Connan Mockasin - "Caramel" (LP Review)

I can only describe Connan Mockasin's 2013 LP "Caramel" as the soundtrack for Prince's fevered, imp-infested, slow-motion, pornographic, Shaun-Cassidy-trapped-in-Twin-Peaks, hallucination-within-a-dream.

Herbert turned me onto this LP about a year ago.  The professional reviews for this LP are mixed, and mostly because of its break with his more conventional prior material (of which I'm unfamiliar). I won't claim I completely understand this LP, but there is something weirdly beautiful happening here -- you just have to listen and decide if it works for you. 

I'm going to break from my regular LP review format and just list the 11 songs since although they're distinct, they're so inter-related that you really shouldn't separate them out.

1. "Nothing Lasts Forever"        
2. "Caramel"      
3. "I'm the Man, That Will Find You" (official video)
4. "Do I Make You Feel Shy?" (official video)
5. "Why Are You Crying?"          
6. "It's Your Body 1" (live)     
7. "It's Your Body 2"     
8. "It's Your Body 3"     
9. "It's Your Body 4"     
10. "It's Your Body 5"     
11. "I Wanna Roll with You" (live)

The official & live videos, while sufficiently surreal, somehow aren't surreal enough compare to the visions the songs conjure in my mind. 

Final score: 7/10.  It grows on you; I reserve the right to raise this in the future.

Minutemen - "Double Nickels on the Dime" (LP review)

Why don't I like this more than I do?  On paper, the Minutemen and their double LP "Double Nickels on the Dime" combine everything I like: an 80s punk trio on SST Records, clever, satirical, humorous, biting political commentary, a complete embrace of DIY, genre-bending, sly references to Pink Floyd, the Beach Boys / California Car Culture, Husker Du, and numerous other influences.  Even the book that I've referenced numerous times in this blog, "Our Band Could Be Your Life", takes its title from their song "History Lesson - Part II".  This LP is on nearly every "best of" list made, and is beloved by many artists that I love/respect (e.g., Sonic Youth, Black Flag). 

So I struggle to capture why this LP doesn't mean more to me.  Part of it surely D. Boon's guitar style: he's good (at the risk of damning with faint praise, they're all surprisingly good for a punk band), but the clean yet thin production and the rockabilly & funk influences leaves too much negative space for my taste.  The LP was produced by Ethan James, rather than SST's normal in house producer, Spot, who made things muddy but heavy.  Granted, I found out about this LP much later in life, but it still doesn't speak to me in the same way of, say, Mission of Burma.  Also, as a teenager I'm pretty sure I would not have found this LP heavy enough since my preferences were more in line with Husker Du.

Having said all that, there are no bad songs on this LP and although songs like "It's Expected I'm Gone" have too much of the aforementioned negative space, I can't call them bad.  And some of the songs are quite good, with my favorite being the precious "History Lesson - Part II", whose autobiographical lyrics capture the friendship between D. Boon and Mike Watt as the core element of the band, a band that provided a path out of an otherwise dead-end, blue collar life:

our band could be your life
real names'd be proof
me and mike watt played for years
punk rock changed our lives

we learned punk rock in hollywood
drove up from pedro
we were fucking corndogs
we'd go drink and pogo

mr. narrator
this is bob dylan to me
my story could be his songs
i'm his soldier child

our band is scientist rock
but i was e. bloom and richard hell,
joe strummer, and john doe
me and mike watt, playing guitar

This song is made even more poignant because D. Boon died in an automobile accident in 1985, effectively ending the band (though drummer George Hurley and Mike Watt would continue for a while as Firehose) and leaving this song as the band's eulogy.  

Another positive thing for the band is, that unlike many of their punk contemporaries, they were respectful and knowledgeable of their influences.  In addition to the name checks provided in the lyrics above, they also did non-ironic covers of CCR, Van Halen, and Steely Dan (even though the LP name is a shot at Sammy Hagar). 

Standout songs: "History Lesson - Part II" (live), "Corona" (live), "This Ain't No Picnic", "Take 5, D.", "Dr. Wu", "The Big Foist"

Skip 'em songs: none.

Final score: I'm sticking with a 6/10, but you should realize that most people other than me would give this a 10/10. 

Bonus links:

• The 2005 band documentary "We Jam Econo" (Youtube). 
• The Pink Floyd reference?  In the style of "Ummagumma", the 4 sides are named: "Side D.", "Side Mike", "Side George", "Side Chaff".  Where's "Side Mike"?  The TV show "Jackass" used "Corona" as its theme song, and the result seems to be that no studio version of the song can be found on the web.  I'm not sure why Jackass would use the song when it's about the appalling conditions & discrepancies between tourists and locals in Mexico. 
• An acoustic, public-access TV concert from 1985. 

Split Enz - "History Never Repeats" (forgotten song)

Danette and I went to the 2015 Kentucky Derby last week (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and to avoid putting the 1700+ miles on our car we rented a car.  The car's best feature was the satellite radio and probably 90% of our time was spent on the alternative 80s channel "1st wave".  We heard a lot of songs that we hadn't heard in a while (including some that are probably better left in the 80s), but there was truly one "forgotten song" that we heard: Split Enz's "History Never Repeats", a single off their 1981 LP "Waiata".  The video received a little airplay in the early days of MTV, but mostly I remember songs like "I Got You", "Six Months in a Leaky Boat", and the various Crowded House videos.  It's a good song, but one that I just barely remember.

