Category: Record Reviews

Almost Famous

8ball

(JCOR Entertainment)

The first thing you notice about Southern rap pioneer 8ball’s new platter is an almost ascetic level of restraint. Instead of a triple-disc Sandinista-esque lumbering opus like 1997’s Lost, we have a relatively taciturn single CD with a mere 15 tracks. And secondly, we have a title, Almost Famous, that is as refreshingly humble and unpretentious as possible in the egoistic effluvium of modern rap. The cover is also a perfect example of the Memphis-born 8ball’s newly refined perspective. Instead of a Pen & Pixel-designed image of 8ball being ferried down canals full of glowing “Benjamins” by topless supermodel gondoliers, there is the cuddly mug of the Mid-South’s favorite spuddy spitter in full close-up, Andy Williams-style.

On the opener, “Thorn,” 8ball intones, “You see them pretty motherfuckas on the TV screen/Live and die for that fake shit on MTV.” And just as that perceptive observation is starting to sink in, you end up watching BET’s Rap City: Tha Bassment and peep his new video for “Stop Playin’ Games,” directed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst and co-written by the patron saint of the sellout, P-Diddy himself. But it’s hard to hold a grudge against 8ball. Partly because it’s such an infectious single and he’s been at the game for so long but mainly because he’s 350 pounds of playa heading for you in a Rolls Royce golf cart. And for every party-anthem head-bobber, there’s a corresponding contemplative chin-stroker.

Maybe it’s his recent bout with respiratory complications, no doubt abetted by his considerable breadth of beam and his perpetual leaf-chiefing, that has given him such gravity on tracks like “Spit” and “Live This.” However, on “Daddy,” 8ball has erred on the side of bathos. The chorus — “Daddy, when are you coming home?” — is sung by little children. This tearjerker concerns itself with a family torn asunder by the absence of the father, who is either on the road making hit records or dealing cocaine. It’s the urban equivalent of one of Red Sovine’s sentimental trucker ballads — call it “Ghetty Bear” if you must. But 8Ball, if you can’t tell by his girth, is an Epicurean at heart. So there are plenty of lyrics devoted to hydroponic green-green and, oddly enough, froufrou Grey Goose vodka interspersed with all of the heady verbiage. 8ball’s hedonism distances itself from its cousin, bling-bling nihilism, with an anchor in grown-ass-man philosophizing. Some rappers are still sipping on baby bottles; 8ball is nursing a Grey Goose on the rocks.

— David Dunlap Jr.

Grade: B+

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Find Your Home

The Vue

(Sub Pop)

More than just another group of make-up artists attempting the Beggars Banquet On $5 a Day program, the Vue (formerly known as the Audience) add personality and metaphorical guesswork to their second glam/blues platter, Find Your Home. Musically, they are a good (and very showy) garage/blues band that knows a trick that most in the genre do not: how to use space. And that space makes for a nod to forebears that don’t exist entirely in the ’60s. I hear Television, the Dream Syndicate, and Bowie-treated Mott the Hoople floating around in some familiar blues riffing you don’t mind hearing over and over again — specifically a revved-up version of the “ill-advised” electric records made by Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters in the late ’60s. Oh, and I mention “metaphorical guesswork” because the lyrics and vocals manage to overflow with the sexual charge of early-’70s glam while being vague in their direct motive.

Rather than a full-on minstrel show slumming around in genres they don’t understand, the Vue steal a few licks from the bands that perfected that slumming to begin with (the Stones, the Animals) and then move forward. Find Your Home is all rock swagger but not without the warm dissonance that made early Sonic Youth so good. Plus, they’ve got the charisma. The Vue are purportedly a fantastic live act (a necessity if you are going this route).

— Andrew Earles

Grade: B+

The Vue will be at Young Avenue Deli on Saturday, December 1st, with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

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Because It Feel Good

Kelly Hogan

(Bloodshot)

“[She] manages to express emotion without screaming, grunting, going out of tune, or using any of the other devices common to singers who attempt to make bad taste a substitute for soul.” Stanley Booth was referring to Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis album when he voiced that sentiment three decades ago, but he may as well have been writing about Kelly Hogan’s latest, Because It Feel Good.

An alum of what she calls “a billion bands” — including the Jody Grind and Rock*A*Teens — Georgia-native Hogan quit the music biz and relocated to Chicago in 1997. When she found a job working as a publicist at Bloodshot Records, the Windy City’s alt-country enclave, Hogan realized that she could no longer avoid her true calling. After contributing guest vocals to a bevy of albums by the likes of Alejandro Escovedo and the Waco Brothers, she came out from behind the desk last year to make the Bob Wills tribute album Beneath the Country Underdog, an underrated gem recorded with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, a collective of musicians including Jon Langford, Neko Case, John Wesley Harding, and Robbie Fulks.

