This past Thursday night, I had an unexpected night off. I'm in the middle of what's usually my busiest season at my day job, but this year, business is way slower than usual. I had noticed a week or so ago that Lisa Loeb was playing at the Boulton Center on that night, and made a mental note to myself that if I happened to wind up off on that night, maybe I'd go see her. I'm not the biggest fan, but I like the song "Stay", and I've been in the mood lately to see someone I haven't seen live a bunch of times. Now I make a lot of these kinds of mental notes to myself -- the potential life I live in my imagination is a rich and busy one -- but usually when I do that, I either end up working after all, or if I do get the night off, I just say "Oh the hell with it, I'm tired" and go home. But on Thursday, I decided to go for the gusto, and when I finished my part-time job (well, they're both really part time now, but my newer part-time job) I headed for Bay Shore.
I had been on the web site a few days earlier, and there were a lot of tickets left at the time, so I thought that odds were I'd have no trouble getting a ticket. Happily, I was right. In fact, when I asked the box office manager if there were any tickets left, she looked very grateful, like she was just barely restraining herself from saying "Oh God, yes!" So I bought my ticket, grabbed a copy of Good Times, and toddled up the block where I killed an hour eating some mighty fine Chinese food and reading my paper until showtime.
As she had no opening act, Ms. Loeb went on right on time, promptly at 8 PM, telling us from the get-go she was going to play for a little while and send us home nice and early. This was fine with me.
I'd characterize the show as a pleasant evening of music. The room was only about half full, but the crowd that was there was pretty friendly, and I had the impression I was one of the few who hadn't seen her before. There were children in the audience also, which is appropriate, since in addition to her regular folky-pop, she's done a few albums of children's music, and some shows on Nickelodeon as well.
Loeb played some songs from her newest album Feel What U Feel, and although they were OK, they didn't blow me away. She has a nice enough personality, though, and tells some funny stories, which was good. I also liked a number of her older songs, especially a song called "Everyday" from her Cake and Pie album (which sounded a little to my ears like a sea chanty), and another called "Truthfully" from her Firecracker album. I also enjoyed her two best-known hits "Stay (I Missed You)" from the Reality Bites soundtrack album (it's also on her The Very Best Of album), and "I Do" which is also on Firecracker. And because I'm about as mature as a 6-year-old, one of my other favorites of the night was one of children's songs called "The Disappointing Pancake" from her Camp Lisa album. So overall, I felt that the show was definitely worth a price of the ticket and the time spent. And I'd consider seeing her again next time she comes around.
One of the things that also helped was the venue. The Boulton Center is one of my favorite places to see a show on Long Island. It's intimate compared to places like Paramount, and The Space, the seats are comfy, and the sound is always good there. It suits full bands OK -- I've seen bands like Nine Days and The Last Hombres there. Mountain even played there once, and I regret missing that show, because I'd love to have seen how well the venue held up with Leslie West's wailing guitar bouncing off the walls. But it's also a great place for acoustic singers and duos. So the comfort of the venue definitely added to the show. In fact, I even recommended the place to the band Runa recently, which leads me to another story.
Runa is a very talented Celtic music band from Philadelphia (among other places). My family caught them live upstate a couple of years ago at a Celtic festival in Herkimer, NY, and I've since purchased several of their albums. They were supposed to play The Patchogue Theatre a few weeks ago on St. Patrick's weekend, and my wife and I had tickets. Then, that week, a few days before the show, I got an e-mail from the ticket agency letting me know they were refunding my money. I was disappointed, and called the theater, who confirmed that yes, the show had been cancelled. I asked the box office lady what had happened and she told me she wasn't sure why the band had cancelled. So being the pain in the ass that I am, I sent the band an e-mail to ask what had happened (I thought maybe one of the band members was sick) and were they planning to reschedule. Much to my surprise, I got an e-mail back from them less than 10 minutes later, telling me that this was the first they were hearing that the show was cancelled. A little while later, they e-mailed again, confirming that the show had been cancelled. Apparently the advance ticket sales had been a little sluggish (they're not that well known in this area), so the theater got nervous and just pulled the plug. Thanks a lot, Patchogue Theater! So anyway, I recommended that the band get in toucch with The Boulton Center next time they want to schedule a Long Island show. (Btw, I don't think the Patchogue Theatre box office lady was lying to me, I just think she hadn't been told the full story).
Don't get me wrong, The Patchogue Theatre is a beautiful venue, and I do appreciate their support of local music through their Live in the Lobby series. But they really dropped the ball on this one. They let down the band and the fans. So I really appreciated that even though the sales for Lisa Loeb's show weren't stellar, they still allowed the show to go on. Yay, Boulton Center.
I'll close with some Lisa Loeb fun facts that I posted a few days ago on the Sputnik Music site.
1. Lisa Loeb has her own line of eye wear. (She's been identified for so long with that kind of cute, smart-looking girl who wears glasses, look that I guess it was a natural).
2. She's had a couple of different television shows on cable TV, including a food show with Dweezil Zappa (of all people) and a dating show.
3. Both Ed Helms and Steve Martin played banjo on one of her albums. So she's pretty much cornered the market on banjo-playing comedians.
4. She's the only artist ever to have a #1 hit single without a record deal. Her song "Stay" wound up on the Reality Bites soundtrack because she's friends with the actor Ethan Hawkes, who convinced the director Ben Stiller to give the song a listen. Stiller liked it and put it on the soundtrack, which basically made her career.
5. Even with leggings on, she has really skinny legs.
6. She started doing children's albums even before she was a Mom. And
7. She has a really rude second-cousin, judging by one of the comments I got when I wrote about the show on Sputnik. (That kind of thing is the very reason why I have the "allow comments" function disabled for this blog.)
Anyway, that's all for now. Stay well, and enjoy good music, people.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Review of The Buggles' "The Age of Plastic"
I posted this review earlier this afternoon on the Sputnik Music website:
There are albums that require repeated listens before they grow on you. You give them a chance, you don't give up on them, and eventually they start to make sense to you. Then there are albums that hit you right away. For me, The Age of Plastic by The Buggles fits into this latter category. I can honestly say that from the first listen, it was nothing but pure pleasure.
The Buggles are a British band made up of singer/bass player/guitarist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoffrey Downes. In spite of the fact that their entire recorded output consisted of two albums, including this one and their 1981 album Adventures in Modern Recording, they own a little piece of rock music history: their video for the single "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the first video ever played on a little fledgling cable television network called MTV. They're also somewhat known for the fact that in the middle of their career as The Buggles (in between their two albums), the two of them also joined progressive rock icons Yes and were a key part of that band for the 1980 Drama album. And 31 years later, Downes rejoined Yes and Horn played on and produced Yes's 2011 album, Fly From Here.
This leads to the question of exactly who were these Buggles. Were they fish or fowl? Were they a happy new wave pop band in the carefree '80s, or were they, at least in part, a pair of progressive rockers? Well, the answer to both questions, is ... wait for it ... Yes! (I know, I used that line before in my Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe review, but I believe in recycling). Downes has been quoted as saying that he sees The Buggles as equal parts prog rock and pop. My ears have always heard them as pure new wave. In the end, though, I guess the labels don't really matter. What does matter is, is the music good, and is it enjoyable? And this time, the answer is "Hell Yes!"
The Age of Plastic is a futuristic concept album that demonstrates both an embrace of and a fear of technology. The music is fittingly mechanical throughout -- there are lots of drum machines, synthesizers and vocal effects, as well as several ethereal guest-female vocals, all of which give The Age of Plastic a decidedly science fiction feel. In fact, the album seems to have been strongly influenced by the music of Kraftwerk.
