. 2007 Flawless/Geffen Records.
3.75 of 5 Bela Lugosis.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so the saying goes. On the first listen to This is Forever, the sophomore effort from California-based duo She Wants Revenge, the casual observer might be tempted to conclude that the band is being overly complimentary to its spiritual forefathers from the goth and darkwave eras of the early 80s and beyond. While the influences are undeniable, it would be a mistake to classify these songs are purely derivative. As a fan of Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus, New Order and the like, let me offer my perspective, which is that She Wants Revenge has made a high quality goth rock (with more emphasis on the “rock” this time around) album. It is a definite improvement over the self-titled debut, which showed impressive promise at times but lacked overall consistency.

Not that there’s a wholesale change in style. The monotone vocals are still prevalent, but immediately one notices that the tone is darker (presaged by the album cover, a variation on the first cover but with a black motif instead of white), the synths are spookier, and the guitars are more prominent. The production is also richer and fuller. While She Wants Revenge presented itself as a souped-up ode to Depeche Mode, This is Forever owes itself more to early-era Cure (check out “This is the End” for confirmation), in particular Pornography and to a lesser degree, Faith. Not content with simple dance club anthems for the vampire set (e.g., “Tear You Apart” from the debut), She Wants Revenge now seems keen on bringing the rock as well.

There are moments of stark musical beauty, as in the teen angst parody (let’s hope it’s a parody anyway) “She Will Always Be a Broken Girl” and “Pretend the World Has Ended,” a synth-heavy tribute to we’ll-make-it-together-against-all-odds songs. Some of the tracks just rock, like “Written in Blood” and “True Romance,” the latter of which recalls the bouncy beats of “Personal Jesus." Although the songs generally adhere to a certain sound, they aren’t repetitive and very few of them seem like throwaways. The album closer, “Rachael,” neatly combines all the best elements of the album and makes you happy (ok, in a melancholy way) to replay the whole thing again.

As with the first album, the protagonists of the songs are by and large distressed females discussed in the third person, resulting in an odd consistency between the band's name and the subject matter of its songs. She wants revenge, sure, but she also has a lot of other stresses to deal with. While the comically morose nature of some of the lyrical themes can be a little overdone, it should be remembered that it's goth rock, after all.

She Wants Revenge may stand on the shoulders of giants, but the view’s pretty nice up here.

M.I.A., Center Stage, Atlanta, GA, Halloween Night 2007

2007-11-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

It has been suggested that I must like the idea of M.I.A. more than I like her actual music. The reason I don't take that as more of an insult than I do is that there's a grain of truth in it. I like the idea that M.I.A. is out there, a British-Sri Lankan woman and a worldwide ragga/hip-hop superstar, because there aren't many people who fit that description whose songs I can download on iTunes.

We got to Center Stage late last night because I wrongly assumed that Halloween would decrease, not increase, the crowd and because I assumed that M.I.A. appealed only to a fractional subset of the city. I couldn't have been more wrong. The show was sold out and we were immediately offered four times face value for our tickets. The diversity of the crowd was kind of awesome. There were (1) people dressed in hip-hop gear; (2) reedy, diffident kids in WRAS and WREK t-shirts folding their arms defensively; (3) Asians out to support an Asian artist; and (4) club kids of every race and hue in Halloween costumes. (Most popular costume: headwound with glowstick. I'm guessing the glowsticks weren't supposed to be part of the costume, but the headwounds and the glowsticks matched up nearly perfectly for some reason.) Almost all of the city was represented. It was pretty cool. The City of Atlanta would do well to substitute a crowd shot from last night as the picture that greets arriving visitors at Hartsfield-Jackson in place of the picture of half-naked children galavanting in the Centennial Park fountains.

As I said, we were late, so we only saw the last song from the opening band. They were called The Cool Kids, and, as you might surmise, they were a old school rap group -- by which I mean that they are in their 20s and act like they are rapping in 1987, not that they are in their 40s and have been rapping since 1987. Two MCs; one DJ. I liked it.