If Beneath the Country Underdog is comparable to a raucous honky-tonk, then Because It Feel Good is a smoke-filled Berlin nightclub. From the album’s opener, a stark version of the Statler Brothers’ “I’ll Go To My Grave Loving You,” Hogan sets a cabaret tone with her alternately whispering, then booming, voice. Ably backed by a low-frequency violin and banjo warble, the country weeper becomes a battle cry: “I’d work day and night loving you/And when God calls us both above/Honey, you’d know that you’d been loved.” The overall effect is like filtering Tammy Wynette through Lotte Lenya — and, incredibly, it works.

Cut in Athens, Georgia, with producer Dave Barbe (Sugar, Son Volt) at the helm, Because It Feel Good features a handpicked group of Chicago musicians, including Jon Rauhouse on guitar and former Squirrel Nut Zipper Andrew Bird on violin. The 10 songs that make up the album encompass a wide musical spectrum — from oldies like the aforementioned Statler Brothers tune, “Please Don’t Leave Me” (an obscurity from soulster King Floyd), Nilsson’s version of Randy Newman’s “Living Without You,” and Charlie Rich’s understated “Stay” to modern tracks from indie faves Smog and the Bogmen.

Like Johnny Cash’s albums on the American label and Cat Power’s The Covers Record, Hogan’s interpretations of these familiar songs derive new meaning from even the most hackneyed tunes, making the material — unequivocally — her own. “Strayed,” another brilliant cover, comes from an unlikely source: Smog’s low-fi Dongs of Sevotion album. In a perfect world, Hogan’s rendition, belted out in a honeyed Southern voice, would rule the Nashville country scene. “I have loved in haste,” she laments. “I’ve been an alley cat and a bumble bee/To your panther, to your wasp/Oh, I have loved while thinking only of the cost.”

Range, depth, and carefully selected material all add up to a minor masterpiece. But what puts this album over the top — the final ingredient — is crystal-clear: Kelly Hogan has soul. It’s obvious that she loves to sing, and she expresses her emotions like a Dixie-fried Dusty Springfield, with grace, guts, and good taste. Why? Because it feel good. — Andria Lisle

Grade: A

51 Phantom, The North Mississippi Allstars (Tone-Cool)

With their 2000 debut, “Shake Hands With Shorty,“ local favorite sons the North Mississippi Allstars became the linchpin of Memphis’ musical “rebirth.” In such real-life terms as album sales, live following, and press attention in their own time, the Allstars became — at least until Saliva busted out a year later to surpass them — the biggest Memphis-bred rock-and-roll band since the Box Tops. And, unlike Saliva or the even more successful Three 6 Mafia, they’ve been wholeheartedly embraced by the city, their blues-based sound tied in to Memphis’ musical heritage.

But there’s a big world outside of adoring Memphis, and as a follow-up to “Shake Hands With Shorty,” 51 Phantom presents the band with at least two hurdles — the necessity to prove themselves as songwriters after a debut that was composed entirely of covers and the desire to solidify a fan base outside of the loyal, college-oriented jam aficionados that typically pack their concerts. 51 Phantom is a likely success on both counts.

Produced by patriarch Jim Dickinson rather than the band itself (as was the case with “Shorty”), 51 Phantom is a leaner, more rock-oriented record with some harder, heavier riffs and tighter compositions — only two songs pass the five-minute mark. The lead/title track encapsulates the band’s strengths: Chris Chew’s locomotive bass drives the song, Cody Dickinson’s forceful drumming gives it power, and Luther Dickinson spikes it with quick, strong slide-guitar runs. The song moves forward with purpose, with no wasted space, and Luther makes up for his pedestrian vocal skills through the sheer verve of his delivery, clearly having a blast by adding a warbling, ghostly “wooooo” to the end of some verses.

The song also answers the songwriting question straightaway. “Late in the evening about this time of night/51 Phantom gets to feeling right/Memphis to New Orleans, the 51 I ride/White lightning flashing ‘cross the Mississippi sky,” Luther sings, showing a way with lyrical blues tropes that catches up to his mastery of musical ones.

