Jun

30

Crunk, that particular high-energy party hip-hop built around looped drum machines and simple chants, broke through into the mainstream a few years ago with massive hits by OUtkast, Lil Jon, Bone Crusher, and the noteably addictive Oscar-winner’It’s Hard Bein’ A Pimp’ from ‘Hustle and Flow’. Fearless Records, looking for another opportunity to expand their ‘Punk Goes..’ series, came up with the concept of ‘Punk Goes Crunk’, a chance for punk rock bands to reinterpret and perform crunk hits. On paper, maybe, it seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately Fearless were unable to follow through on the idea, producing instead this indifferent and unnecessary CD.

First of all, ‘Punk Goes Crunk’ really does not live up to its title. Is it crunk? Strictly speaking, the song selection is uninformed - for example, the 2Pac and Arrested Development songs predate the development of the genre, while the candy-floss pop hits of Will Smith and Rihanna really don’t fit either. Well then, is it punk? Not really. There is not a single note on this record in the tradition of the Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Ramones, or Black Flag: the groups (includIng Say Anything, Forever The Sickest Kids, New Found Glory, The Maine, Hot Rod Circuit, My American Heart, Scary Kids Scaring Kids, All Time Low, The Devil Wears Prada, The Secret Handshake, and Set Your Goals) seem to share a common historical sensibility - punk began with the power pop of Green Day, and reached its pinnacle with their unintentional bastard prodigy, emo and screamo.

All these songs are well-produced, but as Joey from D.O.A. likes to say, ‘you can’t polish a turd’; and most of this is unpolishable…only Hot Rod Circuit lays don a successful track, wisely putting Snoop Dogg’s ‘Gin and Juice’ into a bluesy arrangement that actually works in a different context. But the rest of this record is really unlikeable, both in general and specific terms. Singing lyrics meant to be rapped enfeebles the poetry and neutralizes its rhythmic underpinnings, while bastardizing production styles to mimic samples is simply sonic chicanery that doesn’t fool the ear. There are so many individual poor decisions here, it is hard to know where to start - the decision to make ‘Put Yo Hood Up’ by Set Your Goals the lead-off track, with it’s vocal delivery deliberately mimicking Yoda from Star Wars; the weak inclusion of the theme to ‘Men in Black’ by Forever The Sickest Kid; the astonishingly limp Rihanna-cover ‘Umbrella’ by All Time Low. If Say Anything’s intention was to lampoon Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s ‘Got My Money’ they succeeded marvelously, trashing both the song and the concept of a punk band covering it. Scary Kids Scaring Kids and The Secret Handshake also deserve dishonorable mention for their wretched versions of Skee-Lo and Biggie tracks; it is a relief when the overrated New Found Glory finally ends the disc, serving up a generic version of Arrested Development’s uncrunky ‘Tennessee’ without even a hint of creative involvement.

‘Punk Goes Crunk’ may actually be cherished by a few collectors in the future, as a nostalgia novelty resurrected to give a few disbelieving belly laughs at the cheesy artwork and misguided music (suggested reissue title - ‘White Men Can’t Crunk’). For now, it is at best a quickly-forgotten addition to the collections of fans passionate about the individual groups, and easily ignorable by the rest of us.

Jun

6

On his first solo release, Tom Holliston abandons most of the zany pop cultural references and caroming stylistic changes that typified his earlier releases for a more straight-ahead, almost roots-rock approach. As usual, the CD boasts a top-notch collection of musicians from the local Vancouver/Victoria scene solidly supporting Tom’s skewered view of such themes family values, advertising that preys on sexual fears, trophy wives, and celebrity stalking. There are some stylistic diversions - most notably the rockabilly-boogie corker ‘The Strong and Absent Type’ and the almost a-capella doo-wop ‘Motormouth’ - the rest of the album fits firmly in the same camp as such quirky alt-rockers as They Might Be Giants or Ween, albeit with that special Holliston flavor. A well-played, entertaining and solid recording. Recommended.

