Sleep - "Dopesmoker"

 

Danette is on a two week cruise with her mother and friends, so in her absence I have resumed what is now a tradition when she's gone: listening to Sleep's "Dopesmoker" on repeat while doing things around the house. This is an LP I've recommended to many friends and colleagues now, so I guess I should blog about it. 

Sleep is a stoner/doom band from California, and I'm not 100% certain how I first heard of them.  They're in the same circle as Earth and Sunn O))), so perhaps I learned of them from Butch.  Or maybe I just read about them online -- it's all appropriately fuzzy, given the cannabis connection.  

The story of this LP is a little bit complicated.  Recorded in 1996, their record label at the time did not want to release it because, among other things, the "album" is just an hour long single song.  In 1999, an unauthorized edited version of the LP was released as "Jerusalem", with six different tracks, all named "Jerusalem".  In 2003, a version was released as "Dopesmoker" with a single eponymous track, and in 2012 another version was released (the 2012 version on Southern Lord Records is the one I have).  

One of the best things about the doom metal genre is that they don't shy away from their Black Sabbath roots, and this LP is no exception. I mention this only because many bands seek to deny or obfuscate their influences, but doom metal is perhaps the only genre that can agree the canon is dominated by the first six Sabbath LPs. The production is cleaner and heavier at the same time (these production dimensions are often in conflict) than the early 70s Sabbath, but the through line from "Master of Reality" to "Dopesmoker" is obvious. 

So yeah, slow, plodding, detuned guitars are what you get. There are vocals, and they're borderline Cookie Monster, but not distractingly so.  They do obscure the lyrics, which is fortunate because apparently there's a story about the "Weedians" or some such; I've made it a point to not look up the lyrics because I'm sure they'd only disappoint.  Cisneros's voice works well as another instrument, and exactly what he's saying isn't important.

Regardless, it all comes together in a hazy, hypnotic, slowly evolving repetitive swirl that has to be considered a high point of the genre.  Despite, or perhaps because, being a single hour track, it holds up to listening to it on repeat all afternoon.*

Standout tracks: "Dopesmoker" 

Skip 'em tracks: The 2012 release comes with a bonus live version of "Holy Mountain", which is not necessarily bad, but clearly doesn't not fit the original artistic vision of the LP itself. 

Score: 10/10. Again, it's absolutely central to the genre, but before you listen, you've got to buy into the conceit of a single track that's 63 minutes long. 

* "Repeat all afternoon" works best when your spouse is not home.

Liz Phair - Live 2003-08-09 (concert)

For another installment in Women's History Month, I turn to Liz Phair, one of my favorite artists.  I've been meaning to get to her landmark LPs "Exile in Guyville" and "Whip-smart", but that's going to have to wait as well.  Also, as a preview, her 2010 LP "Funstyle" was pretty good too. She's scheduled to be in Va Beach this summer, but we'll see if coronavirus has other ideas (update: they're being rescheduled).  We saw her in 2011 when she was at the Norva and it was a great show (I found this version of "Nashville" from that show -- not my video).

Last week I also finished reading her memoir "Horror Stories" (reviews: NPR, NYT, Pitchfork, CBS This Morning).  When I saw that she was releasing a book I added it to my Christmas wish list and was happy to receive a copy.  I had not read that much about it before I started it -- I knew it was about Liz Phair, and that was all I needed to know.   As a result, I was rather surprised to learn that the choice of title was not arbitrary -- her collections of stories are more about personal loss, conflict, and "horror" than the Liz Phair-meets-Spinal Tap rock & roll war stories I expected (the chapter "sotto voce" being a notable exception).  I read the first three chapters in one sitting and decided it wasn't the soothing "escape-from-coronavirus" experience I was looking for, but I recalibrated my expectations and enjoyed the rest of the book.

I eventually determined that the stories reminded me of Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine", one of my favorite books.  Even in Bradbury's childhood nostalgia, there is a fantastical and dark spectre (e.g., the "Lonely One") that hangs over the stories, and I connected that to the "horror" which glues Phair's stories together.  I posted this observation on Twitter and got a reply back from Liz, which made my day as well as making me the envy of Danette and my "cool" friends.