In fact, 51 Phantom includes only two covers. One is Junior Kimbrough’s “Lord Have Mercy,” which sounds like an outtake from “Shake Hands With Shorty” in that it duplicates the relative strengths and weaknesses of that record. The band’s soulful but never overly reverent way around the riffs and rhythms of hill-country blues has never been more evident, but near “Lord Have Mercy”‘s three-minute mark (this is one of the over-five-minute songs), Luther takes off on one of those high-pitched, Allmanesque guitar excursions that split Allstars fans right down the middle. In concert, this stuff sends some in the audience into overdrive; it sends me back to the bar.

The other cover, surprisingly, is the Staples Singers’ civil-rights-era “Freedom Highway,” revealing a gospel bent — perhaps enhanced by the band’s recent work on the instrumental gospel record The Word, not to mention Chew’s own church-music background — which also comes through on originals such as “Ship” and “Up Over Yonder,” the former featuring some nice call-and-response vocal interplay between Luther and Chew.

All in all, 51 Phantom is strong continuation of what the band started on “Shake Hands With Shorty,“ even if it ends with a thud. I can see how the almost metal-ly, chant-driven “Mud” might be redeemed as a concert staple, but on record it’s a failed experiment. It does, however, make nice use of Cody’s electric washboard. — Chris Herrington

Grade: B+

The North Mississippi Allstars will be at Young Avenue Deli on Friday, November 23rd, and Saturday, November 24th, with Burnside Exploration. 51 Phantom is set to release on Tuesday, December 4th.

Lend You a Hand

The Tight Bros From Way Back When

(Kill Rock Stars)

Remove your tongues from your cheeks and raise your fists in the air to testify to the beauty of well mid-’80s AC/DC. Not the first niche I would choose for a feverish updating in the new century, but what do I know? I do know that AC/DC’s Flick of the Switch (1983) is an overlooked, hitless masterwork, and the Tight Bros know how to use that record as a springboard into the current punk/indie lexicon. Perfectly, I might add.

The Tight Bros emerged in 1998, jumping from the ashes of leftfield hardcore weirdos Burn the Prophet NLSL and a Melvins’ facsimile known as Karp. They quickly established themselves as a bullshit-, in-joke-, and pretense-free pure rock band that shined in a live setting but sporadically translated well to record. Luckily, Lend You a Hand, their third full-length, breaks that trend. Its positive, light-speed, good-time boogie walks a perfect balance between a “brothers and sisters” MC5 schtick (and sound) and a street-punk-injected version of the aforementioned AC/DC record. That comparison comes to fruition at the sound of Jared Warren’s vocals, which are a dead-on approximation of Brian Johnson (not Bon Scott, as some will claim). Yes, time could have stopped in 1983, as Lend You a Hand blares from the blown speakers of a Chevrolet Citation en route to an abandoned racetrack open-air festival. — Andrew Earles

Grade: B+

Listening Log

1st Born Second — Bilal (Interscope): D’Angelo for Dummies, with too much atmosphere and not enough song. But he does have a decent falsetto and a sense of humor, which come together on the following Inspirational Verse: “You got me wishing I didn’t have home training sometiiimes.” (“Fast Lane,” “All That I Am,” “Sometimes”)

Grade: B

Beats, Rhymes, & Battles Vol. 1 — DJ Red Alert (Loud): “For those of us who fear that one day someone will say that hip hop started out with Jay-Z, Puffy, or Ja Rule,” DJ Red Alert comes to the rescue with a history lesson on five of the music’s classic battles: the “Roxanne” songs, MC Shan vs. KRS-ONE, Kool Moe Dee vs. LL Cool J, Doug E. Fresh vs. Salt-n-Pepa, and Antoinette vs. MC Lyte. First- and second-generation hip-hop heads will have a blast; young ‘uns will learn something. (“Roxanne’s Revenge” — Roxanne Shante, “The Show” — Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick, “10% Dis” — MC Lyte)

Grade: B+

The Id — Macy Gray (Epic): As crazy as Wesley Willis but more self-conscious about it. And the vocal comparison is a push. (“Sweet Baby,” “Don’t Come Around,” “Freak Like Me”)

Grade: B

Right Between the Promises — Freedy Johnston (Elektra): Previously one of his generation’s finest songwriters, this time he covers ’70s bubblegummers Edison Lighthouse for his radio bid — and this time he needs it. (“Waste Your Time,” “That’s Alright With Me”)

Grade: B-

All This Sounds Gas — Preston School Of Industry (Matador): Actually ex-Pavement guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg stepping out on his own, with a lot more guitar sound at his disposal than lyrical sense or vocal personality. Not as good a solo move as his Pavement partner Steve Malkmus made earlier this year but at least as good as Keith Richards or Jimmy Page ever managed. (“Falling Away,” “Encyclopedic Knowledge Of,” “Doping For Gold”)