A short break and a few Red Bull & vodkas later (seemed like the correct drink for the night; maybe we should post later about how properly to calibrate the music you are listening to and your drink selection), a video was played -- something you've probably seen on YouTube -- a nihilist, anarchist Japanese candidate screaming for the destruction of the state. Then the lights went down, a D.J. came out and started exhorting us, the crowd, as representatives of the ATL to cheer for M.I.A. to come out, which was something I thought we were doing a fine job of on our own. She then arrived on stage, half-staggering/half-strutting wearing neon leggings, a windbreaker, big sunglasses, and a hat rescued from some military junta. The overall impression was of seeing a feminized combination of Luther Campbell, the late Robert Goulet, and Muammar Gaddafi.

By the second song she was dipping the microphone into the crowd so that we could finish her sentences. While she remained huddled up and hidden behind shades, a more accessible and friendly M.I.A. banged on drums in the middle of a jungle on video screens behind her. I feared we were getting the rockstar treatment.

But, about four songs in, she relented. She took off the sunglasses and looked us in the eye. She ditched the windbreaker, revealing a baggy "I Get A Round" t-shirt underneath. She told us how much she loved being in "The A-T-L, home of great music like Black Lips" (not the band I expected her to namecheck, but okay) and even favored us with a couple of exaggerated "y'alls."

In 1989, I was standing in virtually the same spot watching another staggering singer in heavy sunglasses from overseas, Shane MacGowan, play on the same stage. That night, Shane told us that somewhere not far from where we were, Steve Earle was sitting in a jail cell and then dedicated Dirty Old Town to him. I don't know why Steve Earle was in jail that night -- bar fight? heroin? -- but we cheered for him like he was Nelson Mandela. Dirty Old Town is a British song about loving your hometown while feeling completely confined by it. I think we all got it.

Nearly two decades later, I think this new assemblage of Atlantans also understood M.I.A. pretty well. I think we got her the best during "Paper Planes" a song with very pretty mid-tempo verses that explode into a chorus of gunshots, or maybe during "Boyz" a song that veers from tequila shots to warfighting. The opening video wasn't entirely there to be laughed at. What's great about going to see a Sri Lankan rapper or a slurring Irish bar singer or whatever is the chance to experience something very different from your everyday experience while at the same time figuring out what connects you to the thing that is very different. Or maybe it's just all an excuse to get rowdy and dance. Maybe the club kids and the college radio kids can fight it out and determine the answer. I can see both sides of the argument.

Mark Ronson - Versions

2007-10-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

Rating: 6.9 Mash Ups out of 9.331

Recipe:

1. One part talented British DJ

2. Half cups of Lily Allen, personal favorite Old Dirty Bastard (R.I.P.), Amy Winehouse, Kenna, Robbie Williams and other off the wall choices

3. Covers of everything from Radiohead (Just) to . . . well a lot of other British people that I've never really listened to (Coldplay, Morrissey, the Kaiser Chiefs, etc.)

The result: Depends on your perspective. Right now Ronson's first single, Valerie (a cover of an indie-rock record by the Zutons featuring Amy Winehouse) is at the top of the UK charts. As always, Winehouse's voice is as strong as her pharmaceutical habits, and the song (which reminds me of what Lauren Hill might have recorded a few years ago if she hadn't gone bananas) is a Motown inspired track that "gets it" (at least from the R&B side of things). The strength of the song (and the album) is that it sounds great to those of us with R&B leanings who won't know the rock originals.

On the other hand, I am wondering how Smiths' fans will deal with someone "R&B'ing" "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before". I like Ronson's version, but I'm thinking it could be painful for some. He's picked such well known tracks to cover that it may be impossible to accept the new versions regardless of how many times it hits the MTV play lists.

But for me, that song, and the rest of the album were well worth the purchase. Will I be listening to this in 6 months? Probably not, but that's really not the point of this album (Gnarls Barkley's album, which has a similar vibe, was fantastic but how often do you reach for that CD when you're in a hurry?). The point is Ronson's ability to combine his interest in R&B and hip hop with indie/alternative classics, and he does that well.