The song that most people know is the aforementioned "Video Killed the Radio Star", a somewhat regretful look at the things we lose as technology drives us relentlessly forward. "We can't rewind, we've gone too far," Horn laments, as he remembers a past of radio dramas that was wiped away by the advent of television. His vocals, which sound far away and dry, as if sung through a megaphone, contrast with the warm female vocals on the chorus, as they hammer home the central observation of the song: "Video killed the radio star/Video killed the radio star." Meanwhile, the song is catchy as hell, which is why it reached #1 not only on the British charts, but also in Australia, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden (although it only got as high as #40 in the U.S.).
As good as the single is, though, the sonic treats don't end there. In fact, from the horrifying opening of the album, which features a man screaming in agony as he gets a facelift from what sounds like some kind of power drill at the beginning of "Living in the Plastic Age" to his final dull moans at the end of the unearthly closing track "Johnny on the Monorail", we find way more wheat than chaff throughout the album's short 36-minute-and-24-second duration.
Once you get past those terrifying opening wails, "Living in the Plastic Age" is actually a somewhat humorous number, featuring some of Downes' jauntiest piano, as Horn laments "Living in the plastic age/Looking only half my age/Hello, doctor, lift my face/I wish my skin could stand the pace." This song sets up the central theme for the rest of the album, the idea that the individual's life gets increasingly out of control as science changes the world around us. It's explored in different ways throughout the album, until in the last track "Johnny on the Monorail", we're given the metaphor of life as a monorail that carries us passively along, the starts and stops completely out of our control: "All we cannot see we call invisible/Tracks that move on pylons through the sky."
The sci-fi sounds continue throughout, never more so than on one of my favorite numbers, "I Love You (Miss Robot)". Even the vocals are mechanized on this one, as our automated protagonist declares "I love you, Miss Robot/Programmed just to please/I love you, Miss Robot/Electronic tease". Downes has proclaimed that this song is actually about impersonal sex, but I always just took it for what it sounds like -- a mechanical love song sung by one robot to another. Another song, "Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)", is a slower, more laid back track that always made me think of the half-robot, half-human Astro Boy character from the old animated television show. In this one, the song's protagonist sits back and watches the parade of tourists marching through the city in front of him, but finds them to be somewhat machinelike: "Walking down boulevards, electric eyes/Would gaze at the waveforms and gasp at their size".
In spite of the success of "Video Killed the Radio Star", The Age of Plastic is a mostly overlooked album, never reaching higher than #27 on the British charts, and failing to chart in the U.S. at all. Small wonder, then, that given the chance, Horn and Downes jumped at the chance to join Yes, even if that band was undergoing their own struggles at the time (their most recent album, 1978's Tormato, was less successful both commercially and critically than most of their previous albums). This is unfortunate, though, as to my mind, The Age of Plastic is a mostly forgotten gem -- an album that blends catchy pop and experimental (for the time) music with serious themes, and does it in a fun way. Doubtlessly one day in the future, when Skynet becomes self aware and the machines fulfill their destiny by taking over the planet, the genius of this album will finally be recognized, and cyborgs everywhere will fuel a major resurgence in Buggles music. I only wish I could be there to enjoy it.
Ratings: 4/5 stars
Review Summary: Are they new wave? Are they pop? Are they progressive rock? Who cares when the album is this entertaining.
There are albums that require repeated listens before they grow on you. You give them a chance, you don't give up on them, and eventually they start to make sense to you. Then there are albums that hit you right away. For me, The Age of Plastic by The Buggles fits into this latter category. I can honestly say that from the first listen, it was nothing but pure pleasure.
The Buggles are a British band made up of singer/bass player/guitarist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoffrey Downes. In spite of the fact that their entire recorded output consisted of two albums, including this one and their 1981 album Adventures in Modern Recording, they own a little piece of rock music history: their video for the single "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the first video ever played on a little fledgling cable television network called MTV. They're also somewhat known for the fact that in the middle of their career as The Buggles (in between their two albums), the two of them also joined progressive rock icons Yes and were a key part of that band for the 1980 Drama album. And 31 years later, Downes rejoined Yes and Horn played on and produced Yes's 2011 album, Fly From Here.
This leads to the question of exactly who were these Buggles. Were they fish or fowl? Were they a happy new wave pop band in the carefree '80s, or were they, at least in part, a pair of progressive rockers? Well, the answer to both questions, is ... wait for it ... Yes! (I know, I used that line before in my Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe review, but I believe in recycling). Downes has been quoted as saying that he sees The Buggles as equal parts prog rock and pop. My ears have always heard them as pure new wave. In the end, though, I guess the labels don't really matter. What does matter is, is the music good, and is it enjoyable? And this time, the answer is "Hell Yes!"
The Age of Plastic is a futuristic concept album that demonstrates both an embrace of and a fear of technology. The music is fittingly mechanical throughout -- there are lots of drum machines, synthesizers and vocal effects, as well as several ethereal guest-female vocals, all of which give The Age of Plastic a decidedly science fiction feel. In fact, the album seems to have been strongly influenced by the music of Kraftwerk.
The song that most people know is the aforementioned "Video Killed the Radio Star", a somewhat regretful look at the things we lose as technology drives us relentlessly forward. "We can't rewind, we've gone too far," Horn laments, as he remembers a past of radio dramas that was wiped away by the advent of television. His vocals, which sound far away and dry, as if sung through a megaphone, contrast with the warm female vocals on the chorus, as they hammer home the central observation of the song: "Video killed the radio star/Video killed the radio star." Meanwhile, the song is catchy as hell, which is why it reached #1 not only on the British charts, but also in Australia, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden (although it only got as high as #40 in the U.S.).
As good as the single is, though, the sonic treats don't end there. In fact, from the horrifying opening of the album, which features a man screaming in agony as he gets a facelift from what sounds like some kind of power drill at the beginning of "Living in the Plastic Age" to his final dull moans at the end of the unearthly closing track "Johnny on the Monorail", we find way more wheat than chaff throughout the album's short 36-minute-and-24-second duration.
Once you get past those terrifying opening wails, "Living in the Plastic Age" is actually a somewhat humorous number, featuring some of Downes' jauntiest piano, as Horn laments "Living in the plastic age/Looking only half my age/Hello, doctor, lift my face/I wish my skin could stand the pace." This song sets up the central theme for the rest of the album, the idea that the individual's life gets increasingly out of control as science changes the world around us. It's explored in different ways throughout the album, until in the last track "Johnny on the Monorail", we're given the metaphor of life as a monorail that carries us passively along, the starts and stops completely out of our control: "All we cannot see we call invisible/Tracks that move on pylons through the sky."
The sci-fi sounds continue throughout, never more so than on one of my favorite numbers, "I Love You (Miss Robot)". Even the vocals are mechanized on this one, as our automated protagonist declares "I love you, Miss Robot/Programmed just to please/I love you, Miss Robot/Electronic tease". Downes has proclaimed that this song is actually about impersonal sex, but I always just took it for what it sounds like -- a mechanical love song sung by one robot to another. Another song, "Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)", is a slower, more laid back track that always made me think of the half-robot, half-human Astro Boy character from the old animated television show. In this one, the song's protagonist sits back and watches the parade of tourists marching through the city in front of him, but finds them to be somewhat machinelike: "Walking down boulevards, electric eyes/Would gaze at the waveforms and gasp at their size".
In spite of the success of "Video Killed the Radio Star", The Age of Plastic is a mostly overlooked album, never reaching higher than #27 on the British charts, and failing to chart in the U.S. at all. Small wonder, then, that given the chance, Horn and Downes jumped at the chance to join Yes, even if that band was undergoing their own struggles at the time (their most recent album, 1978's Tormato, was less successful both commercially and critically than most of their previous albums). This is unfortunate, though, as to my mind, The Age of Plastic is a mostly forgotten gem -- an album that blends catchy pop and experimental (for the time) music with serious themes, and does it in a fun way. Doubtlessly one day in the future, when Skynet becomes self aware and the machines fulfill their destiny by taking over the planet, the genius of this album will finally be recognized, and cyborgs everywhere will fuel a major resurgence in Buggles music. I only wish I could be there to enjoy it.
