R-O-C-K ’bout the U-S-A

On deck today is some condescending lampoonery of Americana, courtesy of some of our European friends. (See also Pierre, DBC, Vernon God Little.)

• Prefab Sprout, “Cars and Girls” (buy here)

In which Brit songwriter Paddy McAloon takes on the Boss. One of the occupational hazards of the kind of ubiquity that Springsteen achieved after Born in the U.S.A. is that many people glimpse the surface and assume they’ve taken the measure of the whole. For example, in “Cars and Girls,” McAloon refers to “Brucie” in the first line and schools us that “some things hurt more, much more, than cars and girls.”

Um, yeah. Like maybe the tension between the definition/expression of selfhood and the limiting/determining forces of our social & political institutions? Between the comforts of community & relationships and the oppressions thereof? Between the human impulse to escape and the human need for stability & love? Because all that stuff, plus a bunch of other stuff, is what Springsteen’s work is about. You know, if you’re actually listening.

McAloon’s high horse is also hobbled by utter incoherence. Seriously, here are the lyrics for “Cars and Girls” – if anyone has any idea what the hell he’s trying to say, beyond the line I’ve already quoted, please let me know. Musically I don’t think it’s Prefab Sprout’s finest moment, either – it sounds trebly & sterile & except for the tiny blip in the chorus line kind of tuneless. Give me “Faron Young” or “When Loves Breaks Down,” which at least have some kick to them, any day.

OK, then, moving on.

• The Leather Nun, “Pink House” (album is Force of Habit, but out of print I think)

In which John Mellencamp draws the wrath of an ’80s Swedish band and must answer for the sins of the cultural colossus from which he came. Mellencamp’s corny “Pink Houses” is undoubtedly more scorn-worthy than Springsteen; whatever his strengths, the Artist Formerly Known as Johnny Cougar never had the Boss’s keen perception or storytelling chops. However, the Leather Nun’s “Pink House” paints the aforementioned cultural colossus in the coarsest of strokes – “Rambo Reagan is forcing me to eat an American pie” – which again calls to mind that surface-glimpse/measure-of-whole disconnect. The singer’s saying more about his own anxieties than about the America that exists in the real world.

On the other hand, as an expression of those anxieties the song is interesting in its own right (note the recurrence of the word “forced” in the lyrics), and as a polemic it’s entertaining & at least comprehensible. And musically it crackles, man: the snap of the snare, the organ solo coming on all Midwestern heartland, the shining guitar crunch, and the singer’s Teutonic-sounding vocals, his chewy, brooding phrasing. I still think the words are goofy, but damn, for a song that declares war on classic rock, its strategy is infiltration, and I can listen to it happily any time.

Wishing I Could Forget

• Nita Rossi, “Untrue, Unfaithful (That Was You)” (buy here)

I love the show-tune feel: the opening flute, the strings, the tympani sound of the drums, the wispy verses alternating with the belting chorus. It doesn’t get much more massaged & manicured than this, even though the song’s an expression of raw misery & confusion. (She’s been fucked around by her dude, still cares about him anyway, hates herself for it, etc.) It’s like the singer’s engaging in some formal soul-cleansing ceremony via this highly stylized piece of theatre: dispelling the pain & rising above it & honouring it all at once.

All of which, I realize, could be said about approximately one million pop and soul and show tunes of all stripe. But very few of those million tunes have a flute line as awesome as this one. And we are big fans of the flute here at Bury Me Not.

Guest Post: Flaunt the Imperfection

Yes, we have guests. Well, now we do. Please welcome a Friend of Bury Me Not, Gary Butler, who offers this appreciation of The Fall, a band I believe, and I write this with a little surprise, is appearing for the first time on this site.

Once one has developed an ear, the always changing, always imperfect sound of postpunk rockers The Fall assumes a kind of ragged glory. Mumble-mouthed Mancunian madman Mark E Smith, the band’s undisputed leader and sole constant member for more than 30 years, not only flaunts his imperfections but also rejoices in them. Embrace these obvious shortcomings – accent exaggerated to the point of approaching Tourette’s, borderline tone-deafness, catalogue of addictions – and it’s surprising but clear to find the man to be the ramshackle portrait of professionalism. Consider Smith’s good sense to (almost) constantly surround himself with musicians as adept at taking chances as they are at taking orders. A madman’s privilege, he’s the only person who knows how he wants his band to sound; good thing he at least knows how to get it.