Regardless, Old Dirty Bastard rhyming over Britney Spears Toxic is worth a download. It's the one song that falls outside the "British covers" theme and (as unfair as this is to the spirit of the project) it's my favorite song.

Now if Ronson can just find a way to make an Oasis record palatable, he'd really be on to something.

Angelo Retro: The Top 10 Non-Metal, Non-Van Halen Guitar Solos of the 1980s

2007-10-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

This is the first entry of a recurring feature on the blog known as Angelo Retro, which will look to the past, sometimes the distant past, for topics of commentary.

When I was in middle school and high school, way back in the era known affectionately as "The 80s," my musical tastes sometimes ran a little counter to prevailing opinions in my semi-rural, semi-suburban hometown. One area of contention with several of my school chums was always about "college rock" (though some of it had nothing to do with college) versus heavy metal. Now don't get me wrong - I loved the Scorpions, early Def Leppard, and like every other teenage male, had shredded the strings on my air guitar playing the solo to Dokken's "In My Dreams" multiple times. I also allowed myself to get drawn into senseless debates about the relative athletic merits of Eddie Van Halen (I usually took his side), Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, and other similar show-offs. The presence of blistering guitar solos seemed to be the only point of reference for some people as to what made good music. But I preferred the stylings of R.E.M., U2, The Cure, Big Country, and other such acts that apparently were viewed with much derision by the Motley Crue crowd.

Occasionally, however, I would rejoice at the sound of one of my musical heroes - eyeliner, pompadour hairdos and all - nailing a great guitar solo. Although my metal friends would never give these great guitar moments their appropriate due, I could tell that they were secretly disturbed by the notion that my guys just might be able to play the six-string with as much fire and bravado as the leather-clad set, while of course simultaneously making better songs in the process.

So - all hail the non-metal, non-Van Halen musicians who gave us the 10 finest guitar solo moments of the 1980s!

10. Los Lobos (David Hidalgo, I think) - "Is This All There Is?" - after the big horns take the song through the bridge, in comes a blistering, blues-soaked blast of Clapton-a-riffic goodness. Fits perfectly into the melodic structure of the song.

9. Tom Petty (Mike Campbell) - "I Won't Back Down" - 16 notes. It's one of the slowest, laziest sounding solos you'll ever hear, but it's absolutely great. Another in a series of great guitar efforts by Mike Campbell.

8. R.E.M. (Peter Buck) - "The One I Love" - guitar solos were pretty much anathema to R.E.M. That's what makes this one so great. Unlike Buck's prior rare, unconventional solos ("Begin the Begin", e.g.), this one is crisp and clean with sharp production. I remember seeing this song on MTV and immediately thinking R.E.M. was about to get really huge.

7. The Fixx (Jamie West-Oram) - "Saved by Zero" - the notes sound like they are in a sticky pot of goo. They almost trip over themselves, scratching and clawing their way to the final chorus. The Fixx achieved a unique guitar sound that is best exemplified here.

6. David Bowie (Stevie Ray Vaughan) - "China Girl" - a re-make of the song Bowie co-wrote with Iggy Pop, this version achieved tremendous commercial success. Stevie Ray played on the entire Let's Dance album (check out his work on "Cat People" for another solo that nearly made this list). Here he starts in the low registers, working his way through with a growing urgency and flashes of speed, culminating in a shimmering wall of sound and a few final notes, giving way to Bowie at the end.

5. The Smiths (Johnny Marr) - "Barbarism Begins at Home" - it can be hard to tell where riffs end and solos begin on this song, but the recognizable solo about two-thirds of the way in contains some of the most interesting and original guitar work I've ever heard. It's an exhausting song (in a good way) and one of their most underrated.

4. Flock of Seagulls (Mike Score) - "Space Age Love Song" - yes, the dudes with the absurd haircuts. Once you remove any prejudice you might have against so-called "keyboard" bands, you will notice that Flock of Seagulls had great echo-laden guitar parts on their best songs. For example, "I Ran" has a number of sublime touches. On this, their finest song, the solo just screams for the sky and never lets up.