Grade: B

Free City — St. Lunatics (Universal): Nelly and crew with the posse record of the year, redeeming a dubious genre through producer Jay E’s St. Lou-bred shimmy-shimmy-cocoa-pop and sheer affability. (“Summer in the City,” “Midwest Swing,” “Dis Iz Da Life”)

Grade: A-

Made in Medina — Rachid Taha (Mondo Melodia): Actually made in Paris, London, and New Orleans, this is the Algeria-born/Paris-raised Taha bringing rock and techno energy to the Algerian pop form rai. The liner notes’ lyric translations help English speakers find their way, but the polyglot groove and rough-edged vocals suffice as pure body music. (“Barra Barra,” “Foqt Foqt,” “Garab”)

Grade: A-

Tomb Raider Soundtrack — Various Artists (Elektra): What should have been another obscenely useless bit of cross-promotional marketing product miraculously manages to be a fine alt-rock-meets-electronica-meets-hip-hop mix tape, a utopian glimpse at a bit of pop futurism that actually seemed like the future five long years ago. Doesn’t redeem the movie, though. (“Elevation [Tomb Raider Mix]” — U2, “Get Ur Freak On” — Missy Elliott featuring Nelly Furtado, “Speedballin'” — OutKast, “Where’s Your Head At” — Basement Jaxx)

Grade: A-

— CH

Party Music, The Coup (75 Ark)

The Coup may not be a name that is immediately familiar, but chances are you read about this Oakland-based hip-hop duo — producer/MC Boots Riley and DJ Pam the Funktress — in the days following September 11th, which just so happened to be the day the cover art for Party Music was going to press. The original cover, pulled immediately but widely circulated, pictured Pam holding two drumsticks like conductors’ batons while Riley knelt in the foreground, pushing a guitar pedal like a detonator, as the twin towers of the World Trade Center exploded behind them. The cover was meant to be metaphor, a twist on the inscription Woody Guthrie had on his guitar — “This machine kills fascists.” The Coup’s intended message? “Our music kills capitalism.”

The cover was changed to a slightly wittier “Molotov cocktail” image (though neither can match the cover of the group’s great 1998 breakthrough, Steal This Album, which pictured Riley and Pam locked up behind a bar code). The only significant admitted Marxists in all of American pop music, the Coup have a penchant for overstepping their music with wrongheaded statements (unless, that is, you really believe that “every cop is a corrupt one” or that those with the money and power are all “Lazy Muthafucka”s). But during an era when most pop music is apolitically conservative, the Coup’s leftist agitpop has no rival. Most mainstream rappers are screaming for Bill Gates and Donald Trump to let them in the club; the Coup are releasing a single called “5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO.”

On Party Music, Riley and Pam create a bed of warm, ambitious West Coast funk over which Riley flows with a languid drawl and sharp wit that splits the difference between classic Ice Cube and Dre from the similarly adventurous OutKast. Riley may not be a great pure rapper, but if this music is about the love of language and the delight of delivery, few can match him for his conversational, unpretentious way with a memorable lyric. The world has been waiting for a “Ghetto Manifesto” that begins this way: “I write my lyrics on parking tickets and summons to the court/I scribbled this on an application for county support/I practice this like a sport/Met Donald Trump and he froze up/Standin’ on his Bentley yellin’, ‘Pimps down, Hos up!'” The song is the Coup’s political sloganeering at its wittiest and most musical, “a slum serenade on razor blades and grenades/By the nannies and the maids who be polishin’ the suede.”

But this band isn’t nearly as strident (or as macho) as Rage Against the Machine or Public Enemy, whose The Battle of Los Angeles and It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, respectively, are Party Music‘s only real competition as the best purely political album of the post-punk era. Like Public Enemy’s Chuck D. before him, Riley is guilty of plenty of blustery bullshit. But unlike Chuck D., he doesn’t need to rely on a sidekick to cut his crap with comic relief. Riley has plenty of good humor on his own, which helps the agitpop go down easy, but also offers reassurances of his own generosity and compassion.

Indeed, beyond “Ghetto Manifesto,” Party Music‘s best moments are softer and more reflective. “Heven Tonite” is the rare hip-hop song to take churches to task for concentrating on the next world without turning tithes toward political change in this one. Marked by a circular acoustic guitar riff and sung chorus, Riley concludes with his most specific description of what “the revolution” might entail and then instructs retailers to file the deeply political song under “love ballad.”

