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Alex Sciuto
Greg
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Tom
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mattpieh
tatgersFiled under: Misc., Music, Politics | Tags: Christmas, Christopher Hitchens, Fairytale of New York, The Pogues
I’ve expressed my fondness for Christopher Hitchens before on this blog. In a time when political commentators are judged largely by who among them can shout the loudest, it’s hard not to like someone who’s such an unabashed stylist. Hitchens is maybe our greatest living polemic writer, and it’s as much because of the control he exerts over his prose as anything else. His favorite target is probably organized religion, and in this recent Slate article -http://www.slate.com/id/2206713/ – he vows to write a fiercer anti-Christmas column every year. Now while I think Hitchens makes a great Grinch – calling the holiday a “moral and aesthetic nightmare” is an example of the elevated purple prose no one does quite so well – I don’t really buy his argument this year, that the U.S. “turns itself into the cultural and commercial equivalent of a one-party state” at Christmastime.
I’m a lapsed Catholic who plans to celebrate Christmas for the rest of my life. Part of why I’m at ease with this is because the holiday as it is today seems like a bright, shining triumph of the secular. At it’s core, Christmas is indisputably Christian, but do we really see Christianity casting a shadow over all American institutions each December? Or do we see market capitalism using the holiday for all it’s worth, with Christians and non-Christians alike buying and selling lots of junk they don’t need? (Less cynically: when Christmas gives Americans a pretense for family gatherings and gift-giving, I’d imagine those acts of gathering and giving are more important than the pretense itself for many people.) Organized religions aren’t going anywhere, Christianity included, but seeing one of the two most popular Christian holidays fixed in such a secularized form should be, for someone like Hitchens, a source of holiday cheer. And speaking of cheer, I’ve had this on repeat lately:
- Greg Hunter
Well, here’s the third music related post in a row. I apologize. I know Tom and Greg can write cogently about music, but I can’t so I’ll keep this short. Everyone loves the Beatles and everyone loves Sufjan Stevens, right? Well, I found this track of Sufjan covering What Goes On, from Rubber Soul. It’s from an anniversary album of a bunch of different artists covering all the songs from Rubber Soul. I think the track sounds pretty cool.
-Alex Sciuto
Filed under: Music, Uncategorized | Tags: Andre 3000, Arthur Russell, Big Boi, Deerhunter, Grizzly Bear, Harlem, Katy Perry, Numero Group, Raekwon, The Magnetic Fields, Tonistics, White Denim
First off, I’d like to second a few of Greg’s picks – No Age, Times New Viking, Fucked Up, and Santogold. Alright. Click the links below to download individual tracks, or here for the mediafire folder.
The Magnetic Fields – California Girls
This could be the catchiest song I’ve ever heard. I don’t even listen to it that much, because every time I do, it sticks in my head for days afterward (along with fantasies of rampaging through Hollywood with a battleaxe).
Arthur Russell – I Couldn’t Say It To Your Face
Arthur Russell didn’t write many songs like this one. It’s a shame; “I Couldn’t Say it to Your Face” is as immediate and heartfelt as anything else I’ve heard of his (which, in the scheme of his monstrous output, is very little). Everything, from the stop-start chorus, to the understated horns, to Russell’s deceptively soulful vocal performance, is just right.
Big Boi – Royal Flush feat. Andre 3000 and Raekwon
Lil Wayne and his (totally awesome) nonsense are the big story in rap this year, but ‘Dre’s scattered guest appearances over the past two years, most recently on “Royal Flush,” serve as a reminder that off-kilter, virtuosic flow is nothing new. And then there’s the song’s heavy-ass beat and those other two solid verses from Big Boi and Raekwon. Wayne may be the future of rap, but the old guard is aging gracefully.
White Denim – Don’t Look That Way At It
The first song off of one of my favorite albums of the year (Exposion). Like most of the rest of the album, “Don’t Look That Way At It” sounds like three songs having a fight until about halfway through, when it pulls itself together and rocks your fucking face off.
Grizzly Bear – While You Wait For The Others
I’m not sure anyone expected Grizzly Bear to become one the tightest rock quartets playing after the meticulously arranged folk of Yellow House, but after a couple of years on the road honing their “live” sound, that’s exactly what they are. The first song to debut off of their forthcoming album, “While You Wait For the Others” is not only the best representation of the band’s new sound, it’s the best song they’ve ever written.
I’m assuming that there are more casual Deerhunter fans than indie rock critics want us to think. Does everyone really think that Microcastle is that great? I don’t, and I’m skeptical. I do, however, think that “Never Stops” is awesome. Forget that it’s about inescapable depression; that wordless chorus slays.
“I hate every book I’ve ever read.” The battle cry of this compsing English major.