3. U2 (The Edge) - "In God's Country" - there are so many great U2 songs to consider in any list about 80s music. While U2 was not always about the big guitar solo, this one contained in this classic song from The Joshua Tree is breathtaking. After a brief respite from the chorus, the song nearly stops and all you hear is a rich acoustic guitar strum. Is this the end of the song, perhaps a quiet denouement? The Edge quickly supplies the answer when out of nowhere he comes flying in on a fighter plane and just blows the thing through the roof. It's one of the memorable moments in music for me.

2. Prince - "Let's Go Crazy" - both of the solos, in fact. This raucous song with the nuptial-style beginning is an all-time classic, and Prince shows he's the baddest man around. In the first solo, he weaves and cuts and screeches like Hendrix on steroids. In the final climax of the song, he's hitting so many notes with the wah-wah pedal, it nearly obliterates the mind. If this song went down to the crossroads, the Devil would be forced to sell his soul to Prince.

1. Tears for Fears (Roland Orzabal) - "Shout" - absolutely, 100% note perfect. I have rarely if ever heard a better solo that paradoxically enmeshes itself into a melody and stands apart from it at the same time. I am betting that most people reading this haven't ever really considered the guitar solo in "Shout" - I encourage you to re-listen.

So there you have it. Pretty boys and college rockers can play some gee-tar too. At least half of the guys mentioned above are still making good music. What's Yngwie up to these days?

PJ Harvey - White Chalk

2007-10-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Rating: 7.5 Piper Lauries

The '90s were a golden age for female singers who wanted to make music as small as possible. No melody was too languid; no register was too high; no string arrangement was too ethereal. In the other corner, hailing from some sheep farm in England, was Polly Jean Harvey, The 50ft Queenie, playing the electric blues, screaming and barking like she'd swallowed Howlin' Wolf's ghost. While her contemporaries covered up in flannel, PJ offered her pasty British body on the cover of 4-Track Demos in a bikini and sunglasses as if she was posing for the Swingers' Club of Leeds. Then in 1994, she dressed up in a red sequin dress, put on her best Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? make-up and gave the world "Down By The Water," a three-minute pop song about, I don't know?, murdering somebody's daughter in a fit of religious ecstasy. PJ Harvey brought to the '90s an sense of recklessness and freedom that was largely missing.

So it's a little hard to explain White Chalk at first. The howling blues -- evident as recently as 2004's Uh Huh Her -- are absent. There may not be an electric guitar on the album. Instead, White Chalk is comprised of eleven piano ballads, many of which feature PJ singing in what must be her highest obtainable octave. Is this some belated concession to the Lilith Fair set? Thankfully, it is not. Instead, she now seems to be channelling some kind of pre-rock Victorian evilness to give this record its emotional punch. But the blues hooks are still here, just disguised as piano rolls. The clearest expression of this is When Under Ether, which is her strongest song in more than a decade. It returns to one of her favorite themes, Menace and Motherhood, and gives us terrifying phrasing such as: "Something's inside me/Unborn and unblessed/Disappears in the ether/This world to the next." Other standout tracks are: "Grow Grow Grom," "The Mountain," and "The Devil."

I won't lie. I would love for PJ Harvey to make albums like "Rid Of Me" and "Dry" over and over again until I got sick of it. Still, this record is a great example of how an artist, nearly two decades into her career, can do something very different while still maintaining the vitality that gained her notice in the first place.

Lost in Life and India

2007-10-25T10:58:00.000-07:00

The Darjeeling Limited. Directed by Wes Anderson. Starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwarztmann.
3.125 of 5 Rushmores.

The master of quirk himself, Wes Anderson, has bestowed his latest upon us. The Darjeeling Limited - named after the train on which much of the story takes place - is at its core a buddy road trip movie, only with more sweet lime drinks, cobras, and a trio of estranged brothers as the buddies. It's a pleasant, visually appealing film that nonetheless flirts with irrelevance as it sometimes tries too hard to establish its eccentricity credentials. In spite of this over-effort, the movie also contains perhaps Anderson's most genuine and affecting human story since his 1998 classic Rushmore, a criminally overlooked film that should have earned Oscar consideration in a number of categories, especially for Bill Murray as Supporting Actor. (The 1999 Academy Awards - for films made in 1998 - may go down in history as the most absurd Oscars ever: Shakespeare in Love winning over Saving Private Ryan; Cate Blanchett's arresting performance in Elizabeth inexplicably losing to Gwyneth Paltrow's in Shakespeare in Love; Roberto Benigni winning over Ian McKellan in Gods and Monsters and Ed Norton in American History X; Judi Dench winning a Supporting Actress Oscar for uttering about three lines of dialogue - but I digress).