Then there’s his impeccable choice of cover material (almost every studio album since 1985 has included at least one), songs often lesser-known but usually absolute firecrackers in their original form. Despite The Fall’s usual postpunk classification, Smith’s roots are in ’60s British garage and early-’70s Krautrock. Like anything to do with The Fall, his reasons for the band’s cover selections are his own, and if they often seem audacious, bear in mind that a garage-cum-kraut take on anyone’s work would have to qualify as audacious almost by definition.

Here, then, some music, and some imperfect audacity.

First up, the original: “This Perfect Day” (The Saints, 1977). At the conceptual level, the Smithification of Aussie protopunk Chris Bailey’s sneered, thuggish vocals is no giant stretch. (Or is it?) Without doubt, the challenge is this pristine song’s defining, epic, blank-generation lead-guitar riff, which dispatches all comers, proclaiming itself absolutely untouchable. (And it is.)

• The Saints, “This Perfect Day” (buy here)

Next, The Fall’s rough take of “This Perfect Day” (from the band’s 22nd Peel Session, late 1998). Smith predictably messes with the vocals, delivering misremembered lyrics like an incitement to riot, where with Bailey they were more something one shouts while fleeing the fuzz. But here’s the jaw-dropping bait and switch: call it respect, for lack of a better insight into Smith’s mind, but the Saints’ grand and untouchable guitar riff is … gone, entirely. In its place, a shambling lower-E lead, trading off with muted, reload-the-ammo strum, in the song’s second half alternated with a dissonant, furball-hacking chop (arguably a hard-edged cousin to the Bend Sinister B-side “Entitled”).

Was the music here a repurposed demo for which the band was expecting new lyrics from Smith? Was the umpteenth incarnation of The Fall completely unfamiliar with the original song? Was this cover simply Smith’s surprise to everyone present at the BBC Radio One studio (himself included, given lyric mangling like “Your mommy says” for “What more to say”)? Not knowing the answer is half the fun with this glorious car wreck of a recording, a cover version of such passionate immediacy that for the first minute (of two and a bit), its sheer force makes it seem more than just salvageable, but indestructible. Perhaps it is.

• The Fall, “This Perfect Day” (Peel session) (buy here)

Finally, The Fall’s official “This Perfect Day” (1999), which deftly channels the urgency of the then-recent rough version and, surprise, tweaks it aplenty, likely to suit Smith’s mood du jour. Second time’s the charm, here – almost. The previously stripped-down approach is subtly fleshed out, and the revamped structure even dares to acknowledge the source material’s chord changes. (Shock of the old!) The weak link is the predictable one: Smith’s vocals – so hushed at the start that one wonders if the mix is off, delivered with more growl on the second verse but never approaching the Peel Session’s drill-sergeant drawl.

Too bad, because the new version opens with a ten-second drum fill that’s pure military, followed by a machine-gunned lead guitar with a slightly funky air to it. Astonishingly, the riff here is wholly new – it has nothing in common with either the Saints song or the first Fall cover. Plus, the quality of his singing aside, the delivery is uniquely Smith, particularly the pacing: listen to mixed-up Mark E inexplicably parse the song’s best-known line, “It’s all so funny, I can’t laugh,” sandwiching it around, believe it, the chorus. It should not work, but it does. Pretty much. After all, it’s The Fall.

• The Fall, “This Perfect Day” (The Marshall Suite album version) (buy here)

Mark E Smith introduced me to The Saints. It’s likely enough that I would have eventually discovered the band on my own, but it’s just as fair to assume that that even so, I would have never studied “This Perfect Day” with such deconstructive intensity. I really do know why I love this song – all of its versions.