High praise indeed! Thank you 🙏

— Liz Phair (@PhizLair) March 24, 2020

To celebrate the book as well as Women's History Month, I decided to post about this lovely video I found on YouTube.  There are many Liz Phair videos online, but the lo-fi intimacy of this set (13 songs, limited instrumentation) shot in a record store some 17 years ago seemed to capture the spirit of "Horror Stories" better than a professionally shot video.  The video doesn't provide a set list, but it's:

• 6'1"
• Polyester Bride
• Rock Me
• Divorce Song
• Extraordinary
• Fuck and Run
• Perfect World
• Johnny Feelgood
• (a small segment of Patrick Park's "Thunderbolt")
• Why Can't I?
• Uncle Alvarez
• Glory
• Little Digger
• Supernova

 

Apparently this is the only photo I took from the 2011-01-27 show at the Norva in Norfolk.  It was a great show.

I'm not a great photographer.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps" (forgotten song)

Early this morning I was driving and head a song on 96X I had not heard before.  I Shazam'd it and discovered it was "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  I half-recognized the band name, but then I was out of pocket all day and didn't get a chance to investigate until now. 

I now find out this song came out in 2003!  How did I not know about this song / band until some 15+ years later?!

The best way I can describe it is if The Cribs had a female lead singer.  But checking the date, the first LP by The Cribs came out in 2004, so I suppose they sound like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  A quick google search reveals articles with titles like "How The Yeah Yeahs' 'Maps' Helped Change the Way We View the Relationship Between Pop and Indie", "The MTV Movie Awards' Best Musical Moments", and "Karen O – ‘Maps’ video tears were real".   I've got to work my way through their discography now to discover if all their songs rawk like this one does... right after I stop listening to "Maps" on repeat.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps" (official video, 2004 MTV Movie Awards).

Pink Floyd - "Live At Pompeii" (concert)

I own well-worn copies on VHS and DVD, but at work I've recently been playing Youtube versions of Pink Floyd's 1972 concert film "Live at Pompeii" in the background.  I've already covered the similar but far more rare "An Hour With Pink Floyd (KQED)" from 1970.  The latter was never commercially released and is regularly purged from Youtube, while the former concert film is still commercially available and also easy to find on Youtube.  Go figure.

This is an historically important film, showing the group on the cusp of their 1973 watershed, "Dark Side of the Moon".  But I just recently discovered that the interstitial studio footage of the band composing songs for DSOTM was 1) faked, and 2) added for the 1974 re-release of the film.  It is this 1974 version that I have on VHS. 

Somewhat unfortunately, the 2003 DVD version is the "director's cut", and nicely demonstrates that more is not always better.  The songs are the same, but director Adrian Maben has added all kinds of unnecessary of additional space and planetary stock footage.  I get it, "Pink Floyd == Space Music".  But one of the strengths of the original film is Pompeii as a character, almost a fifth member of Pink Floyd.  The long tracking shots of the empty Amphitheatre, the mosaics, volcanic imagery, all help to establish the film's feel, and the director's cut undermines the beautiful (albeit sometimes modishly incorporated) imagery.  Fortunately the 1974 version is an option on the DVD; the 2003 version is to be avoided.

Enough complaining about directorial revisionism -- Maben does deserve credit for making a concert film without an audience (has this been done since?) as well as not attempting to hide the small army of staff supporting the AV gear.  Replacing the audience with staff and infrastructure and playing to an empty Amphitheatre somehow captures the desolation of Pompeii.  The songs are split between 1968 and 1971, with only "Controls" and "Careful" appearing on the "An Hour With Pink Floyd (KQED)".