Jun

6

Harder and heavier than other releases, sonically ‘Self-Aggrandizement’ elevates the Show Business Giants into the company of Wire, NoMeansNo, and the Ex, albeit with Holliston’s fractured viewpoint still fully on display, and occasional side trips into sonic silliness. Pop culture references still abound: the chorus for ‘My Brother’s Kid’s a Waste of Sperm!’ delightfully compares the awful child to The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, and the band obviously had fun writing ‘Generic Childrens Song a la Yngwe Malmsteen’. Unlike on some other releases, the humor on ‘Self-Aggrandizement’ isn’t alloed to overshadow Holliston’s highly-literate and articulate writing skills. In the song ‘Why Don’t You Fuck Off?’, for example, Holliston bemoans corporate co-option of art:’In every Chapters window, on every Wal-Mart’s rack
From obscurity to resurgence and into paperback
Posterity’s taken a shine to you and
there’s fuck-all you can do.
Your lovers are now impotent, your apostles can only moan
As they watch Michael Eisner pry the jewelry from your bones
Meanwhile some distant nephew, is busy setting sights
On a protracted battle over foreign rights’

The production and mastering, assisted by noted Vancouver producer Marc L’Esperance, is top-notch, making ‘Self-Aggrandizement’ easily the best-sounding CD in the Show Business Giants catalog. Any fan of NoMeansNo, Hanson Brothers, or hard-edged alternative rock will be happy to add this gem to their collection.

Jun

6

Not much different from a typical Show Business Giants CD, the Apologists include long-time SBG collaborators Scott Henderson and Ford Pier. Kicking off with ‘Talk Minus Action Equals A Good Dinner Party’ (the title a humorous swipe at local icon D.O.A.’s earnest ‘Talk-Action=0′ slogan), ‘I Want You To Twist With Me’ plunks, stomps, veers, hovers and rocks all over the musical map. Lyrically it is more straight-forward than most Holliston releases; ‘I Need A Demographic’ has Tom plaintively wondering who will buy his records, while ‘Fan Night’ could be Hanson Brothers outtake. There are, of course, obtuse and wacky references - ‘Fussin’ With The ‘Tussin’ is about getting high on a particular brand of cough syrup, and ‘Ernst Rohm vs The NFL’ puts the boss of the Nazi SA in front of the TV on a Sunday afternoon. Diehard NoMeansNo fans should know an Uncredited Rob Wright can be heard in the intro to the bizarre guitar feedback instrumental ‘Pick Slide’. interesting but unessential.

Jun

6


‘Let’s Have A Talk With The Dead’ is the definitive Show Business Giants album, with 18 diverse songs chock-full of pop-cultural references, zany hooks, and masterful rock riffing. From the opening ‘The First Pygmy In Space’ to the finale ‘Wake Up & Roar Bachelor God’, Holliston and his band show an adept ability to mutate elements of funk, punk, metal, reggae, doo-wop, and boogie into a highly-listenable concoction. Topics include homages to minor television icons (Russell Johnson, aka ‘Doc’ on Gilligan’s Island; Wendy Mesley, a CBC newscaster; Mothra, winged nemesis to Godzilla, and Star Trek’s ‘Other Side of Mr. Sulu’), self-disparagement (’I've Got Gingivitis’, ‘I’m the Lickspittle of the Animal Kingdom’), and even a straight-forward cover of ‘Sugartown’. The absolute killer though is the hilarious musician in-joke parody ‘Sound Check’, with a brilliant Jello Biafra impersonation leading us through a ridiculous routine. The original pressing is out of print, but it has happily been reissued. An excellent introduction to the group, and a must-have for fans of wacky independent rock and NoMeansNo completists.

Mar

26

‘It’s midnight, lights off, clothes off, candles glowing, incense is fading away, don’t need no electricity, baby, I’ll be your amplifier, ’cause we can boogie in the dark’
- and so pioneer San Francisco disc jockey Abe ‘Voco’ Keshishian introduced himself every Saturday night at midnight, while proceeding to expand the musical palette of his stoned audience. KSAN was the first radio station to bring ‘hippy music’ to SF-area listeners, a large and devoted following whom the laid-back Armenian DJ introduced to an eclectic mix of blues, funk and world music, until 6am rolled around and the tired heads rolled into bed.

In 1972 Voco convinced Blue Thumb to release a double concept album based on his radio show, and gathered together some incredible musicians from the Bay area as contributors. ‘Lights Out: San Francisco’, subtitled ‘voco presents the soul of the bay area’ is an excellent overview of the diverse and exciting San Francisco music scene in the early 1970s. Voco produced the sessions and himself penned several of the songs, including the killer opener ‘Lights Out’ enthusiastically belted out by John Lee Hooker, with his band augmented by 18-year old phenom Neal Schon and Freddie Roulette on Hawaiian guitar. Sylvester, then the flamboyant centerpiece of the marvelous Cockettes drag queen revue and not yet a national R&B star, adds two songs, one an interesting Leonard Cohen cover, and the other a blistering workout with the Pointer Sisters in full voice capped by a superb Schon solo. But even Sylvester’s debut takes a back seat to four cuts by the marvelous Tower of Power, captured just as their funky horn section was rounding into full swagger. Greg Adams, Emilio Castillio, and Rocco Prestio are in fine form here; a few months later the addition of Lenny Williams would turn TOP into an explosive powerhouse, blowing the minds of audiences up and down the west coast. Two of the TOP songs are trademark funk instrumentals, while the others include nice vocal contributions by future Grammy award winner Linda Tillery and Cold Blood’s Lydia Pense. (By the time ‘Lights Out’ was released, TOP had signed with Warner Brothers, who would not allow the band’s name on the cover, prompting Blue Thumb to put little brown strips over the band’s name on the already-printed record jackets). Other artists of note to appear include Cliff Coulter, Fahil Shahin, and Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks.