Here’s the rub: otherwise perfect, “This Perfect Day” will never be perfect to me. Flawless as was, to be sure. But in feverish dreams, I hear the Peel-Session Smith barking over the Saints’ heroic guitar, backed by one of those unusual Fall bass leads (either will do, both are far superior to the functional but plodding original). I developed an ear for The Fall, doctor, and now I hear things that don’t exist. That said, you could do a lot worse than to join me.

Pocahontas Was Her Name!

From Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe:

Hi! My name is Pocahontas and I’m nineteen, but Pocahontas isn’t my real name. I will never say my real name. If I say my real name you will die. Anyone who hears my real name will die. Pocahontas is my nickname, it means “person who cannot be controlled by her dad.” My dad didn’t make up my nickname, my mom did, before she died, and he’s kind of mad that that’s my nickname because every time someone says it – which is any time anyone says my name because anyone who says my name name will die, which has been proven, but right now I can’t talk about that because in English, which is not my mom tongue, you can talk about only one thing at a time, at most – any time anyone says my nickname they’re also saying my dad can’t control his daughter, and that’s bad for my dad, my dad claims, because he’s chief of our town and a bunch of other towns in this general area – Superchief, I think y’all might say in English.

I’m only a third or so into the book, but it’s a whole mess of grim, grimy fun so far. (A review here and a link to buy here.) And it calls to mind a great Billy Childish song, which is a bonus. Here are two versions – you can decide whether you prefer the uneasy, loping rhythms and zonked Kira vocals of the first, or the limey pub singalong of the second. (Put me down for the first, but that’s neither here nor there.)

• Thee Headcoats, “Pocahontas Was Her Name” (buy here)
• Billy Childish & the Singing Loins, “Pocahontas Was Her Name” (buy here)

Feelies Extravaganza

So the Feelies catalogue seems to be out of print. Which looks to me like an opportunity for some enterprising label to step up with what would be, after all, a fairly modest reissue campaign: the four studio albums, maybe a short disc of non-LP rarities (mostly cover tunes), perhaps a live album if a good tape can be found. Six CDs at the most, that’s all.

After all, Galaxie 500’s work has been lovingly kept in print – along with, um, a disc of non-LP rarities and a live album – and those two bands have an awful lot in common: a hugely appealing guitar sound, a heavy Velvets influence, a classical taste in covers, and a small discography (though the Feelies put out their four albums over 11 years and Galaxie 500 did three records in only three years). Small wonder that when Dean Wareham split from Galaxie and put his own group together, he recruited former Feelies drummer Stanley Demeski for the original Luna lineup. The two bands even share the same limitations: sometimes-clunky lyrics, thin production, a record-to-record saminess, a smallish musical vocabulary.

But then, all kinds of good bands have their limitations, and the Feelies are definitely worth hearing. Their records should be right there on the modern consumer’s great smorgasbord. I suppose Galaxie has been helped out by the relative visibility of Luna, and to a lesser extent Damon & Naomi, whereas the various Feelies offshoots (er, Wake Ooloo, anyone?) have remained relatively obscure. Still, given the Feelies’ cult rep, it’s hard to believe there’s not enough of a potential audience out there to justify pressing a few fresh copies of the classic records.

Crazy Rhythms and Only Life are my faves, the first for its twitchy shakes & the second for its assured calm.

• The Feelies, “Crazy Rhythms” (from Crazy Rhythms, 1980)
• The Feelies, “Slipping (into Something)” (from The Good Earth, 1986)
• The Feelies, “It’s Only Life” (from Only Life, 1988)
• The Feelies, “Sooner or Later” (from Time for a Witness, 1991)
• The Feelies, “Dancing Barefoot” (Patti Smith cover, non-album, 1989)

The Saddest Story

Eluvium’s the nom de plume of a Portland, Oregon cat named Matthew Cooper, who writes & plays ambient music that’s sometimes electronic & sometimes symphonic. However, if I told you that Matthew Cooper was a mad-genius neurochemist who’s won the Nobel Prize for distilling human melancholy & regret into three minutes of sad perfect sound, I bet you’d believe it after hearing this. And who could blame you?