Ratings: 4/5 stars
Monday, March 27, 2017
"Ghost the Musical" and CD Baby
Took my daughter and her boyfriend to see Ghost the Musical this past Saturday night at The CAP Center (http://www.culturalartsplayhouse.com) in Syosset. This was the first production I'd seen in their Syosset facility. I've been to shows in their old Plainview playhouse, and before that in their Bethpage theater. The Syosset playhouse has a stage that looks roughly the same size as the one they had in Plainview, but the seating area is much larger and nicer.
I was looking forward to the play, as it's not a show that's been done very often around these parts. Wouldn't be surprised if this was its first Long Island production, but I can't verify that. In any event, the show didn't disappoint.
Ghost the Musical isn't a perfect vehicle. It's based on the 1990 supernatural romance film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. The story is about a young couple in love who live together, Sam and Molly. Sam is killed during a robbery attempt, and for the rest of the film, Sam as a ghost tries his best to solve his own murder and to communicate with the grieving Molly through a psychic con woman named Oda Mae, who is more shocked than anyone to discover that she really can communicate with the dead. The musical opened in London and ran for 500 performances. It opened on Broadway in April of 2012, but only ran for 136 performances. Reviews were mediocre, and for good reason -- while it has its moments, it's a flawed show -- the music is so-so, and it drags in parts.
However, with a good cast and decent staging, it can make for a fun night of entertainment. Happily, that's the case at The CAP Center. All four of the leading actors did a very good job -- Danny Amy as Sam and Alyson Rogers were both extremely likable as Sam and Molly, and both showed excellent voices. Taneisha Corbin, was very quite as Oda Mae, and demonstrated an impressive pair of pipes as well. And Corey Martin as Sam's best friend and co-worker Carl, who might be trying to move in on Molly after Sam's demise, was also sterling. As for the rest of the cast, they did a fine job in various roles, and also in moving the necessary scenery onto and off of the tiny stage. My experience with CAP is that they tend to do a lot with a little, and that was the case here as well.
The show runs for one more weekend, this Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1 at 8PM, and Sunday afternoon, April 2 at 3PM. You can get tickets at their website, listed above, or at their box office at 516-694-3330. You ought to give it a shot. You'll be haunted if you don't. (OK, that even hurt me to write that.) Their next production, Sister Act, runs from April 7 through April 30.
Meanwhile, I've been picking up some albums by local artists that I somehow missed last year, including Tom Hood's It's My Black & White World and The Bossa Nova Beatniks' For the Fun. Also picked up a Sonny Meadows album I somehow missed before, as well as Tom Hood's previous album (by Tom Hood and the Tropical Sons), Too Much Sun! God bless CDBaby.com for letting me catch up on local music. I'll let you know a little more about these CDs when I get a chance to digest them (although it's going to take a little while, as new 2017 music is now my top priority).
I was looking forward to the play, as it's not a show that's been done very often around these parts. Wouldn't be surprised if this was its first Long Island production, but I can't verify that. In any event, the show didn't disappoint.
Ghost the Musical isn't a perfect vehicle. It's based on the 1990 supernatural romance film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. The story is about a young couple in love who live together, Sam and Molly. Sam is killed during a robbery attempt, and for the rest of the film, Sam as a ghost tries his best to solve his own murder and to communicate with the grieving Molly through a psychic con woman named Oda Mae, who is more shocked than anyone to discover that she really can communicate with the dead. The musical opened in London and ran for 500 performances. It opened on Broadway in April of 2012, but only ran for 136 performances. Reviews were mediocre, and for good reason -- while it has its moments, it's a flawed show -- the music is so-so, and it drags in parts.
However, with a good cast and decent staging, it can make for a fun night of entertainment. Happily, that's the case at The CAP Center. All four of the leading actors did a very good job -- Danny Amy as Sam and Alyson Rogers were both extremely likable as Sam and Molly, and both showed excellent voices. Taneisha Corbin, was very quite as Oda Mae, and demonstrated an impressive pair of pipes as well. And Corey Martin as Sam's best friend and co-worker Carl, who might be trying to move in on Molly after Sam's demise, was also sterling. As for the rest of the cast, they did a fine job in various roles, and also in moving the necessary scenery onto and off of the tiny stage. My experience with CAP is that they tend to do a lot with a little, and that was the case here as well.
The show runs for one more weekend, this Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1 at 8PM, and Sunday afternoon, April 2 at 3PM. You can get tickets at their website, listed above, or at their box office at 516-694-3330. You ought to give it a shot. You'll be haunted if you don't. (OK, that even hurt me to write that.) Their next production, Sister Act, runs from April 7 through April 30.
Meanwhile, I've been picking up some albums by local artists that I somehow missed last year, including Tom Hood's It's My Black & White World and The Bossa Nova Beatniks' For the Fun. Also picked up a Sonny Meadows album I somehow missed before, as well as Tom Hood's previous album (by Tom Hood and the Tropical Sons), Too Much Sun! God bless CDBaby.com for letting me catch up on local music. I'll let you know a little more about these CDs when I get a chance to digest them (although it's going to take a little while, as new 2017 music is now my top priority).
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Review of The Good Rats' "Birth Comes to Us All"
I posted this review last night on the Sputnik Music website.
I always thought that being a Good Rats fan living on Long Island in the mid-to-late '70s must have been a little like being a Who fan living in London in the early '60s. They were both working-class bands with (mostly male) working-class fans, on the way up, and seemingly destined for glory. Tasty (1974), Ratcity in Blue (1976), From Rats to Riches (1978) -- each new Rats release garnered plenty of FM radio airplay (especially in New York), as the Rats shared the stage with (and often headlined over) a host of '70s bands, many of whom later went on to become rock legends. To a Rats fan, at first, Birth Comes to Us All (1979) just seemed like the Rats' next step on the way to world domination. Then, somewhere, it all went wrong.
It's not that Birth Comes to Us All is a bad album. Far from it. I know that many Good Rats fans would disagree with me, but in some ways, I actually like Birth better than Ratcity in Blue. But although it did receive some airplay, it seemed like it got a lot less than the previous three albums. The following year, the Rats released a double live album, Live at Last, that was still pretty popular on the radio. Unfortunately, that was the last gasp. In 1981, guitarist John Gatto and bass player Lenny Kotke left the band. In 1981, the revamped Good Rats released Great American Music to little acclaim and even less publicity (I never even knew they'd released a new album until several years later). They plugged away for a few years, then disbanded in 1983.
So what was the problem with Birth Comes to Us All? Why was it less popular than the previous three albums, and why did it start a downward slide in the band's fortunes? I believe there are several reasons.
For starters, Birth Comes to Us All feels like a less organized album than the others. It's ironic, because actually, it's probably the most thematically unified album The Good Rats ever released -- most of the songs are somehow tied to the idea of the cycle of life. It feels a little disordered, though, mostly to do with the makeup of the songs. While the Rats were always known as a hard-rocking band, the only real songs of that type on Birth are "Cherry River" and "Gino". Most of the others are either slower and quieter, like "You're Still Doing It" and "Birth Comes to Us All", poppier like "School Days", or quirky character-study type songs like "Man on a Fish" and "Ordinary Man". With so few hard rock numbers, the album didn't feel well paced.
The other thing that I think had a big impact on the album's fortune, though, was the choice of which songs received airplay. "School Days" got a decent amount, and in the ensuing years since Birth's release, it probably became the Good Rats song to receive the most radio play other than "Tasty". "Cherry River" got a little airplay also. When the album was first released, however, the song that was pushed the hardest by the radio stations I listened to was "You're Still Doing It". I don't know whose choice this was -- the band's, the label's (and I think the album was actually released by Uncle Rat Music, so the band was the label) or the radio stations', but regardless, I think this was a huge mistake.