Voco, better known as Abe Kosh, worked quietly in the San Francisco music scene for over a decade, and was influential in the careers of Blue Cheer, Harvey Mandel, the Charlatans and others. (Blue Cheer later noted that Kosh was very laid back in the studio, although he did insist on cutting a minute out of ‘Summertime Blues’ for radio - leading to the massive success of that single). In 1980 he suffered a heart attack that left him disabled; his fans sent an astonishing 40,000 cards and letters to his San Rafael hospital. Voco passed away in 1989, at the age of 56. The album (which has not yet been released on CD) remains a worthy legacy to Voco’s career, and a solid snapshot of a musical community of startling talent. The selections by Sylvester and Tower of Power are unavailable elsewhere; fans as well as aficionados of Bay area music will want to add the out-of-print ‘Lights Out: San Francisco’ to their collection as soon as they can find a copy.

Mar

25

Songs arranged by Weill for Lenya from 1938-1949, these 1957 recordings remain definitive versions of many of the Weill classics introduced to younger audiences with the successful ‘Lost in the Stars’ A&M release. Of those later recordings, only Marianne Faithfull’s ‘A Soldier’s Wife’ came anywhere near to the sublime stylings of Lenya; the rest of the album (a popular and acclaimed seller) are trivial renditions by comparison. Weill most often wrote music to accompany existing lyrics, and ‘September Song’ features two tracks with lyrics by Ogden Nash, two by Ira Gershwin, two by Langston Hughes, one by Alan Jay Lerner, and the remaining five by Weill’s most-frequent collaborator, Maxwell Anderson. Lenya and Weill were, of course, a married couple, renowned socially as masters of hilarious verbal barbs and arrows, urbane and sophisticated conversationalists who could easily finish the other’s sentence or interject a wonderfully deflating comment with impeccable timing. It was this psychic connection that has made Lenya the definitive performer of Weill’s work - every accentuated nuance, hesitant pause and delicious husky quaver must be regarded as the composer’s intention, brilliantly revealed in emotional memory by his surviving lover. The songs on ‘September Song’ were recorded late in Lenya’s life; she had retired theatrically before Weill’s death, and was devastated by the loss of her beloved mate in 1950. Unable to remain alone, she formed a bond with close friend George Davis, who became her second husband and coaxed her to return to performing Weill’s songs; together they subsequently dedicated their lives to keeping Weill’s memory alive, in stage performance, recording, and the creation of the Kurt Weill Foundation of Music. Her return to recording was then, as now, justifiably applauded, as the advance in recording technology captured many exquisite performances, including brilliant versions of ‘Saga of Jennie’, ‘Speak Low’, ‘Lonely House’, ‘A Boy Like You’, ‘Trouble Man’, and ‘Lost in the Stars’, all on this album. All of these songs have been remastered and reissued on CD compilations, but the original vinyl release, with its many photographs and notes by Maxwell Anderson and Goddard Lieberson and superb Columbia sound, should be proudly part of the collections of enthusiasts of German cabaret or American theatre recordings. Enthusiastically recommended.

Mar

25

The original lyric sheet for the Murray McLauchlan’s 3rd release, ‘Day to Day Dust’ was printed on re-cycled de-inked fibres, a significant financial commitment in 1974 that aptly reflects the heartfelt social commitment on display throughout this album. Beginning with the stirring ‘Hurricane of Change’, McLauchlan forcefully adds his voice to the international folk protest movement:

‘Mama Mama I seen the world and I had to call
The Spring of the world deserted for a bloody fall
For Bloody gold - they kill the land…
What’s the sound that haunts me through the rain
Is it the breath of grief or the hurrican of change?”

In the folk protest traditions of Dylan and Lightfoot, McLauchlan’s erudite and intelligent lyrics poetically explore themes of love, lust, redemption, pain, disconnection and loneliness while eloquently lamenting corporate imperialism and the culture of atomic fear; it is only in the song ‘Revelations’ he finds a way to resolve his angst -
‘Was the story true or was it just in fun
About a resurrection and a life to come
I don’t care much about it anyhow
Resurrection don’t matter much in the here and now
Yes some day when I go down and die
With a quiet mind and a peaceful eye
I won’t worry no more about what goes on
I’ll just like down in the earth ’till the earth is gone.’