Even better is the hip-hop “Night Moves” of “Nowalaters,” an inspirationally understanding and perceptive open letter to a high school girlfriend that is richly evocative of growing up in the ’80s, with its chorus references to high-top fades, Jesse Johnson’s “Crazay” (a great, forgotten Video Soul staple), and the playground-favorite candies of the title.

Best of all is the gentle but strong “Wear Clean Draws,” a song directed at Riley’s young daughter (“The revolution takes time and space/But you as a woman gotta know yo’ place — that’s in the front, baby”), which deserves to be every bit as big a smash as OutKast’s musically similar “Ms. Jackson” but won’t because it says too much and says it too plainly. I know this, though — there hasn’t been a pop-music moment all year that makes me as happy as the advice Riley hands out at the beginning of this record: “You’re my daughter/My love/More than kin to me/This is for you and the woman that you finna be/Tell that boy he’s wrong/Girls are strong/Next time at show-and-tell play him our song/Tell your teacher I said princesses are evil/How they got they money was/They killed people.”

In short, an Album of the Year candidate, warts and all.

— Chris Herrington

Grade: A

National Antiseptic

James Mathus &

His Knockdown Society

(Mammoth)

James “Jimbo” Mathus calls three locales home — the farm in North Carolina where he lives today and the Corinth and Clarksdale, Mississippi, towns of his youth. His life journey reads like an updated musical version of Huck Finn — first picking up a guitar when he was 6 years old, playing bluegrass with his family band, then starting Corinth’s first punk-rock band, Johnny Vomit and the Dry Heaves, with high school classmate and Tearjerkers leader Jack Yarber.

After graduation, Mathus went to work as a deckhand on the Mississippi River then wandered his way up to North Carolina, eventually forming the jump-blues- and hot-jazz-inspired Squirrel Nut Zippers with his wife Katharine Whalen and friends. The Zippers turned the music world on its ear in 1997, selling more than a million copies of their second album, Hot.

That year, Mathus returned to Mississippi to record Songs For Rosetta, a Charley Patton tribute, under the guise of the Knockdown Society, a loose-knit group that provided a bluesy alter ego for Jimbo. His fascination with the Delta bluesman was genuine — Patton’s daughter, Rosetta, babysat Jimbo when he was a boy. Mathus planned the record as a one-off project, a benefit for Rosetta Patton Brown, who never received royalties from her father’s music.

But after that trip to Clarksdale, he couldn’t get the North Mississippi blues out of his system. A tour with Luther and Cody Dickinson followed, then Mathus eventually re-formed a stripped-down version of the Knockdown Society. Today’s configuration of the group, a trio, could give the Dickinsons’ North Mississippi Allstars a run for their money — if, of course, both bands weren’t such good friends.

Earlier this year, the Knockdown Society holed up at the Dickinsons’ Zebra Ranch studio to cut their second album, National Antiseptic. The record, a hodgepodge of originals, covers, and far-flung interpretations of American standards, plays like a running commentary on Mathus’ life as Huck: From the joyous opener “Call Your Dawgs Off,” replete with Muscle Shoals-sounding horn riffs and Stonesy “whoo hoo” back-up vocals from Yarber, to the raunchy “Chicken Town” and pensive “Back to the Bottoms,” featuring Luther Dickinson on mandolin, Mathus plays hard, drinks hard, lives hard — and revels in it.

An ominous take on Lonnie Pitchford’s “Drinkin’ Antiseptic” rolls and tumbles like a barge on the Mississippi. Full-time Society members Stu Cole (bass) and Nate Stalfa (drums) take the frenzied journey with Mathus, who reminisces about the time he picked up a hitchhiker down in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The man lived on the Choctaw Reservation, where “They didn’t have no whiskey/They didn’t have no wine/They were drinkin’ antiseptic/Most all the time.” Though his heart aches for the Indians, Mathus joins the party without hesitation.

But, as evidenced on the gospel-derived “Rock of Ages” and heartrending “Nightingale,” Mathus has a soft side as well. He’s an itinerant musician but a family man too. Thirty-four years of influences — from the Delta and hill-country Mississippi blues to the sounds of his newfound North Carolina home — contribute to the 15 songs that make up National Antiseptic. From “Spare Change” to “Innit for the Money,” the album pays homage to the life experiences that make Mathus the man he is today.