At the outset of the film, the three brothers have met up in India to travel across the country, replenish their spirituality and reconnect with each other. We quickly learn of the recent passing of their father and the various proclivities of the three brothers - Owen Wilson as the accident survivor who adopts a busybody mothering role; Adrien Brody as the awkward kleptomaniac who is the most distraught by the recent tragedy; and Jason Schwartzmann as the perenially barefoot lone wolf pining for a lost girlfriend. All three appear to be manic-depressive self-medicators. What follows are episodes that sometimes resemble the better parts of Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, but occasionally seem more like quirk for its own sake. There's nothing particularly wrong with this approach, but the viewer doesn't sense that the story is heading towards anything transformative or even mildly hilarious. The brothers squabble with each other in passive-aggressive ways and start to question the wisdom of their journey, especially in the face of Wilson's mid-film revelation about the true purpose of the trip.

Then the movie takes a turn - details not revealed here - that reconnects the characters to human beings other than themselves and puts their sorrow and familial dissolution in perspective. I found this to be the finest part of the film and its saving grace. It can't match the belly laughs and root-for-the-underdog spirit of Rushmore, nor the frenetic craziness of The Royal Tenenbaums, but The Darjeeling Limited, despite exhibiting too much effort to demonstrate its idiosyncratic oddity, has an emotional weight to it that kept me thinking about it long after the lights went up.

Black Kids - Wizard of Ahhhs EP

2007-10-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Rating: 8 Gary U.S. Bondses

Jacksonville, Florida is a source of dubious contributions to the world of music, having given us Pat Boone and the creator of "Disco Duck." So I was puzzled when the only two things I knew about Black Kids were that they were from Jacksonville and that everyone thought they were awesome. Awesome how? The opening notes of "Hit The Heartbrakes" -- the first song on Wizard of Ahhhs -- sound like "Sayonara," The Pogues' dabble into gauzy Pacific Rim music; the singer's voice suggests Ian Curtis or Robert Smith. Then a backbeat kicks in and the bass starts playing against the melody like it's from Manchester in 1985. What the hell is this again?

A: It's dance music. But it's dance music that's not ashamed of being polyglot. It doesn't rely on bass thump; it's going to try every trick in the book to get you moving. By the close of the EP, it is explicitly Motown with a "whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh" female backing behind a male lead. The last time I heard something remotely like this was Elvis Costello marrying New Wave and R&B on Get Happy! The name Get Happy! conveyed that it was time to quit screwing around and make some fun music. Black Kids take the point and add to it, throwing in the post-punk bands of the mid-'80s for good measure. For the last hundred years or so, American music has grown through the mixture of seemingly incongruent music traditions. These kids from Jacksonville are keeping that spirit alive.

Not only have Black Kids made a very good record, they've one-upped the folks at Radiohead Corp. They're giving this EP away on their MySpace page. There's no tip jar or anything: www.myspace.com/blackkidsrock. That indicates a confidence in their ability to hook in listeners. I think it's well-placed. Go download it. Then go see one of their upcoming shows:

Nov 15 2007
8:00P
Star Bar
Atlanta, Georgia

Nov 16 2007
8:00P
Flicker Theatre
Athens, Georgia

Boris Had Its Way With Me

2007-10-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Boris at The Earl, Atlanta, Georgia, October 22, 2007
3 of 5 drones

There are many reasons to go to concerts. You absolutely love the band and hope they'll play that killer b-side that changed your life; you have free tickets; your significant other is a huge fan; you're bored; or you get an invitation to see a band you never would have gone to on your own and decide, why the hell not?