• Eluvium, “Amreik” (buy here)

To me the heavy washes suggest weary resignation, while the lighter undermelody suggests something else, some mix of bewilderment & stubborn hope. But I suspect this one’s a real Rorschach test, pulling something different out of every person.

The album is new, Copia, and it’s quite lovely, though to be honest there’s nothing else on it with the emotional pull that this song has. I just wish the damn thing was longer. A lot longer. In general I’m of the belief that a song I like for three minutes I would love for 10, and if I love it for three I would really love it for 15. Oh well, that’s what the repeat button is for.

My thanks to the good dude at Penguin Music for selling me on this one.

On On Chesil Beach

I won’t say whether the conclusion of Ian McEwan’s new short novel is incredibly uplifting or utterly heartbreaking, since that would be a pretty big spoiler. But it’s definitely one of those two. Read it, read it.

Almost Immediately I Felt Sorry

• Cassettes Won’t Listen, “Fuck and Run” (info here)

It’s a little late to be going on about this one, but I’ve been enjoying it so consistently for the past two or three months that I’m going to anyway. It’s an electro-style cover of one of Liz Phair’s best-known songs. The original is, in retrospect, so threadbare in sound that this cover sounds like a space-age Phil Spector or something. Lots of little trills and lots of energy too.

The gender switch is also interesting – it’s now a male singer – but it would have been more interesting, I think, if he’d switched up the lyrics a little more. As it is, other than changing “boyfriend” to “girlfriend” and “guy” to “girl,” he’s left everything pretty much the same. For example:

You got up out of bed
You said you had a lot of work to do
But I heard the rest in your head
And almost immediately I felt sorry
’Cause I didn't think this would happen again
No matter what I could do or say
Just that I didn’t think this would happen again
With or without my best intentions

But wouldn’t it add a complicating layer or two to have a male singer, in those first couple lines, acknowledging his own guilt & power in the situation?

I got up out of bed
I said I had a lot of work to do
But you heard the rest in my head
And almost immediately I felt sorry
’Cause I didn't think this would happen again
No matter what I could do or say
Just that I didn’t think this would happen again
With or without my best intentions

Not that guys always have to be the callous ones or anything, and the cover has some nuances of its own for sure.

And in general, in fact, I do prefer songs where the singer is the powerless one. For example, the money line in the Mountain Goats’ “Cubs in Five” always jars me a little:

And the Chicago Cubs will beat every team in the league
And the Tampa Bay Bucs will make it the way to January
And I will love you again
I will love you, like I used to

I always want to hear “And you will love me again, like you used to.” Otherwise the singer sounds like a bit of a salt-in-wound-rubbing asshole, no?

Not that you always have to like the characters in great songs, just as you don’t have to like the ones in great books.

• The Mountain Goats, “Cubs in Five” (buy here)

Point-Counterpoint

From George Saunders' "My Flamboyant Grandson" (in In Persuasion Nation):

This, to me, is not America.

What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy has a crazy notion different from your crazy notion, you pat him on the back and say, Hey pal, nice crazy notion, let's go have a beer. America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamorous reasonable voice.

From Flannery O'Connor's "Writing Short Stories" (in Mystery and Manners):

When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one. The meaning of a story has to be embodied in it, has to be made concrete in it. A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story.

Death Proof

It baffles me that many of the Grindhouse reviewers seem to look more favourably on Robert Rodriguez’s contribution – the zombie flick “Planet Terror” – than on Quentin Tarantino’s, “Death Proof.” Myself, I thought “Planet Terror” was a forgettable waste of time. I can certainly appreciate the whole homage impulse, and I liked the little touches like the distressed film and the missing scenes & reels, but it seems to me that if you’re paying homage to something that’s not very good in the first place, what you want to come up with is something that only seems to be a pitch-perfect recreation, but that’s not really because it’s actually better. Rodriguez settled for just a pitch-perfect recreation, thus handcuffing himself to lame dialogue and mediocre action choreography.

(And for me at least, raising the question: do we really need to get all nostalgic for poorly thought out, badly acted movies that privilege sensation and spectacle above all else? It’s not like the grindhouse films were gentrified out of existence – they just got bigger budgets and moved into the rich neighbourhoods, pushing out their tea-drinking, pinkie-raising neighbours.)