On the album’s fifth track, “Stranger,” Mathus reveals his truest self: “No house, no home/Always will I roam/I am just a stranger in this world all alone.” Like Huck Finn at the end of his river adventure, Mathus won’t stand to be “sivilized” — in Huck’s words, “I can’t stand it. I been there before,” so he lights out for the Territory, ahead of the rest. Mark Twain — and Jimbo Mathus — wouldn’t have it any other way. — Andria Lisle

Grade: A

Jimbo Mathus will be at the Lounge on Thursday, November 15th, with the Tearjerkers.

Live At the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970):

It’s About That Time

Miles Davis

(Columbia/Legacy)

The most important aspect of this previously unreleased two-disc set,
which was recorded at New York City’s premier rock-and-roll venue of the time
a month before the arrival of the nonpareil Bitches Brew, is that it
marks the first time on non-bootleg disc for the legendary Miles Davis quintet
(a sextet for this concert) of ’69 and ’70: Davis on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on
soprano and tenor sax, Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on acoustic
and electric bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. (Brazil’s Airto Moreira
supplies additional percussion.)

As ’69 became ’70, Davis — a leading proponent or initiator of jazz’s
every metamorphosis after the late ’40s, save avant-garde — was sloughing off
the once-revolutionary bebop sound he alone had dragged kicking and screaming
into the kingdoms of rock and funk. Others tried to follow, but most stuck
safely to the old school. Alternately derided and praised by contemporary
critics, what Davis was doing is in retrospect quite evident: always listening
to and one-upping himself.

Each disc of It’s About That Time is a breathless, nonstop suite
running approximately 45 minutes. Three of the tunes on this turning-point
recording appear on both sets, with drastic changes evident. Such was the
nature of Davis’ improvisational approach, steeped as it was in the Charlie
Parker aesthetic of unrestrained invention. Davis’ fragmented, elliptical
trumpet directs his band into ecstatic renditions of “Bitches Brew,”
“Miles Runs the Voodoo Down,” and Joe Zawinul’s
“Directions,” among others. Undoubtedly, few present at this
concert, which was an opening gig for Steve Miller (!), had any idea that
these unearthly sounds would affect American music ad infinitum. The
hallucinogenic cocktail being served up for their astonished ears was
distilled from the psychedelic blues of Jimi Hendrix, funky electric soul
courtesy of James Brown, and re-Africanized jazz in the wake of pop
bastardization. It was about time. — Jeremy Spencer

Grade: A

Rockin’ the Suburbs

Ben Folds

(Epic)

If I were Robert Sledge or Darren Jesse (the much-forgotten other two-
thirds of Ben Folds Five), I’d be sending Mr. Folds several angry letters to
the tune of “Why didn’t you write songs like this for our last
record?” Two years after the release of the musically ambitious but
commercially underperforming final Ben Folds Five record, Folds has written
what might be his finest batch of songs to date. And while the songs are
recorded and performed well-enough on this solo foray, I find it hard not to
miss Sledge’s manic fuzz-bass work, Jesse’s pounding drums (which have been
replaced by a mixture of tame drum loops and Folds himself behind the kit),
and the trio’s quirky harmonies. But, quibbles aside, Rockin’ the
Suburbs is a really good record.

The album opens strongly with what should have been the lead single
(instead of the overly witty title track, which is the album’s only low
point), the upbeat and catchy-as-hell “Annie Waits.” But what truly
shines is Folds’ ability to write emotional pop ballads. The creepy “The
Ascent of Stan” and the genuinely gut-wrenching “Carrying
Cathy” are up there with Folds’ best tearjerkers from Whatever And
Ever Amen. And then there’s Rockin’ the Suburbs‘ highlight,
“Still Fighting It.” Only Ben Folds can begin a song with the lyrics
“You want a coke?/Maybe some fries?/The roast beef combo’s only
$9.95” and turn it into a touching anthem about lost youth. Yeah, that
other piano man, Billy Joel, only wishes he was this good. — J.D.
Reager

Grade: A-

Robert Pete Williams

Robert Pete Williams

(Fat Possum)

This is an uncharacteristically restrained release for the Fat Possum
label. No photos of goose-stepping in a cotton field (remember the picture
used for a T-Model Ford release a few years back?) or boasts of moonshine-
induced intoxication (again a la T-Model Ford and several other Fat Possum
artists who have indeed set some records for steady-state drunkenness in North
Mississippi; it’s not all mythology or record company hype — these are some
thirsty men). Instead, this is a soberly presented re-release of an album that
originally appeared on the small Ahura Mazda label in 1971. The black-and-
white photos and original cover and liner notes are all reproduced here with
only the Fat Possum logo stamped unobtrusively on the CD’s back cover to
identify it as a new release on that label.