When the album was first released (on vinyl, of course, since it was 1979), "You're Still Doing It" was the first song on Side 1, the song that led off the album. It's not a bad song, and in fact, it has one of lead singer/songwriter Peppi Marchello's best vocals. But it's achingly slow for a single, and more to the point, it's a love song. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for the average band, but the fact is, Marchello was never known for his love songs. He wrote lust songs, mostly about being the average Joe with blue balls who has to work up all of his courage just to make a play for a woman, and who usually winds up with egg on his face, and that was something his blue collar fan base could relate to. But a love song? Maybe if "You're Still Doing It" was a love song about that electric feeling teens and twenty-somethings get when they start a brand new love relationship, it would have opened the Rats up to a wider fan base, even if it didn't score big with their usual fans. In 1979, though, Marchello was a married man with four young children, and he wrote about what he knew. So he wrote a love song to his wife about a mature relationship. "You're still doing it," he sang. I go away on the road, and I play music in front of a bunch of people, and it's great, but in the end, I just look forward to coming home to you. It's a beautiful sentiment, but it made for a lousy single -- it didn't appeal to young record buyers, and his usual audience just didn't relate to it. To me, this was the biggest reason Birth Comes to Us All never took off the way its predecessors did. "You're Still Doing It" was just the wrong song to push. And it's worth noting that a few years later when the album was released on CD, the order of the songs was rearranged so that "School Days" is now the first song, while "You're Still Doing It" was placed seventh.
Nevertheless, Birth Comes to Us All still has a lot to recommend it. "School Days" is a humorous look at ... well, school days, with amusing observations like "Kindergarten playing in some sand box/Next five years they slap your hands a lot" and "I'd better stick my hand up/Before the lady calls on me". It's a nostalgic look back at what Marchello seemed to remember as mostly happy times.
As previously mentioned, the two rockiest numbers are "Cherry River" and "Gino". "Cherry River" follows Marchello through an exhausting hike deep into the woods. He stops at a creek for a drink of water, and suddenly this wild woman appears "in a flash" and treats him to the sexual encounter of his life. Did it really happen? Was there something psychotropic in the water? Was it sunstroke? We never find out, as our hero spends the rest of his life futilely trying to find that place again. Real or fantasy, though, it made for a powerful rock song. "Gino", on the other hand, is one of those songs that never made an impression on me until I saw it performed live. This might have been because of the contrast of hearing an adult Gene Marchello singing the Gino part in a powerful rock voice when the revamped Good Rats performed the song in the '90s, as opposed to listening to little 10-year-old Gene Marchello squeaking "No Daddy, it's not for me" on the record. Now when I listen to the recorded version of this song about a hitman father trying to teach his son about the ways of the world ... "You got to step on them before they step on you, my boy!" ... it comes alive for me in an entirely different way.
"Man on a Fish" is the story of an old man whose world has left him behind. "Like the old movie houses that haven't been sold/I was filled with a warmness that's turned into cold". This has one of my favorite verses that Marchello ever wrote, as the crusty main character brags to his young interviewer, "Look at my face boy -- study it close/Look at my eyes and notice my nose/Are you thinking that I must have been quite a man?/Well it's more than you think, I can still break your hand/If it's pity you're giving -- then I'll have me none/If it's warmth you're expecting -- go out in the sun!" He sounds sort of like Popeye's Pappy. "Ordinary Man", meanwhile, is another character study of a man who doesn't seem to have much of a home life, so he gets his feeling of power and importance from being a citizen patrol officer. "Oh yes!" Marchello croons, "He's volunteered now for six tours a week/Guarding the stores while the merchants all sleep/Isn't he something?" The percussion for this one is very military, and the music starts quietly but builds in volume until it's just a little out of control, much like our protagonist.
The closing song on Birth Comes to Us All is the title track, and it's the gem that ties everything together. Starting with a simple pair of slow bass notes that repeat themselves, this song follows the cycle of life in plain but poignant words, through the various stages that human beings all share ... birth, growth, names, ways (habits), hurt and love. Several of Marchello's songs over the years were about the relationship between fathers and sons, and this song contains one of his most regretful observations: "Isn't it a shame/You never took the time to thank the real Santa Claus/And when you found it out/Too old to kiss his mouth." I'd be lying if I didn't admit that this verse has brought a tear to my eye on a few occasions.
Birth Comes to Us All isn't a perfect rock LP. It's nowhere near as consistent as Tasty, and it doesn't have as many classic rock anthems as From Rats to Riches. If you take it for what it is, though, there are enough treats here to make it more than worthwhile. It was certainly strong enough that when it was released, we Good Rats fans never guessed it would be the Rats' last real chance at making it to Olympus with rock gods like Rush, Ozzy or The Who. The album -- and the band -- deserved a better fate. If you believe in rebirth, though, maybe somehow, someday, they'll get it. And as Marchello sings in character as the man on the fish, "And I'll throw out my arm as I reach for the ring/Life's a merry-go-round -- I'll repeat everything!"
Rating: 3/5 stars
Review Summary: We never saw the end coming.
I always thought that being a Good Rats fan living on Long Island in the mid-to-late '70s must have been a little like being a Who fan living in London in the early '60s. They were both working-class bands with (mostly male) working-class fans, on the way up, and seemingly destined for glory. Tasty (1974), Ratcity in Blue (1976), From Rats to Riches (1978) -- each new Rats release garnered plenty of FM radio airplay (especially in New York), as the Rats shared the stage with (and often headlined over) a host of '70s bands, many of whom later went on to become rock legends. To a Rats fan, at first, Birth Comes to Us All (1979) just seemed like the Rats' next step on the way to world domination. Then, somewhere, it all went wrong.
It's not that Birth Comes to Us All is a bad album. Far from it. I know that many Good Rats fans would disagree with me, but in some ways, I actually like Birth better than Ratcity in Blue. But although it did receive some airplay, it seemed like it got a lot less than the previous three albums. The following year, the Rats released a double live album, Live at Last, that was still pretty popular on the radio. Unfortunately, that was the last gasp. In 1981, guitarist John Gatto and bass player Lenny Kotke left the band. In 1981, the revamped Good Rats released Great American Music to little acclaim and even less publicity (I never even knew they'd released a new album until several years later). They plugged away for a few years, then disbanded in 1983.
So what was the problem with Birth Comes to Us All? Why was it less popular than the previous three albums, and why did it start a downward slide in the band's fortunes? I believe there are several reasons.
For starters, Birth Comes to Us All feels like a less organized album than the others. It's ironic, because actually, it's probably the most thematically unified album The Good Rats ever released -- most of the songs are somehow tied to the idea of the cycle of life. It feels a little disordered, though, mostly to do with the makeup of the songs. While the Rats were always known as a hard-rocking band, the only real songs of that type on Birth are "Cherry River" and "Gino". Most of the others are either slower and quieter, like "You're Still Doing It" and "Birth Comes to Us All", poppier like "School Days", or quirky character-study type songs like "Man on a Fish" and "Ordinary Man". With so few hard rock numbers, the album didn't feel well paced.
The other thing that I think had a big impact on the album's fortune, though, was the choice of which songs received airplay. "School Days" got a decent amount, and in the ensuing years since Birth's release, it probably became the Good Rats song to receive the most radio play other than "Tasty". "Cherry River" got a little airplay also. When the album was first released, however, the song that was pushed the hardest by the radio stations I listened to was "You're Still Doing It". I don't know whose choice this was -- the band's, the label's (and I think the album was actually released by Uncle Rat Music, so the band was the label) or the radio stations', but regardless, I think this was a huge mistake.