In keeping with the last reason, last night I saw Boris at The Earl down in East Atlanta with C2K. Boris, who has been around for a good 15 years, is described by wikipedia as "a Japanese ambient / drone / doom metal / noise / rock band." Let's see . . . yep, that about covers it. These guys blew me away - complete dedication to what they are doing. Not for everyone, and probably not for me more than every so often, but impressive nonetheless. As I am no longer as stupid as I used to be (though still pretty stupid), I wore ear plugs for this one. Others were not so . . . fortunate.

Flying hair, pounding drums (courtesy of Atsuo), intricate guitar work (by Wata) and double-necked bass/guitar bottom-heavy sounds of gloom and doom (by Takeshi) + two large Red Stripes = Vision Quest-like trance state. I wish I were a fan of the band so that I could tell you the names of the songs they played, but again, there are some shows you go to because you can and you want something different. This qualifies. Worth seeing if you have the chance.

"I Can Do a Top Ten Favorite Albums List Too"

2007-10-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

Recognizing the difficulty I have doing lists like these without consulting my entire music library and systematically doing it (a process that would take hours and hours and hours), and employing the caveat that tomorrow the list would be different, I offer this off the cuff list of my favorite albums of all time.

10. Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless
9. Warren Zevon - Warren Zevon
8. R.E.M. - Murmur
7. Radiohead - The Bends
6. Big Country - The Crossing
5. Prince - Dirty Mind
4. Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece
3. The Cult - Love
2. Catherine Wheel - Adam and Eve
1. The Police - Regatta de Blanc

Honorable mention:
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Ride - Going Blank Again
Nirvana - Nevermind
U2 - Achtung Baby
The Killers - Hot Fuss
The Cure - The Head on the Door

I could do this tomorrow and it would be totally different. In fact, maybe I will.

My Top Ten Albums

2007-10-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

As with Cod 2K's list, this could be completely different depending on what the Ipod spits out on the way to work tomorrow. For right now, the list looks like

1. Maxwell Urban Hang Suite
2. Jill Scott Who is Jill Scott
3. Bob Marley and the Wailers Legend
4. Nas Illmatic
5. Tupac All Eyez on Me
6. Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique
7. Stevie Wonder In a Square Circle
8. Mobb Deep The Infamous
9. The Wiz Movie Soundtrack [Stop hating. It was fantastic]
10. Marvin Gaye Midnight Love

Honorable Mentions:

1. Alanis Morisette Jagged Little Pill
2. Al Jarreau Live in London
3. UGK Ridin' Dirty
4. Dr. Dre The Chronic [Hip hop fans shouldn't have to mention this one. It should just be assumed.]
5. D'Angelo Brown Sugar
6. Sade The Best of Sade

On second thought, I doubt that Maxwell's masterpiece will ever leave the top spot. The only unifying theme I can find among the albums on my list is a freakish level of quality throughout each. Maxwell (and probably Jill Scott) will never leave the top of the list because their debut albums were consistently fantastic (and they get bonus points for starting off so strong). Any of the songs on either of those albums could have been hit singles. Jill Scott and Maxwell are also united by the fact that their two most recent albums are absolute garbage. More on that when I am in the mood to depress myself.

My Ten Favorite Albums

2007-10-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

This would change if I did it ten minutes from now. It's just to give you a sense of what I like. These are the ten albums I would pick to listen to from start to finish.

I'm not going to write about each of these in depth, but after I put the list together, I thought about whether there was anything that all of these albums have in common. With the exception of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and A Gift from a Flower, these albums are all united by having memorable opening tracks.

10. De La Soul 3 Feet High and Rising
9. Archers of Loaf Icky Mettle
8. Kinks The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
7. Ice Cube The Predator
6. Pogues Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
5. Superchunk Foolish
4. Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
3. Donovan A Gift from a Flower to a Garden
2. Pixies Surfer Rosa
1. Ween The Mollusk

Honorable Mention:
Buzzcocks Another Music in a Different Kitchen
Can Tago Mago
The Who Who's Next
The Smiths The Queen is Dead