This album was recorded at Robert Pete Williams’ small house in
Maringouin, Louisiana, around Christmas 1970, but the performances and sound
quality of the recording are anything but sloppy or lo-fi. Williams sings and
plays guitar (both acoustic and electric) on 11 originals. Williams grew up
around Baton Rouge and was convicted of murder in 1956 for shooting a man in a
bar brawl. He was sentenced to life at the infamous Angola State Prison but
was finally granted a full pardon in 1964, after which he returned to
intermittent farming, recording, and live performing until his death in 1980.
Williams’ style was uniquely his own, sounding like few other country
bluesmen. His guitar-playing, vocal delivery, and songwriting on this
recording are characteristically eccentric, highly personal, and deeply
passionate. No, Williams’ music doesn’t sound like the one- chord hill boogie
that the Oxford-based label is noted for, but it does evoke an almost trance-
like response in the listener. Nice going, Fat Possum. You’ve proved that it’s
okay to leave the corn liquor out of the marketing process and still release a
good record. — Ross Johnson

Grade: B+

It’s the Black-Eyed Snakes

The Black-Eyed Snakes

(Chair-Kickers Music)

This funny little side project has two punch lines, one spiritual and one
geographical. First one goes like this: This may be the finest Mormon-led
white blues band of all time. Second one builds off the first: They are
definitely the finest white blues band based in Duluth, Minnesota — you know,
where the Replacements played their first paying gig at the dawn of the 1980s.
And the lead Mormon is none other than kindly parent Al Sparhawk of Low,
indie-rock’s most delicate band. Like I said, it’s a funny little project, and
I get off on the idea of an earnest Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at least as
much as I dig the music, though both suffered from the transfer from stage to
tape. So see ’em live if you ever get the chance. Sparhawk, aka “Chicken-
Bone George,” sits on a chair, howls through an old microphone, and leads
his bass-less trio through a whistle-stop tour of pomo blooze: Muddy Waters
and Willie Dixon, sure, but also Moby and the Fall and originals as simple as
stomping your feet. And their theme song is so addictive they usually play it
twice. It’s The Black-Eyed Snakes is currently available through Chair-
Kickers Music, PO Box 600, Duluth, MN 55801. — Addison Engelking

Grade: B+

Is This It

The Strokes

(RCA)

A bunch of New York City guys in their early 20s who have been on the cover of basically every British music magazine before their debut album was even released, the Strokes arrive with an almost deafening buzz. But, to flip the script on another great NYC act, Public Enemy, this time you can believe the hype.

The Strokes could be the result of some freak 1977 accident, a mix-up on the subway perhaps, as the city’s two best bands — the arty, mythic Television and the regular-Joe punks the Ramones — head off to different gigs and somehow get their genetic codes crossed. The Strokes are what Television might have sounded like if they were a party band bashing out three-minute pop and garage-rock nuggets.

The 35-minute Is This It bops along at a relentless, agitated pace. The Strokes may evoke every great subcultural New York band of the last 35 years — the Velvet Underground, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Jim Carroll Band, and on and on — but what makes the band so thrilling is that they honor this tradition while also being more accessible than any of their forebears. The band takes these arty tropes back to the simplest and earliest rock-and-roll verities with music that’s sweaty, rhythmic, and loaded with frantic joy.

Is This It is driven by the dual guitar attack of Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. — brittle, sugary, interlocking rhythm parts that occasionally burst into explosive solos. Bassist Nikolai Fraiture makes like a garage-rock James Jamerson, nailing the songs in place with big Motown-syle bass lines. And, as bands such as R.E.M. and Sonic Youth have proven, if you’re gonna be an art band it helps to have a drummer who knows his way around a good, old-fashioned rock-and-roll backbeat, and stick-man Fabrizio Moretti more than fits the bill, giving the music a locomotive undercurrent that even pushes the rare “ballad” to a frenzied pace. On top of all this is singer Julian Casablancas, whose dramatic, confrontational vocals are steeped in the monotone humor of Lou Reed and the hopped-up aggression of Richard Hell. On “The Modern Age” he sounds like he’s singing through an intercom — a wild, distorted whoop and stutter over a tense “Sister Ray” stomp.