When the album was first released (on vinyl, of course, since it was 1979), "You're Still Doing It" was the first song on Side 1, the song that led off the album. It's not a bad song, and in fact, it has one of lead singer/songwriter Peppi Marchello's best vocals. But it's achingly slow for a single, and more to the point, it's a love song. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for the average band, but the fact is, Marchello was never known for his love songs. He wrote lust songs, mostly about being the average Joe with blue balls who has to work up all of his courage just to make a play for a woman, and who usually winds up with egg on his face, and that was something his blue collar fan base could relate to. But a love song? Maybe if "You're Still Doing It" was a love song about that electric feeling teens and twenty-somethings get when they start a brand new love relationship, it would have opened the Rats up to a wider fan base, even if it didn't score big with their usual fans. In 1979, though, Marchello was a married man with four young children, and he wrote about what he knew. So he wrote a love song to his wife about a mature relationship. "You're still doing it," he sang. I go away on the road, and I play music in front of a bunch of people, and it's great, but in the end, I just look forward to coming home to you. It's a beautiful sentiment, but it made for a lousy single -- it didn't appeal to young record buyers, and his usual audience just didn't relate to it. To me, this was the biggest reason Birth Comes to Us All never took off the way its predecessors did. "You're Still Doing It" was just the wrong song to push. And it's worth noting that a few years later when the album was released on CD, the order of the songs was rearranged so that "School Days" is now the first song, while "You're Still Doing It" was placed seventh.
Nevertheless, Birth Comes to Us All still has a lot to recommend it. "School Days" is a humorous look at ... well, school days, with amusing observations like "Kindergarten playing in some sand box/Next five years they slap your hands a lot" and "I'd better stick my hand up/Before the lady calls on me". It's a nostalgic look back at what Marchello seemed to remember as mostly happy times.
As previously mentioned, the two rockiest numbers are "Cherry River" and "Gino". "Cherry River" follows Marchello through an exhausting hike deep into the woods. He stops at a creek for a drink of water, and suddenly this wild woman appears "in a flash" and treats him to the sexual encounter of his life. Did it really happen? Was there something psychotropic in the water? Was it sunstroke? We never find out, as our hero spends the rest of his life futilely trying to find that place again. Real or fantasy, though, it made for a powerful rock song. "Gino", on the other hand, is one of those songs that never made an impression on me until I saw it performed live. This might have been because of the contrast of hearing an adult Gene Marchello singing the Gino part in a powerful rock voice when the revamped Good Rats performed the song in the '90s, as opposed to listening to little 10-year-old Gene Marchello squeaking "No Daddy, it's not for me" on the record. Now when I listen to the recorded version of this song about a hitman father trying to teach his son about the ways of the world ... "You got to step on them before they step on you, my boy!" ... it comes alive for me in an entirely different way.
"Man on a Fish" is the story of an old man whose world has left him behind. "Like the old movie houses that haven't been sold/I was filled with a warmness that's turned into cold". This has one of my favorite verses that Marchello ever wrote, as the crusty main character brags to his young interviewer, "Look at my face boy -- study it close/Look at my eyes and notice my nose/Are you thinking that I must have been quite a man?/Well it's more than you think, I can still break your hand/If it's pity you're giving -- then I'll have me none/If it's warmth you're expecting -- go out in the sun!" He sounds sort of like Popeye's Pappy. "Ordinary Man", meanwhile, is another character study of a man who doesn't seem to have much of a home life, so he gets his feeling of power and importance from being a citizen patrol officer. "Oh yes!" Marchello croons, "He's volunteered now for six tours a week/Guarding the stores while the merchants all sleep/Isn't he something?" The percussion for this one is very military, and the music starts quietly but builds in volume until it's just a little out of control, much like our protagonist.
The closing song on Birth Comes to Us All is the title track, and it's the gem that ties everything together. Starting with a simple pair of slow bass notes that repeat themselves, this song follows the cycle of life in plain but poignant words, through the various stages that human beings all share ... birth, growth, names, ways (habits), hurt and love. Several of Marchello's songs over the years were about the relationship between fathers and sons, and this song contains one of his most regretful observations: "Isn't it a shame/You never took the time to thank the real Santa Claus/And when you found it out/Too old to kiss his mouth." I'd be lying if I didn't admit that this verse has brought a tear to my eye on a few occasions.
Birth Comes to Us All isn't a perfect rock LP. It's nowhere near as consistent as Tasty, and it doesn't have as many classic rock anthems as From Rats to Riches. If you take it for what it is, though, there are enough treats here to make it more than worthwhile. It was certainly strong enough that when it was released, we Good Rats fans never guessed it would be the Rats' last real chance at making it to Olympus with rock gods like Rush, Ozzy or The Who. The album -- and the band -- deserved a better fate. If you believe in rebirth, though, maybe somehow, someday, they'll get it. And as Marchello sings in character as the man on the fish, "And I'll throw out my arm as I reach for the ring/Life's a merry-go-round -- I'll repeat everything!"
Rating: 3/5 stars
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Review of Future Bible Heroes' "Partygoing"
I posted this review on the Sputnik Music website last night:
Stephin Merritt's main band, The Magnetic Fields, has just released their new opus 50 Song Memoir, and while most Merritt fans are still trying to work their way through it, there are already a couple of reviews for it on this site. So this seems like a good time to take a look back at Merritt's previous release, the 2013 Partygoing album by Future Bible Heroes.
First, regarding the differences between Magnetic Fields and Future Bible Heroes, while the lines are kind of blurry at times, there are a few. The most important one is that while Merritt is the songwriter for both bands, and his friend, manager, percussionist and sometimes vocalist Claudia Gonson is a member of each project, Future Bible Heroes has from its inception been a 3-piece band that also includes electronic instrumentalist (and Merritt's erstwhile lover) Chris Ewen. For me, Ewen, a former member of the 1980s new wave/techno band Figures on a Beach, gives FBH an extra dimension. Wikipedia describes Future Bible Heroes' music as "electronica-based disco", and while this isn't always the case, it's not far off the mark, thanks to Ewen's contributions.
There are other differences between the two bands as well, even if they're not always consistent. For one, Gonson is oftentimes the lead vocalist for FBH, while in The Magnetic Fields, although she takes the occasional lead vocal, Merritt has been the main singer since 1994's The Charm of the Highway Strip. Also, while this isn't true 100% of the time, I'd say that the songs Merritt writes for Magnetic Fields lean towards being a little more personal, while those he writes for Future Bible Heroes are more often character pieces and tend to showcase his funereal sense of humor just a little more frequently.
Partygoing is Future Bible Heroes' third full-length album, and while it's not as strong overall as their 1997 debut Memories of Love (which I consider practically a perfect album), it's more consistent than their previous LP Eternal Youth (2002). Also, although Eternal Youth found Gonson performing all of the lead vocals, Partygoing returns to Memories of Love's successful formula of having Gonson and Merritt trade leads. This is a plus, and it keeps the vocal sound more interesting. Merrit has described the album as being inspired by The B-52s' Party Mix! EP (1981), only in this case, it's "a party album that only just happens to be largely about drunk suicide, aging, death, loss and despair." Party on, Garth! Party on, Wayne.
Like all of Stephin Merritt's various projects, Future Bible Heroes lives or dies on the strength of his songwriting. If you're looking for complicated music that showcases virtuoso instrumentation, this isn't going to be the band for you. Instead, they're all about songs with catchy hooks, clever lyrics that are often funny and sometimes heartbreaking, and vocals that are effective but unusual -- Merritt has a dry and distinctive bass voice, and while I find Gonson's voice kind of pretty, it always sounds as though she has a bit of a cold. Clearly, this isn't a band for the masses, but more of a niche band with a loyal and dedicated following. So the songs it is, then.