The original vinyl was unfortunately poorly produced, with only McLauchlan’s voice and Amos Garrett’s vibrant guitar prevailing through the turgid mix; drums and bass are muted and uncompelling. Despite this handicap, ‘Day To Day Dust’ still is a solid release by McLauchlan, with humanist core values, most of which still ring true. Deleted and long out of print, ‘Day to Day Dust’ is worth picking up at least for ‘Revelation’ alone if you can find it; recommended for fans of McLauchlan, Lightfoot, Dylan, or protest folk music in general.

Mar

25

Looking at the cover art - Barney Bentall, ruggedly downcast, wearing range clothes and cowboy hat, horses on the back cover - it is easy to assume that this is a country record in the manner of fellow Canadian icon Ian Tyson, featuring rugged traditional songs of cowboys, lost love, betrayal and vengeance. Not so - Barney Bentall’s ‘gift horse’ is reflective and pensive, a well-played and produced soft rock album influenced more by western and mountain folk traditions than overt country music influences. Bentall went into semi-retirement a few years ago, working a family ranch in a remote corner of British Columbia, and these songs are the result of his personal lifestyle change: ‘A man is what he thinks about all day long’, he sings on ‘A Man Is’, and on ‘gift horse’ he shares his contemplations on life and aging, matured and sharpened from days of working cattle on the lonely plains of western Canada. There are a few anecdotal songs - ‘The Ballad of Old Tom Jones’, for example, tells of an aging rancher nostalgic to return to his birthplace, and ‘Around the Bend’ sadly laments another broken family. Detractors of Bentall will once again lament his unimpressive range of expression, pointing to his limited vocal delivery and musical arrangements that lack innovation and originality; still, moments of real lyrical beauty in come in his more-personal tracks - ‘Talk To God’ and ‘You and I Will Meet Again’ feel heartfelt and honest. ‘Come Away With Me’ is the bonus track, a bawdy traditional sing-along that lifts the mood of the record, injecting some much-needed liveliness and humor at the right time. The musical accompaniment is top-notch, including Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo, veteran Vancouver studio stars Rob Becker and Pat Steward, and significant contributions from producer John Ellis. ‘Gift Horse’ will not open any new doors for Barney Bentall, but for his long-time fans or those of Blue Rodeo, this is a nice laid-back addition to your collection that will ring true and clear.

Mar

21

‘Brute Reason’ is an interesting release in the Bernard Szajner catalog, not least because of three collaborations with Howard DeVoto during what was arguably his most creative period. Devoto had broken up the influential, economically unsuccesful group Magazine in 1981, and recorded these three songs with Szajner at the same time he was recording his first solo album, ‘Jerky Versions of A Dream’. Those tracks featuring DeVoto’s lyrics and voice could very well be quirky outtakes from a Magazine recording session, featuring pulsing synth rhythms and melody lines, typical 80’s slapbass (think Tony Levin), dramatic guitar chord changes, wacky song structures, and of course DeVoto’s unique vocal affectations tangled around such lyric wordsmithery as the epigramatic ‘When you take chances sometimes chances are what you get’ to the marvelously obtuse ‘He’s got a skullful of kerosene and shortcuts balanced on his neck’.

The rest of the tracks are solid experimental new-wave synth rock, with the title track being a highlight, a percussive groove featuring the superb Taiko drum master Joji Hirota on drums and wordless vocals, enhanced by wild saxophone and keyboards fills. ‘Domestic Casualty’ references ‘Execute’ from Sjazner’s influential ‘Some Deaths Take Forever’, a heavier reworking that builds to a crescendo using pounding drums,multi-tracked Fripp-ish guitars and compelling synths to build to a similar frightening conclusion as the original. The album closes with the slow insistent ‘The Snark’, a compelling and languid instrumental featuring saxophone, keyboards, guitar and two bass guitars. The artwork includes a dreamy photo of Bernard with his most influential invention, the laser harp, surrounded by all his gear, a near-iconic image. Overall the album is melodramatic, cinematic even, with solid standout performances from all the assembled musicians, with particular credit to guitarist Xavier Geronimi and bassist Bernard Paganotti, as well as maestro Szajner’s strong keyboard work and compositions.

An album that makes more sense with repeated listenings, ‘Brute Reason’ is recommended browsing for fans of Howard DeVoto, Magazine, King Crimson, Brian Eno, prog-rock, synth-wave or experimental rock in general.

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