1. "Intro Song"
2. "Echoes, Part 1" (from Meddle, 1971)
3. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" (from Point Me At The Sky, B-side, 1968)
4. "A Saucerful of Secrets" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
5. "One of These Days I'm Going to Cut You into Little Pieces" (from Meddle, 1971)
6. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
7. "Mademoiselle Nobs" (from Meddle, 1971)
8. "Echoes, Part 2" (from Meddle, 1971)

Rather than linking to individual songs, all versions uploaded to Youtube in their entirety:

Live At Pompeii: 1972 Version
Live At Pompeii: 1974 Version
Live At Popmeii: 2003 Version

Bonus Links:

From the DVD, an interview with Adrian Maben: part 1, part 2, part 3.

And finally, you can't mention "Live at Pompeii" and not mention the Beastie Boys "Gratitude", in which the entire video is a love letter to "Live at Pompeii".

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - "Streetcore" (LP Review)

I have to confess that I knew little about Joe Strummer's career after The Clash until I saw the documentary "Let's Rock Again!". Despite the somewhat silly title, it is a quite good description of the modest circumstance of Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros on tour promoting their second LP, 2001's "Global A Go-Go". Sometime after seeing LRA, I also saw the documentary "Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten". Apparently I'm not the only one that wasn't clear what he had been up to: even strummernews.com refers to the period between The Clash and The Mescaleros as "The Wilderness Years".

I liked what I heard in those documentaries, so I bought "Streetcore", which was posthumously released in 2003. I'm trying to review this LP without both the nostalgia regarding Strummer's untimely death in 2002, and my own continuing appreciation for The Clash, whom (much like Joy Division) I understand and appreciate far more now than "back in the day".

So with every attempt to be objective, I can honestly say this is an excellent LP. Not just a collection of excellent songs, what I appreciate most is this LP sounds exactly like what an LP by a 50 year-old Joe Strummer should sound like. I'll try to describe what that means, and we'll see if Lee agrees with me...

Strummer was in his mid-20s when the seminal double LP "London Calling" was recorded, and its sound captures the righteous indignation of a young punk. On "Streetcore", Strummer doesn't try to sound like the angry, street preacher of his youth and The Mescaleros don't try to be "the only band that matters". On the other hand, the fire is still there: he's still angry and he hasn't given up the fight, but he's tempered with age, experience, wisdom, and perspective. He doesn't deny his origins either; for example, the song "Burnin' Streets" slyly incorporates the lyrics "London is burning", but without the urgency of The Clash song "London's Burning". In summary, "Streetcore" gives us a version of Joe Strummer that is like aged leather.

This LP was assembled after Strummer's death, so there is a mixture of producers (e.g., Rick Rubin is the producer of the cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song"), and the song "Midnight Jam" was unfinished when Strummer died so instead of vocals it features samples of Strummer's BBC radio show. As a result, "Midnight Jam" sounds a bit like "Death is a Star" from "Combat Rock". And as the name The Mescaleros suggests, there is a definite Tex-Mex sound on some songs, esp. "Coma Girl", "Get Down Moses" and "Long Shadow". They're mostly known for their world music influences, but it sounds more like punk-influenced rockabilly to me. The only song that doesn't work for me is "Arms Aloft".

It is tempting to rate this more highly than it deserves because it is Strummer's last LP. However, even if he was alive and still recording, this would still be an important LP that serves as a blueprint for aging rockers yearning to remain relevant. It reminds me of the scenes in "Let's Rock Again!" where Strummer is promoting his upcoming concert, talking to people on the boardwalk and then later to a DJ at a local radio station. He seems to take it all in stride, but the viewer is left to think "dude, you're talking to Joe F'n Strummer, and you don't even realize it..." It is unfortunate that this LP is not more well-known.

Standout songs: "Coma Girl", "Get Down Moses", "Long Shadow", "Ramshackle Day Parade", "Redemption Song", "All in a Day", "Midnight Jam", "Silver and Gold".

Skip 'em songs: "Arms Aloft".

Final score: 9/10.

Liz Phair - "Liz Phair" (LP Review)

Danette has accused me of being too generous in my reviews, but I think I'm just reviewing my favorite stuff first. But just to be fair, I'll review something that's really, really bad: Liz Phair's fourth LP, 2003's self-titled "Liz Phair".