There are a total of 13 tracks on Partygoing, and I'd rate about 10 of them as being in the range of decent to very good. The catchiest number is probably the one that gave the album its title, "Living, Loving, Partygoing". It's one of those songs that as soon as you get to know it, it gives you a bit of rush when the familiar opening chords kick in. There's not much here lyrically -- it essentially follows an emotionally masochistic relationship through an endless string of empty parties over the course of a year -- but the hooks would make Hellraiser's Pinhead character smile.
The song that really jumped out at me when I first heard the album was one of those with a Merritt lead vocal, "Keep Your Children in a Coma". According to all available public information, Merritt has no children, and the lyrics to this one indicate that's probably for the best. In this number, he advocates a unique method of protecting your little angels from the evils of the world -- "You can't let them go to school/For fear of bullying little beasts/And you can't send them to church/For fear of priests" -- so the solution is obvious: "Keep your children in a coma through their teens." I've considered it, but I just can't seem to sell my wife on it.
Another of my favorite tracks is a slow, ominous number called "How Very Strange" which harks back to the Magnetic Fields song "Yeah! Oh Yeah!" from their 69 Love Songs album. As in that song, Gonson and Merritt act out a horrifying relationship call and response style, as she wonders aloud how she ever got involved with him in the first place, and he explains to us it had a lot to do with psychopharmacology: She: "How strange that when you left I missed you"; He: "I put a little heroin..."; She: "I can't think why, I can't think how"; He: "...in everything you took in." At least in this case, unlike in the Magnetic Fields' track, her character is still alive in the end.
Some of the songs here are amusing but poignant, such as the ode to double suicide "Let's Go to Sleep (And Never Come Back)"; others are about a devotion of a different kind, like "Satan, Your Way Is a Hard One." There's a famous story that when Bob Mould of Husker Du was told that a particular reviewer had labeled him "the most depressed man in rock," Mould's response was "He's never met Stephin Merritt, obviously." So it makes sense that this is Merritt's idea of a party.
I've insisted for years, and I continue to maintain, that while Magnetic Fields is considered to be Stephin Merritt's main band, Future Bible Heroes is actually a superior project. The combination of Ewen's strange little electronic contributions and Gonson's more frequent vocals make FBH just a little lighter and a little more enjoyable. I've got my 5-Disc copy of The Magnetic Fields' 50 Song Memoir on order, and like most Merritt fans, I'll be wading into it and hoping to find him at his best. I'll be pleasantly surprised, however, if it gives me anywhere near as much enjoyment as Partygoing has provided me. So if the thought of plodding your way through a 50-song musical heroic poem makes you contemplate just how smoothly your razor would slice through your jugular vein, I'd suggest that maybe you give this album another look instead. And while you're at it, party on!
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Review Summary: "I gave you my heart/You showed me the door/I brought you champagne/We danced until 4/Living/Loving/Partygoing."
Stephin Merritt's main band, The Magnetic Fields, has just released their new opus 50 Song Memoir, and while most Merritt fans are still trying to work their way through it, there are already a couple of reviews for it on this site. So this seems like a good time to take a look back at Merritt's previous release, the 2013 Partygoing album by Future Bible Heroes.
First, regarding the differences between Magnetic Fields and Future Bible Heroes, while the lines are kind of blurry at times, there are a few. The most important one is that while Merritt is the songwriter for both bands, and his friend, manager, percussionist and sometimes vocalist Claudia Gonson is a member of each project, Future Bible Heroes has from its inception been a 3-piece band that also includes electronic instrumentalist (and Merritt's erstwhile lover) Chris Ewen. For me, Ewen, a former member of the 1980s new wave/techno band Figures on a Beach, gives FBH an extra dimension. Wikipedia describes Future Bible Heroes' music as "electronica-based disco", and while this isn't always the case, it's not far off the mark, thanks to Ewen's contributions.
There are other differences between the two bands as well, even if they're not always consistent. For one, Gonson is oftentimes the lead vocalist for FBH, while in The Magnetic Fields, although she takes the occasional lead vocal, Merritt has been the main singer since 1994's The Charm of the Highway Strip. Also, while this isn't true 100% of the time, I'd say that the songs Merritt writes for Magnetic Fields lean towards being a little more personal, while those he writes for Future Bible Heroes are more often character pieces and tend to showcase his funereal sense of humor just a little more frequently.
Partygoing is Future Bible Heroes' third full-length album, and while it's not as strong overall as their 1997 debut Memories of Love (which I consider practically a perfect album), it's more consistent than their previous LP Eternal Youth (2002). Also, although Eternal Youth found Gonson performing all of the lead vocals, Partygoing returns to Memories of Love's successful formula of having Gonson and Merritt trade leads. This is a plus, and it keeps the vocal sound more interesting. Merrit has described the album as being inspired by The B-52s' Party Mix! EP (1981), only in this case, it's "a party album that only just happens to be largely about drunk suicide, aging, death, loss and despair." Party on, Garth! Party on, Wayne.
Like all of Stephin Merritt's various projects, Future Bible Heroes lives or dies on the strength of his songwriting. If you're looking for complicated music that showcases virtuoso instrumentation, this isn't going to be the band for you. Instead, they're all about songs with catchy hooks, clever lyrics that are often funny and sometimes heartbreaking, and vocals that are effective but unusual -- Merritt has a dry and distinctive bass voice, and while I find Gonson's voice kind of pretty, it always sounds as though she has a bit of a cold. Clearly, this isn't a band for the masses, but more of a niche band with a loyal and dedicated following. So the songs it is, then.
There are a total of 13 tracks on Partygoing, and I'd rate about 10 of them as being in the range of decent to very good. The catchiest number is probably the one that gave the album its title, "Living, Loving, Partygoing". It's one of those songs that as soon as you get to know it, it gives you a bit of rush when the familiar opening chords kick in. There's not much here lyrically -- it essentially follows an emotionally masochistic relationship through an endless string of empty parties over the course of a year -- but the hooks would make Hellraiser's Pinhead character smile.
The song that really jumped out at me when I first heard the album was one of those with a Merritt lead vocal, "Keep Your Children in a Coma". According to all available public information, Merritt has no children, and the lyrics to this one indicate that's probably for the best. In this number, he advocates a unique method of protecting your little angels from the evils of the world -- "You can't let them go to school/For fear of bullying little beasts/And you can't send them to church/For fear of priests" -- so the solution is obvious: "Keep your children in a coma through their teens." I've considered it, but I just can't seem to sell my wife on it.
Another of my favorite tracks is a slow, ominous number called "How Very Strange" which harks back to the Magnetic Fields song "Yeah! Oh Yeah!" from their 69 Love Songs album. As in that song, Gonson and Merritt act out a horrifying relationship call and response style, as she wonders aloud how she ever got involved with him in the first place, and he explains to us it had a lot to do with psychopharmacology: She: "How strange that when you left I missed you"; He: "I put a little heroin..."; She: "I can't think why, I can't think how"; He: "...in everything you took in." At least in this case, unlike in the Magnetic Fields' track, her character is still alive in the end.
Some of the songs here are amusing but poignant, such as the ode to double suicide "Let's Go to Sleep (And Never Come Back)"; others are about a devotion of a different kind, like "Satan, Your Way Is a Hard One." There's a famous story that when Bob Mould of Husker Du was told that a particular reviewer had labeled him "the most depressed man in rock," Mould's response was "He's never met Stephin Merritt, obviously." So it makes sense that this is Merritt's idea of a party.
I've insisted for years, and I continue to maintain, that while Magnetic Fields is considered to be Stephin Merritt's main band, Future Bible Heroes is actually a superior project. The combination of Ewen's strange little electronic contributions and Gonson's more frequent vocals make FBH just a little lighter and a little more enjoyable. I've got my 5-Disc copy of The Magnetic Fields' 50 Song Memoir on order, and like most Merritt fans, I'll be wading into it and hoping to find him at his best. I'll be pleasantly surprised, however, if it gives me anywhere near as much enjoyment as Partygoing has provided me. So if the thought of plodding your way through a 50-song musical heroic poem makes you contemplate just how smoothly your razor would slice through your jugular vein, I'd suggest that maybe you give this album another look instead. And while you're at it, party on!