Off of another great release from master crate-diggers The Numero Group, Soul Messengers from Dimona, “Hold On” is the “I Want You Back” of Jewish soul. Yeah, there is a serious novelty factor in play, here (see the collection’s backstory here), but the song stands on its own as a great soul record, and ought to make contemporary Christian music fans everywhere totally jealous (not that most of them would know a good song if it punched them in the ear).
Katy Perry – My War (Black Flag Cover)
-Tom Fry
Filed under: Music, Uncategorized | Tags: AC/DC, Be Your Own Pet, Boston Spaceships, Elvis Costello, Fucked Up, Ghostface Killah, Jeff Tweedy, Jenny Lewis, Katy Perry, No Age, Robert Pollard, Santogold, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Hold Steady, Times New Viking, Wilco, Wire
To download mp3s, copy and paste the link provided in a new window
AC/DC – “Rock ‘N’ Roll Train”
Come on. It’s amazing they can keep doing this.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUp5Tk05eFZMWEE9PQ&key=f0725ccfa02555503269eb0c8b84542e788747ed&bid=TTZra0ZYcHZ3NUlLSkE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Be Your Own Pet – “Becky”
A lot of Get Awkward, BYOP’s second and last album, apparently sucked. The lead single, “The Kelly Affair,” definitely did. But not “Becky,” a smart, funny punk pop song that exists somewhere between Mean Girls and “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell.” The song was stricken from the US version of Get Awkward because of concerns over subject matter (it’s about school violence like a Roadrunner cartoon is about animal abuse).
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUp5Tk1lcEozZUE9PQ&key=242f712becc1b3a5a6e210dc96fd0a2aa881c87d&bid=TTZra0ZYcHZEa1dGa1E9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Boston Spaceships – “You Satisfy Me”
It’s a relief and surprise that Robert Pollard is aging so gracefully. In 2008, Fantagraphics put out a book of his collages, and his album with Boston Spaceships is thought to be his best since dissolving Guided By Voices. On “You Satisfy Me” he sings like a big shaggy dog. How do you make “seven in the morning” sound like that?
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUp5Tk0yWGZIRGc9PQ&key=1a3bdeda9d84be94b4310dc529fb867fd2d06f92&bid=TTZra0ZYcHYwMEhIRGc9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Fucked Up – “Son The Father”
People keep calling Fucked Up’s The Chemistry of Common Life a post-hardcore album, which doesn’t really mean anything (wouldn’t we at least be at post-post-hardcore by this point?). Some reviewers are also saying it transcends the hardcore punk idiom, but didn’t half the bands on SST already do that 25 years ago? (The only real innovation here is flutists.) There’s nothing revolutionary about the album, contrary to the critical party line. But that doesn’t mean it’s not really good. Just call it a rock record? A pretty awesome rock record? “Son The Father,” particularly, DESTROYS.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUp5Tk1YSHlGa1E9PQ&key=1c9dcde42c34e29bc98a832ec3e1009c3eb6a309&bid=TTZra0ZSZEs5eFhIRGc9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Ghostface Killah (feat. Kid Capri) – “We Celebrate”
This one’s tricky. The single was released in ’08, but the album came out in December ’07. Just listen to it, though – it insists on being included. Ghostface is not gonna be cut from the theatrical release of Iron Man and excluded from a mix on the Carl blog the same year.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUowNXY5eFZMWEE9PQ&key=811fa06d5c64ad6e38b85d7f39b5615c9a69f8e3&bid=TTZra0ZSZEtnYU4zZUE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
The Hold Steady – “Slapped Actress”
The opening riff here is the sound of a ten-story building collapsing. “Slapped Actress” makes a bunch of John Cassavetes references, but it makes me think of Leonard Cohen – this is a tower of song.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUowNXZEbUlLSkE9PQ&key=2f4186561621ad6aa5f2e8e6a9f0295cb15d68b4&bid=TTZra0ZSZEt0d0dGa1E9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Jenny Lewis and Elvis Costello – “Carpetbaggers“
Enjoying a Jenny Lewis song always makes me feel a little like a high school girl, but there’s a lot to like about “Carpetbaggers.” The lyrics are corny, yeah, but it’s like everybody’s in on the joke. And it sounds like someone forgot to tell Elvis Costello he was doing a faux-country duet – those vocals could be from a This Year’s Model outtake.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUowNXZ0d0ZMWEE9PQ&key=0abbd8997b9660cff36e0a54656b5c17dd3d45d5&bid=TTZra0ZSZEs0b0RIRGc9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
No Age – “Miner”
“Miner” is a great song from a great album, but No Age don’t fuck around live, either. This show at Death By Audio was like, everything I want from a rock concert, and someone’s nicely captured it:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUo4R3MxUUFLSkE9PQ&key=edbc83ec87f98bd2ef1c99f4adf66d525eeca25d&bid=TTZra0ZheFhUME4zZUE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Santogold – “Lights Out”
The Bud Light with Lime remix is also gorgeous. No joke.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUo4R3MwMEZMWEE9PQ&key=eb0263af8697c3db4b5000034dbf14abaed6145d&bid=TTZra0ZkR0ZwTVYzZUE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – “Glue Girls”
When Fuctape opened for SSLYBY in spring ’07, they were extremely friendly and gracious. In spring ’08, Phillip Dickey, one of the band’s lead songwriters, agreed to an email interview with me and then never answered my questions. It’s paradoxes like these that make such already fun power pop even more compelling. I hope these big douchebags keep making such great songs.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUozTWNFc0xIRGc9PQ&key=ddedef82e87b4da70b1e02a932df814dcb8269e1&bid=TTZra0ZkR0ZJMHRMWEE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Times New Viking – “The Early ‘80s”
Yep!