“Death Proof,” though, I liked a lot, mainly because it takes the films of the past as mere inspirations rather than blueprints. The result is never anything less (or more) than a Tarantino picture: visually stylin’ but light on story, a bit poky, obsessed with pop culture, and talky, talky, talky.

All of which, frankly, I love.

Tarantino’s thing may not be to everyone’s taste, but I’ll tell you this – 10 minutes into “Death Proof” I already cared more about the characters than I ever did about anyone in “Planet Terror.” Sure, Tarantino does some bravura set pieces, but what I really love about his work is that more than anything else it’s about dialogue: the way people relate to each other via what they choose to say to each other. I mean, in his world, talking about sexytimes is sexier than actual sexytimes: it’s telling that “Death Proof” more or less begins with one of the female characters recounting a night-before makeout session, but a little later, when the same woman is just about to give Kurt Russell a lap dance, we get one of those “sorry, reel missing” notices instead and then skip ahead a few scenes.

And as ever, the dude’s also got primo taste in retro music. During a key scene in “Death Proof” there’s a British Invasion hit that I’d never heard of before (by the punchily named combo Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich) but have now been listening to nonstop for days. And at one point, when the camera zoomed in on a jukebox and previewed the record that was being cued up and I saw that it was this one –

• Joe Tex, “The Love You Save (May Be Your Own)” (buy here)

– I let out a little happy gasp in my seat. (And I figure putting it up here now makes up for posting one of Joe Tex’s more cringeworthy moments a little while back.)

My one gripe about “Death Proof” – spoiler in this para, so bail if you must – is that I was expecting more from the climactic car chase. I mean, the whole premise of the movie is that Kurt Russell is this psycho stuntman who stalks & kills women with his car, but this time he’s picked on the wrong people: two stuntwomen. Which you would think would set up some crazy, head-shaking, high-wire, Kill Bill-style stunts, but that never really comes to pass.

That said, most reviewers seem blown away by the car chase, so perhaps my expectations have been distorted by too much CGI or something.

Elsewhere, or, I Ain’t in No Hurry So Just Take Your Time

In the Star books section on the weekend I had a review of Kurt Andersen’s novel Heyday. Didn’t like it too much. And also recently I wrote a little thing for PopMatters about unreleased Springsteen songs. It has no timely hook whatsoever beyond being inspired by a recent piece they ran about Stones outtakes. But there you go. And if you’re coming here from PopMatters, you can find some more Boss-related content here and here and here.

Of all the outtakes I mentioned, I think this one is my favourite. Limited time only!

• Bruce Springsteen, “Taxi Cab (aka City at Night)” (buy nowhere)

Interesting that Springsteen is currently so hip with the indie kids (Arcade Fire, Hold Steady, etc.). I wonder if the eternal zeitgeist cycle is cycling back toward earnestness, since the Boss is nothing if not earnest, and not necessarily in a bad way: in his insistence that rock & roll is about community & inclusiveness & therefore mainstream populist appeal, and that there’s always something at stake for his characters, himself, his listeners.

And even in his comedy, which is less about wry comment from a distance (the stance of choice for many of our celebrated witty songwriters) than simple clownishness for its own joy. I used to think the jokey songs were weak & inessential, but now they seem like a crucial counterbalance to his more overtly ambitious impulses. I notice that very few of the outtakes I listed in that PopMatters piece are of the sturm und drang variety, and this, from the B-side “Stand On It,” is one of my very favourite Springsteen lines: “Racin’ some Red Hill boys, she had the deed to the ranch and a grand on it.” (The rhyming of “grand on it” with “hand on it” in the previous line is irrationally satisfying.)

Two Views of Times New Viking

One light, one dark. The light is in a parking lot at this year’s South by Southwest fest. The dark carries only the cryptic legend “Bourbon Street 2006” – a club? the actual Bourbon Street? I especially like the building intro to “Teenage Lust!” on the latter clip (the third of three songs that they rip through in four and a bit minutes).