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Friday, March 17, 2017
Review of Amanda Jayne's "Strike a Match"
I posted this review two days ago on the Sputnik Music website:
Amanda Jayne is a young acoustic artist from Long Island, NY, who I first became aware of in the most random of ways -- a friend of hers was running for my local school board, and when I checked out his Facebook page to see the platform he was running on, I found a link to her page. Before long, I had picked up her CD, and I'm really glad I did. Strike a Match is Ms. Jayne's first full album, although it's actually about halfway between being an EP and an actual LP -- there are 9 tracks here, and only one of them is longer than 3 minutes. But they say that good things come in small packages, and at least in this case, that's true.
The instrumentation on Strike a Match is fairly minimal. It's mostly just Jayne and her guitar, with a sprinkling of light keyboards and sparse percussion -- this is truly a DIY project. Naturally, this puts most of the focus on two things: Jayne's voice, and her songwriting. Fortunately for her, this works to her advantage -- her voice is both engaging and distinctive, and while there's still some room for her to grow in the songwriting area, her songs are both catchy and clever. True, she's definitely operating in the realm of what my daughter derisively dismisses as "another chick singing about her feelings" (as in, "Ugh! Are you listening to another chick singing about her feelings?" followed by a disparaging shake of the head). But while this is an accurate description, you could say the same thing about Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann, Tori Amos or Ingrid Michaelson, to name a few, so I'd say that Ms. Jayne is in some pretty good company.
The standout track by far is the album's first number, titled "One". This is an earnest and hopeful song about a new love relationship. The song's protagonist wonders aloud if this is the person who will win her heart, someone she can trust enough to lower her defenses: "Could you be the one, could you be the one/That gets under my skin/Could you be the one, could you be the one/That I finally let in?" The universality of the question makes it easy to relate to -- probably everyone who has ever begun a relationship, male or female, gay or straight, has asked themselves this question at one time or another. The singer's honesty in this moment of vulnerability combines here with an alluring vocal and a nice musical hook to make this a first-rate song. And even though I'm supposed to be reviewing the album here, I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend the video for "One", which takes a strong song and turns it on its head, replacing the sincerity with humor. In it, Jayne and her potential soulmate are seated at a table in a restaurant. Jayne sings her song of hope while wearing a blindfold, so she's unable to see her boorish date ignoring her while he's checking his cell phone, ogling the waitress, stealing food off of her plate, and roofying her wine. Luckily for her, the moron gets distracted while trying to grope the waitress's butt and accidentally drinks the drugged wine himself, dropping to the floor unconscious as the song ends. If you ever needed proof that you don't need a huge budget to make a funny, memorable video, it's right here.
While the rest of the album doesn't quite measure up to the high bar set by "One", it gives it a pretty good shot. "Playing Dumb" finds Jayne wondering if she needs to pretend to be stupid and giggly in order to win over the object of her affection, although she's also "playing dumb for a different meaning", in this case "dumb" as in speechless. "Crazy Bitch", on the other hand, finds her playing the stalker girl -- "This feeling's unrequited/But I refuse to be quiet/I won't be happy 'til I get the last word/Then silence". By the chorus, she's realizing "Maybe I'm the crazy bitch/In this relationship/Maybe I should start to think/About a therapist." You can just tell here it's only a matter of time before she's cutting up his clothes and boiling his bunny. Lastly, "Phone Call" begins as a slow, stark song, as Jayne holds an awkward phone conversation with her ex, congratulating him on his new relationship and repeatedly asking him "Are you happy/'Cause I am?". Finally, she can't take it anymore and cries out "Not!", at which point the guitar bursts loose and the song speeds up while she tells him how she really feels.
As I said at the outset, Jayne is still a very young artist, young enough that her website describes her as looking forward to graduating college in 2018. This means she's definitely got time to grow if music becomes her chosen profession. However, Strike a Match tells me she's got scary potential. As it was, this album made my Top Ten Local Albums list for 2016, and "One" made my Top 20 Songs list overall, not just for local artists. So something tells me that she's just getting started. If you like strong female acoustic artists who sing about what she describes as "love and loss", this is an album that's worth a listen.
Rating: 3/5 stars
Review Summary: If you like strong female acoustic artists who sing about love and loss, this could be an album for you.
Amanda Jayne is a young acoustic artist from Long Island, NY, who I first became aware of in the most random of ways -- a friend of hers was running for my local school board, and when I checked out his Facebook page to see the platform he was running on, I found a link to her page. Before long, I had picked up her CD, and I'm really glad I did. Strike a Match is Ms. Jayne's first full album, although it's actually about halfway between being an EP and an actual LP -- there are 9 tracks here, and only one of them is longer than 3 minutes. But they say that good things come in small packages, and at least in this case, that's true.
The instrumentation on Strike a Match is fairly minimal. It's mostly just Jayne and her guitar, with a sprinkling of light keyboards and sparse percussion -- this is truly a DIY project. Naturally, this puts most of the focus on two things: Jayne's voice, and her songwriting. Fortunately for her, this works to her advantage -- her voice is both engaging and distinctive, and while there's still some room for her to grow in the songwriting area, her songs are both catchy and clever. True, she's definitely operating in the realm of what my daughter derisively dismisses as "another chick singing about her feelings" (as in, "Ugh! Are you listening to another chick singing about her feelings?" followed by a disparaging shake of the head). But while this is an accurate description, you could say the same thing about Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann, Tori Amos or Ingrid Michaelson, to name a few, so I'd say that Ms. Jayne is in some pretty good company.
The standout track by far is the album's first number, titled "One". This is an earnest and hopeful song about a new love relationship. The song's protagonist wonders aloud if this is the person who will win her heart, someone she can trust enough to lower her defenses: "Could you be the one, could you be the one/That gets under my skin/Could you be the one, could you be the one/That I finally let in?" The universality of the question makes it easy to relate to -- probably everyone who has ever begun a relationship, male or female, gay or straight, has asked themselves this question at one time or another. The singer's honesty in this moment of vulnerability combines here with an alluring vocal and a nice musical hook to make this a first-rate song. And even though I'm supposed to be reviewing the album here, I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend the video for "One", which takes a strong song and turns it on its head, replacing the sincerity with humor. In it, Jayne and her potential soulmate are seated at a table in a restaurant. Jayne sings her song of hope while wearing a blindfold, so she's unable to see her boorish date ignoring her while he's checking his cell phone, ogling the waitress, stealing food off of her plate, and roofying her wine. Luckily for her, the moron gets distracted while trying to grope the waitress's butt and accidentally drinks the drugged wine himself, dropping to the floor unconscious as the song ends. If you ever needed proof that you don't need a huge budget to make a funny, memorable video, it's right here.
While the rest of the album doesn't quite measure up to the high bar set by "One", it gives it a pretty good shot. "Playing Dumb" finds Jayne wondering if she needs to pretend to be stupid and giggly in order to win over the object of her affection, although she's also "playing dumb for a different meaning", in this case "dumb" as in speechless. "Crazy Bitch", on the other hand, finds her playing the stalker girl -- "This feeling's unrequited/But I refuse to be quiet/I won't be happy 'til I get the last word/Then silence". By the chorus, she's realizing "Maybe I'm the crazy bitch/In this relationship/Maybe I should start to think/About a therapist." You can just tell here it's only a matter of time before she's cutting up his clothes and boiling his bunny. Lastly, "Phone Call" begins as a slow, stark song, as Jayne holds an awkward phone conversation with her ex, congratulating him on his new relationship and repeatedly asking him "Are you happy/'Cause I am?". Finally, she can't take it anymore and cries out "Not!", at which point the guitar bursts loose and the song speeds up while she tells him how she really feels.