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUozTWNRWUxIRGc9PQ&key=95cc86810c04fb2ecbc1223fd7f6b98d2cd2f18e&bid=TTZra0ZkR0ZwaFJMWEE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Wilco – “Wilco The Song (Live on The Colbert Report“
A while ago in The Carl I called Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky album “retirement rock,” and that’s still pretty much how I feel about it – don’t like it and don’t want to like it. But this gem, played live on The Colbert Report, still makes me really curious about whatever Jeff Tweedy’s gonna put out next. It’s Summerteeth-style pop plus Nels Cline’s weird ass jazz guitar heroics, and the sum is enough to keep me interested in Wilco The Future.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUozTWNVVGxMWEE9PQ&key=0da7af4e081bf75da2d1f42ca48d77bc54743d83&bid=TTZra0ZkR0Y4Q1FLSkE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
Wire – “One Of Us”
See: description, AC/DC’s “Rock ‘N’ Roll Train.”
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=check_download&ufid=Q01FYUozTWNrWThLSkE9PQ&key=24aadd55f1849d3c40a593478c6171e26da2c652&bid=TTZra0ZkR0ZqV0JMWEE9PQ&rcpt=hunterg@carleton.edu
- Greg Hunter
Filed under: Music | Tags: Chicken, Katy Perry, Kings Of Leon, Music Video, Poultry, Semiotics, Sex, Sex On Fire, Symbolism
Not having a TV in my apartment means, among other things, that usually the only music videos I see are ones I actively seek out. Recently, though, I was involuntarily exposed to “Sex On Fire,” by Kings of Leon. It’s a terrible clip for what’s barely a song, but it does feature my favorite music video trope: the ostensible symbol, an object and/or image that’s intended to appear as if it has a codified meaning but almost certainly does not. Chicken is a metaphorically empty visual motif in “Sex On Fire,” both in bird and food form. (Previous examples of the ostensible symbol include the flaming trees in Jewel’s “Standing Still” and the indoor rain in Eve 6’s “Inside Out” videos – if you’re stuck on how to feign profundity, turn to the elements.)
[Video available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHhhcKxflMY]
The ostensible symbol is an indicator of laziness and pretension, granted, but videos that feature it empower viewers in a way art that’s made thoughtfully and deliberately cannot. These objects and images signify only that they signify something, meaning we as viewers can actually decide what an ostensible symbol conveys rather than speculating on what the director intended. We’re part of the creative process!
My top three guesses decisions on what chicken means in “Sex On Fire”:
1. Having sex, like eating chicken, is better with napkins and family members. (Having sex on fire is helpful in preventing salmonella.)
2. The chicken is an answer to Freud’s male castration anxiety. (Cut a chicken’s head off and that sucker will just keep on movin’ for a while, so don’t even worry about it.)
3. Kings of Leon have their cocks in hand during this song.
What are your interpretations?
- Greg Hunter
Filed under: Music | Tags: Arena rock, Classic Rock, Katy Perry, Pete Townshend, Punk, Rock and roll, Rock music, Roger Daltrey, The Who
Earlier in the week, the Washington Post ran this article – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/05/ST2008120502765.html – about Kennedy Center honors for Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, of mod proto-punks-turned-area giants The Who. I’m not hating here, really – in a situation like this, the appropriate response is probably, ‘Eh, why not?’ – but reading about the honor took me by surprise.
Formal, mainstream recognition of The Who is nothing new, nor is the corresponding irony of it all. (Jackie O reportedly went to see them play after Tommy was a hit.) And yet there’s still, to me, something a little mystifying about it. It’s a cliché, sure, that Townshend and Daltrey, who wrote and sang “I hope I die befor I get old,” are now, um, old. For as long as I’ve been a fan, “too old to give a fuck/too young to rest” (from “Dreaming From The Waist Down”) always seemed more appropriate. But the songs we’ll remember the band for were nonetheless fueled anger, confusion and alienation, even into the concept double album phase. (Hell, the Sex Pistols covered “Substitute.”)