OK, so that's cheating a bit -- everyone knows this is a terrible LP. Liz Phair hit the scene in 1993 with "Exile in Guyville" and it was a critical blockbuster. Everybody loved Liz: the sexy, brash, irreverent, pottymouthed girl-next-door. The critics loved her so much, in fact, they could never quite forgive her for not continually re-releasing "Exile in Guyville". The analogy to M. Night Shyamalan is obvious.

But in 2003, she hit rock bottom. Eager to trade in her indie cred for something more tangible (she warned us, see: 1998's "Shitloads of Money"), she enlisted the production team The Matrix and strived to write more commercial songs. Not coincidentally, "Liz Phair" was the first LP to not feature re-recorded songs from her early Girly Sound demo tapes. The result is that she ended up imitating her imitators -- she became a 36 year-old Avril Lavigne. She simultaneously failed to gain significant cross over success and yet still managed to alienate her indie fan base. Where her earlier LPs were clever/funny/shocking, "Liz Phair" is stale/calculating/hollow. As David St. Hubbins tells us: "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

The result was scathing reviews that were more clever than the LP itself: the NY Times called it "Liz Phair's Exile in Avril-ville" and Pitchfork Media gave it a 0.0. Ouch. On a 10 point scale, that's like going to 11 the bad way. I tried to think of my own witticism for this review, but the best I could come up with was a couple of Spinal Tap retreads. If she mailed it in, so will I.

I will say that I actually like the songs "Extraordinary" and "Why Can't I?". And I'm further ashamed to say those are two of the four songs that she co-wrote with The Matrix. Since The Matrix only contributed to four songs, two of which I actually like, I have to conclude that Liz bears most of the blame for this LP, where the other 12 songs vary between "bland" and "awful". I could call them out one by one, but what's the point? The less said about them the better. Finally, the video for "Why Can't I?" is terribly clever -- a must see, slightly anachronistic homage to CD jukeboxes and 1960s-era cover art.

Standout songs: "Extraordinary" (different version, from the movie "Raising Helen"), "Why Can't I?"

Skip 'em songs: all of the others. really.

Final score: 3/10. Tough love.

Weird Bonus Link: A video (from spinner.com) that appears to be an apology for the LP, conflating The Matrix production team and the film The Matrix. Maybe it seemed funny on paper, but it just makes things worse.

Willis - "Take You High" (LP Review)

Willis (aka Hayley Willis) is a little-known UK alt-folk singer that has released one LP (2003's "Come Get Some") along with several singles and EPs. In support of that LP, the 2003 4-track EP "Take You High" was released, featuring "Take You High" from the LP as well as 3 non-LP tracks.

The Willis originals "Take You High" and "Haunt You" are forgettable tracks, with the latter being slightly better than the former. What makes this EP interesting at all are the two covers. Her cover of "Old Time Religion" is interesting and upbeat, but her sparse & slow cover of Cameo's "Word Up" steals the show.

I have to admit that I never liked Cameo, and I hated "Word Up" when it originally came out in 1986. And while "Word Up" has been covered numerous times (e.g., Korn's version), Willis performs the definitive version; far better than the original in my opinion. But it is not just me: Danette loved Cameo back in the day and she thinks the cover is inspired.

CSI often features engaging music selections during the episodes (although Danette and I agree that the last couple of seasons have not featured the music as prominently), and I first heard this song in the CSI episode "Post Mortem" (video). I often know most of the music featured in the episodes, but this is one of my favorite discoveries (the other being Sigur Ros with the song "Svefn-g-englar" (video)).

I'm not sure how active Willis is currently -- at the time of this writing her website's "news" section has a last entry of 2007. Although her covers are good, the two originals here are not impressive.

Stand out tracks: "Word Up", "Old Time Religion"

Skip 'em tracks: "Take You High", "Haunt You"

Final score: 5/10. "Word Up" is amazing and "Old Time Religion" is interesting, but the originals only serve to drag down the final score. Skip the EP and get just "Word Up" on iTunes or elsewhere.