As I said at the outset, Jayne is still a very young artist, young enough that her website describes her as looking forward to graduating college in 2018. This means she's definitely got time to grow if music becomes her chosen profession. However, Strike a Match tells me she's got scary potential. As it was, this album made my Top Ten Local Albums list for 2016, and "One" made my Top 20 Songs list overall, not just for local artists. So something tells me that she's just getting started. If you like strong female acoustic artists who sing about what she describes as "love and loss", this is an album that's worth a listen.
Rating: 3/5 stars
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Review of Dia's "Bruises"
I posted this review a short while ago on the Sputnik Music website.
For a relatively young woman, Dia Frampton (or simply Dia, as she now seems to be calling herself) has had an interesting musical career. At the age of 17, she and her older sister formed Meg & Dia, an indie-pop unit that garnered some buzz and some critical success over the course of four full-length studio albums and a number of EPs. In 2011, she became a contestant on the initial season of NBC's reality talent competition show The Voice, where she was selected by country singer Blake Shelton to join his team. She eventually wound up finishing second overall in that contest. Later that year, she released her first solo album, Red, which shot to the top spot on Billboard's Heat Seekers chart, and also hit #106 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. The next year, her sister Meg officially left the band, so Dia eventually formed a new band, Archis. (I know they liked to stylize the name as ARCHIS, but I don't do all caps). They put out a pretty decent self-titled EP in 2015 that nobody seems to have listened to (it has all of three ratings on this website, and one of those is mine). So now it's 2017, and Dia has just released her second solo album, Bruises, and the way the music industry works, this might be a make-or-break album for her career. Personally, I'm hoping for "make".
Dia has always had a pretty voice, very smooth, and abundantly easy on the ears. She also has one of those eternally young-sounding voices. I was surprised to learn that she actually turns 30 later this year, as she has that permanent teen-pop sound -- if she was an actress instead of a singer, she'd be one of those who'd constantly be playing the role of the smart high-school good girl who successfully escapes the masked pyschopath and gets to live at the end of the movie. One of the pleasant surprises about Bruises, though, is that here, she's doing some different things than she did in the past.
The first track on the album, "Hope", signals a slight change of direction right from the get-go. It's a slow, celestial song that gradually builds in volume, as Dia wordlessly vocalizes to orchestral music. It almost sounds like the intro to the grande finale of a Celtic Woman concert. The feeling here is triumphant, and, yes, "Hope"ful, which sets the mood for the rest of the LP. Don't get me wrong, we're still traveling in the realm of pop throughout Bruises. But compared to the music she's released in the past in her various manifestations, this album is a little more ethereal -- it's softer, quieter, and definitely less inclined towards sugar-pop.
"Golden Years" was the first single released from the album, but it didn't chart at all, and it's not even close to being the best song here. I much prefer "Gold and Silver", another slow, dreamy song that seems to be partly about her youth, and partly about her time making music with Meg. "We'll stay young forever," her sister promises, "We're gold and we're silver/So light." The song manages to convey the sadness the singer feels that those days have passed, while simultaneously celebrating that the experiences ever happened in the first place.
Another strong track is the simple love song "Crave". It's not the first song to compare love to an addiction, but it's catchy, and I like the way she raises her voice an octave midway through the chorus. Weirdly enough, it's one of two songs on the LP (the other is "Dead Man") that reminds me in places of some of the songs on last year's Andy Black album, The Shadow Side, which I also enjoyed a great deal. (It's especially weird since Black's album focused mostly on the darker emotions, while Dia's is wistful in places, but mostly upbeat).
Frampton is backed on Bruises by the gentle sounds of the Hungarian Studio Orchestra, which provides mostly soft string sounds and understated piano music, helping to give the album its delicate atmosphere. As for her singing, it remains consistently agreeable throughout.
As I said earlier, if Dia was a film actress, she'd be the clever, likable horror film girl who ends up surviving everything the killer can throw at her, and we, the audience, would be rooting for her throughout. The music industry can be even more vicious than a celluloid serial killer, and it has a much higher body count. But I think Bruises is a worthwhile pop album, so I'm rooting for her here just like I would be in the movie.
Rating:3.5/5 stars
Review Summary: Dia has released a strong LP of dreamy, ethereal pop, in what might be a make-or-break album for her career.
For a relatively young woman, Dia Frampton (or simply Dia, as she now seems to be calling herself) has had an interesting musical career. At the age of 17, she and her older sister formed Meg & Dia, an indie-pop unit that garnered some buzz and some critical success over the course of four full-length studio albums and a number of EPs. In 2011, she became a contestant on the initial season of NBC's reality talent competition show The Voice, where she was selected by country singer Blake Shelton to join his team. She eventually wound up finishing second overall in that contest. Later that year, she released her first solo album, Red, which shot to the top spot on Billboard's Heat Seekers chart, and also hit #106 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. The next year, her sister Meg officially left the band, so Dia eventually formed a new band, Archis. (I know they liked to stylize the name as ARCHIS, but I don't do all caps). They put out a pretty decent self-titled EP in 2015 that nobody seems to have listened to (it has all of three ratings on this website, and one of those is mine). So now it's 2017, and Dia has just released her second solo album, Bruises, and the way the music industry works, this might be a make-or-break album for her career. Personally, I'm hoping for "make".
Dia has always had a pretty voice, very smooth, and abundantly easy on the ears. She also has one of those eternally young-sounding voices. I was surprised to learn that she actually turns 30 later this year, as she has that permanent teen-pop sound -- if she was an actress instead of a singer, she'd be one of those who'd constantly be playing the role of the smart high-school good girl who successfully escapes the masked pyschopath and gets to live at the end of the movie. One of the pleasant surprises about Bruises, though, is that here, she's doing some different things than she did in the past.
The first track on the album, "Hope", signals a slight change of direction right from the get-go. It's a slow, celestial song that gradually builds in volume, as Dia wordlessly vocalizes to orchestral music. It almost sounds like the intro to the grande finale of a Celtic Woman concert. The feeling here is triumphant, and, yes, "Hope"ful, which sets the mood for the rest of the LP. Don't get me wrong, we're still traveling in the realm of pop throughout Bruises. But compared to the music she's released in the past in her various manifestations, this album is a little more ethereal -- it's softer, quieter, and definitely less inclined towards sugar-pop.
"Golden Years" was the first single released from the album, but it didn't chart at all, and it's not even close to being the best song here. I much prefer "Gold and Silver", another slow, dreamy song that seems to be partly about her youth, and partly about her time making music with Meg. "We'll stay young forever," her sister promises, "We're gold and we're silver/So light." The song manages to convey the sadness the singer feels that those days have passed, while simultaneously celebrating that the experiences ever happened in the first place.
Another strong track is the simple love song "Crave". It's not the first song to compare love to an addiction, but it's catchy, and I like the way she raises her voice an octave midway through the chorus. Weirdly enough, it's one of two songs on the LP (the other is "Dead Man") that reminds me in places of some of the songs on last year's Andy Black album, The Shadow Side, which I also enjoyed a great deal. (It's especially weird since Black's album focused mostly on the darker emotions, while Dia's is wistful in places, but mostly upbeat).
Frampton is backed on Bruises by the gentle sounds of the Hungarian Studio Orchestra, which provides mostly soft string sounds and understated piano music, helping to give the album its delicate atmosphere. As for her singing, it remains consistently agreeable throughout.
As I said earlier, if Dia was a film actress, she'd be the clever, likable horror film girl who ends up surviving everything the killer can throw at her, and we, the audience, would be rooting for her throughout. The music industry can be even more vicious than a celluloid serial killer, and it has a much higher body count. But I think Bruises is a worthwhile pop album, so I'm rooting for her here just like I would be in the movie.
Rating:3.5/5 stars
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