It’s been a long time since The Who did something new or transgressive, and just as long since they’ve made a good album, but whoever Pete Townshend is now, he was also once a dude who would destroy his guitar while on Quaaludes. Observe the footage below: Townshend, more punk than most punk was, anticipating Richard Hell, Thurston Moore, Kurt Cobain, and almost every other meaningful figure in alternative music for the next several decades. I can’t be the only one who still finds it kind of incredible that such (fundamentally) aggressive music can be received so comfortably, by so many peopple, with enough time.
Bonus video!
- Greg Hunter
Filed under: Music | Tags: beatles, cover song, cover version, hey jude, moog, Music, radio, robot, robots
If you’re like me, you probably thought you could go the rest of your life without hearing another “Hey Jude” cover. But Walter Sear’s version, featured on the compilation of Moog-centric cover songs, is enough to make you think twice: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/11/switched-on-bas.html
Also recommended: the version of Booker T & The MGs’ “Time is Tight” by…Dick Hyman? (Have some class, bro.)
Katy Perry: Intriguing to Morons
by Dan Sugarman
Katy Perry: Totally Hottie or Bag of Hot Air?
Katy Perry is a boring shill for a record industry that is out of new ideas. Amy Winehouse and Lily llen, the two other charttopping female singer-songwriters of the day, also seem boring to me. (You have to accomplish something musically before we care about your drug use.) But Perry seems rofoundly boring. Or at the very least, profoundly conventional: the kind of pop star who distracts from the fact that she is exactly like everything that came before by taking on the controversial topics of the day like girls kissing girls and metrosexuality. She is edgy enough to provoke a Fox News commentator, perhaps, but in the end she has nothing especially interesting to say in her songs and has a public persona that will be forgotten months after her career ends.
With the video for “Hot ‘n’ Cold,” her latest single, Perry looks back to her debut single “Ur So Gay,” a screed against pretty boys that called for an American boy more like one of S.E. Hinton’s greasers in The Outsiders than a Fall Out Boy fan. Her husband-to-be gets cold feet at the alter, the latest sign of ow he tends to “PMS/Like a bitch/[She] would know.” The rest of the video shows Perry as a strong, confrontational female, willing to hunt her indecisive man down, but also portrays her in the same sexualized light as any other pop star, prancing around in a wedding dress bordering on lingerie and a team of dancers with baseball bats. The end result is too confusing to be interesting, and seems like further proof that, American Idol franchise aside, Perry is one of the more boring up-and-coming pop stars.
Read more musical commentary and reviews in the latest Carl.
Filed under: Internet, Music | Tags: Cassettes Won't Listen, Chinese Democracy, Guns N' Roses, Ludacris, mash-up
As much as I’ve enjoyed following Chinese Democracy’s path to completion, I’m not sure I’ll ever actually listen to the album when it comes out. But for the next couple hours in the CMC, I will be listening to Cassettes Won’t Listen’s Ludacris/leaked Chinese Democracy tracks mash-up album. Listen here:
http://www.ludacrisdemocracy.com/
-Greg Hunter
Filed under: Music
From the print edition of The Carl, an interview by Greg Hunter:
David Berman released his first album as frontman of the indie-country band Silver Jews in 1994. Since then, he has recorded five others (including this year’s Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea), conquered substance abuse problems, and become known as one of America’s greatest living lyricists. Berman first began playing Silver Jews material on tour in 2006, and, the band is currently touring for the second time in support of LMLS. Berman recently spoke with The Carl in anticipation of the Silver Jews’ October 8 show at Minneapolis’ Triple Rock Social Club.
The Carl: Are there older Silver Jews songs, ones you recorded before Tanglewood Numbers or the first tour, that have taken on a new life now that you’ve been regularly playing them live?
David Berman: In “Horseleg Swastikas,” I say, “I wanna be like water.” Every night I wear a polyester suit and sweat all the way through until every bit of fabric is drenched. By the time I come to this song I have to admit that even my most meager dreams have come to be.
C: The second tour has been going on for several months now. How does it compare to the first?
D: People don’t shield me as much. I get on the stage and every percentage of me is focused on entertainment or expression. To a great degree I’ve managed to kill the self-conciousness that holds a lot of us back from doing the things that could set us free.
C: In an interview with [music and comics blog] Cable & Tweed, you said that your previous albums “prefer” Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, in the sense that they wanted to be like it, and that “preferring the first records means misunderstanding them.” Can you elaborate on that, or describe how LMLS is the culmination of all the Silver Jews albums to date?
D: My writing is usually just interacting with the genius of the ordinary, which is difficult to see… Read more of Greg’s Interview with David.