Their new and second record, The Paisley Reich, is growing on me all the time. And now word comes that in the middle of a busy workweek, on April 18, they’re playing in Detroit city, a long four hours down the 401, and – get this – they’re opening for Yo La Tengo. Aw, c’mon, now the cosmos is just taunting me. (I get that feeling a lot, actually.)

Errand

Gotta take my winter jacket for a dry-clean because on the weekend I was at the Lunacy Cabaret and the show ended with the troupe & the audience pelting each other with bananas and now my winter jacket is covered with dried banana pulp. But, um, you should see the other guy.

Request for Information on the Subject of Canadian-American Relations

So I’m interested in references to Canada in American pop culture (mainly TV, movies, music, I guess). If you have any favourites, feel free to e-mail me (address can be found at left) & tell me what they are.

How in the World Were They Making That Sound?

Nothing like a good rock & roll apprenticeship. Just as the Beatles wouldn’t have been the Beatles without Hamburg, I bet the Velvets wouldn’t have been the Velvets if Lou Reed hadn’t first spent months working for a marginal record company called Pickwick, “literally locked in a room writing songs” in an effort to manufacture some get-rich-quick single. He didn’t, but he probably got lots of practice in finding out which key and chord changes create certain desired physiological effects.

One of the songs he came up with is thought to be his first co-composition with John Cale. It was released on a Pickwick 45 credited to “The All Night Workers,” but was soon afterward covered by the Downliners Sect over in England. That version, a much heavier stomp, became the definitive one and has in turn been covered a few times (ie by Billy Childish). Right now my fave of the versions I’ve heard is this one, by a retro San Francisco San Diego (thanks to commenter) band of the late 1970s. The beat is sped up, the rhythm section is hopping around, and you can hear the guitar strings bending.

• The Crawdaddys, “Why Don’t You Smile Now” (buy here)

But this version, from the early 1990s, is way cool too. Slow it down, sing it all seductive like, and rev up the psychedelic guitar churn for the chorus.

• Spiritualized, “Why Don’t You Smile Now” (buy here)

But back to the Velvets. Of course, patiently unfurling some vaguely rock & roll noise for an hour at a time while Warhol movies are playing on top of you and people are dancing around with whips in front of you is a whole other kind of apprenticeship.

• The Velvet Underground, “The Nothing Song” (with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Columbus, Ohio, November 1966 – 29:35, very large file)

When you go beyond the original/canonical four studio albums to the live stuff – especially the bootleg live stuff – it's a blast to learn just how expansive & generous a band the Velvets were. The long boogie jams, the ambient sound sculptures, and oh, oh, “Sweet Sister Ray,” a pretty marathon meander that they cooked up as a preface to one of their loudest & nastiest tracks. They contained multitudes.

• The Velvet Underground, “Sweet Sister Ray” (Cleveland, Ohio, April 1968, 39:22 – very, very large file)

I found the book pictured above in a store in Paris a few years ago, Shakespeare & Co., I think. As happy as I am to own it, I must admit I have no interest in actually turning its pages. Oh, and the post title is courtesy of this:

• Jonathan Richman, “Velvet Underground” (buy here)

Play Ball

To mark Opening Day, a reminiscence from last fall. Go Jays!

It’s the Blue Jays’ second-last home game of the season and they’re playing the Red Sox and I’m there with my parents, far down the right field line. In the section to our left a couple young dudes are holding up a sign and getting some laughs, but I missed what the sign said and I don’t think much of it. But then a few minutes later I notice that the dudes are apparently being escorted out and that my parents are talking about it.

My mom: I don’t get it, what did they do?

My dad: I don’t know.

Me: What’s going on?

My parents: They kicked those guys out just for holding up a sign!

Me: Well, what did it say?

My parents: “We love BJs.”

Me: (laughing) Oh.

My mom: What? What’s wrong with that?

Me: Ah, well, er, maybe I’ll explain later....

My dad: I think I know what it means.

Postscript: I really hope the dudes didn’t actually get kicked out of the game altogether just for that. I mean, come on.