Lyrically, this is simple stuff — New York City Boys pursuing New York City Girls. But this band imbues twentysomething date culture and general life confusion with mystery, allure, and desperate romance. “Life seems unreal/Can we go back to your place?,” Casablancas asks in a typically sardonic pick-up line. On “Barely Legal,” the band builds an unbearable tension, Casablancas slicing through it with a conflicted diatribe against one of the record’s many objects of obsession: “I just want to turn you down/I just want to turn you around/You ain’t never had nothin’ that I wanted/But I want it all and I just can’t figure out/Nothing.”

It’s astounding in this day and age that a band could record a debut album for a major label that sounds this raw and free. Unless there’s something I’ve missed, the Strokes are the best new American band since Sleater-Kinney. — Chris Herrington

Grade: A

Trash and Burn

Dead Moon

(eMpTy Records)

On their 13th full-length release, Dead Moon show absolutely no signs of um waning. Composed of the husband-and-wife team Fred and Toody Cole and drummer Andrew Loomis, they are the musical equivalent of TV’s Hart to Hart — a frisky crime-fighting couple with Andrew as the lovably gruff third wheel. Fred, the principal songwriter, has been making music consistently since 1964 in such bands as the Weeds, the Lollipop Shoppe (scoring with the classic 1968 Nugget “You Must Be a Witch”), the Rats, and, since 1987, Dead Moon.

Dead Moon offer a glimmer of hope that the hard-travelin’ boozy rock-and-roll lifestyle and the cozy path of stable domesticity are not mutually exclusive. In the past I have used the term “riot grrranny” to deride the soccer-mom poetry-slam style of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. Toody Cole, an honest-to-God grandmother, shows that petty jab to be an admirable prospect.

Dead Moon so purely exemplify rock music that it seems dishonest to use the term on so many other Milquetoast hacks and tin-eared tunesmiths. The band’s style is definitely unrefined and jagged, but ultimately it is refreshingly adjective-free rock-and-roll — no post, emo, nü metal, grunge, or even garage is needed. Fred Cole’s deliciously mournful caterwaul might take a while to grow on the ears of the finicky, but the overall energy and integrity are impossible to deny. The songs on their new release are as strong as any in their back catalog. The obvious emotion between the band members is palpable on such couples-only crunchers as “The Way It Is” and “These Times With You.” The meaty hooks of the anthems “40 Miles of Bad Road” and “Never Again” are so profound and majestic that you’ll swear they are covers of forgotten AOR classics.

Along with Detroit’s White Stripes and Japan’s King Brothers, Dead Moon are among an elite of high-energy live acts playing in the world today. At the beginning of each show, they light a candle set in the mouth of a Jack Daniel’s bottle. They rock as they live, full-bore ahead as long as the light burns. In the words of another elder statesman of rock, to whom Fred’s wailing is often compared, that option is always better than fading away.

— David Dunlap

Grade: A

Dead Moon will be at the Hi-Tone Café on Monday, October 1st, with the Reigning Sound.

Lonnie Johnson: The Unsung Blues Legend

Lonnie Johnson

(Blues Magnet Records)

Singer/guitarist Lonnie Johnson was not your typical bluesman. In the ’20s, he helped to develop a single-string lead style for the guitar that was opposed to the gruffer Delta approach. B.B. King, Charlie Christian, T-Bone Walker, and Django Reinhardt all name-checked him as an influence on their varying guitar styles. Johnson was equally at home with jazz and was unashamed to sing corny standards of the day when it suited him. Neither the archetypal drifting blues guitarist nor a grinning minstrel holdover from the days of vaudeville, New Orleans native Lonnie Johnson was a fluid guitarist and a smooth singer with a deep emotional range who never quite got his due before his death in 1970.

His friend and benefactor Bernie Strassberg made a reel-to-reel tape recording of Johnson performing at his Forest Hills, New York, home in 1965 in front of a small but enthusiastic gathering of family and friends. The recording was done on a primitive Wollensak machine and was never intended for release. What was a living-room vanity session done 35 years ago now sounds very affecting and fits right in with the penchant for casual lo-fi recording made popular in recent times. The performances are very relaxed (you can even hear one of Strassberg’s children talking on the tape) and the sound quality is not crystal-clear. But Johnson’s undiminished talents as a song interpreter and guitarist (although he does overuse a signature guitar run made famous on his 1948 recording of “Tomorrow Night”) are manifest on this recording. He tries everything from “September Song” to “Danny Boy” (a guitar solo!) to “Summertime” to Sinatra’s “This Love of Mine.” Lonnie Johnson aimed to be an entertainer as well as a blues singer and succeeded admirably at both. And he was never ashamed of being the former as well as the latter. — Ross Johnson

Grade: A-

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.