"History Never Repeats" - 1981 video, 2007 reunion

Hum - "Stars" (forgotten song)

This song has been on low rotation on 96x for a while now, but I finally Shazam'd it on the way to work today.  I was going to post something snarky like "this new song incorporates everything I loved about early- to mid-90s rock", but then when I googled it I found out this song did indeed come out in 1995!  At first, I was happy that I had pegged the time frame so nicely, and then I started to wonder how I had missed this song 20 years ago...

Apparently "Stars" was a minor radio hit for the now defunct Hum, off their 1995 major label debut "You'd Prefer an Astronaut".  Either it did not get airplay in Hampton Roads at the time, or I've simply forgotten it.  I'm hoping for the former.  Either way, I'm enjoying it like it's 1995.

Hum: "Stars" (studio), Late Night with Conan O'Brien, 120 Minutes

Bonus link: "You'd Prefer An Astronaut" (full LP -- I haven't listened to it yet)

Celtic Frost - "Morbid Tales" (LP Review)

Enough of the Beach Boys, Lesley Gore, etc. -- today we're going back to high school and Celtic Frost.  I remember Scott Kinkade getting their debut EP, "Morbid Tales" as an import in 1984.  Although I was a fan, I was never the biggest CF fan at the time (their goth-viking visual imagery was especially silly), so it with some surprise that when I revisit it now I realize that the music has held up so well after 30+ years.  The debt they owe to Black Sabbath is more apparent to me now, although they extend that sound with the speed and punk-like attitude (for lack of a better term) of Motorhead.  The production is mid-80s awful, but again that's part of the charm (cf. Blacktask).  This stuff is ferocious in a way that more polished & produced metal just can't touch. 

Also, in retrospect, their lyrics were much better than most of their contemporaries.  Certainly they were into the whole doom/black metal thing, but their lyrics borrow more from the Conan / Weird Tales milieu instead of, say, Venom's comically satanic imagery.  With songs like "Into Crypts of Rays" (about Gilles de Rais) , they get points for realizing history provides more sources for "morbid tales" than fantasy ever could. 

Standout songs: "Into the Crypts of Rays", "Visions of Mortality", "Procreation (Of the Wicked)", "Return to the Eve", "Danse Macabre",  "Nocturnal Fear"  (that's all six from the original European import; later versions had additional songs -- full EP on Youtube)

Skip 'em songs: none.

Final score: 8/10.  And not just from nostalgia or irony, but neither is it focusing on its significant influence on later bands.  Even out of its historical context, this is just really good, heavy music. 

Take my soul away into the dark, dreaming 1000 morbid dreams, no tomorrow when the wind caresses my mind, could I ever return, it would be my doom.

--"Return to the Eve"

The Beach Boys - "Wild Honey" (LP Review)

Like most people, my knowledge of The Beach Boys ceases from about 1967 (resulting from the whole "Smile" / "Smiley Smile" debacle) until their emergence in the 1980s as a nostalgia act.  Doing some detailed reading in their discography reveals they continued to release LPs pretty regularly until about 1980.  The reviews of some of those LPs are pretty good (corresponding to the ascendancy of Carl Wilson within the band's hierarchy): Allmusic gives 1967's "Wild Honey" 4/5 stars, 1968's "Friends" also gets 4/5 stars, 3.5/5 stars for 1969's "20/20", 4.5/5 stars for 1970's "Sunflower" (it also made Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest LPs of All Times"), and finally 4/5 stars for 1971's "Surf's Up".  That's a pretty strong showing for five LPs, with only 1969's "Do It Again" as the only song from this period that most people will recognize. 

So it was with some anticipation that I looked forward to hearing "Wild Honey", which in 2001 was appended to "Smiley Smile" and various contemporary outtakes for a bonus CD.  Had I just received a forgotten gem from this unexplored portion of their discography? 

No.  No, I had not.

I can't speak for the other LPs listed above, but "Wild Honey" is a really bad LP and no amount of nostalgic revisionism can change that.  The title track is mildly interesting, sounding like Stevie Wonder with a theremin, but I think it stands out only because the rest of the soul-inspired songs fall flatter than does "Wild Honey".  "Darlin'" pauses the Stevie Wonder theft long enough to steal from the Four Seasons.  The best two tracks are 1) "Country Air" which although written for this LP would sound at home on "Smile" or "Pet Sounds", and 2) "Mama Says", a reworking of the acapella  break from "Vegetables" (left off "Smiley Smile" but present on "Smile"). 

The double CD is worth getting, but adjust your expectations for "Wild Honey".  The Beach Boys excursion to Motown has as much skill and authenticity as Robert Van Winkle brought to rap some 22 years later... 

Standout songs: "Country Air", "Mama Says"

Songs that appear: "Wild Honey" (live 1972), "Darlin'"

Skip 'em songs: the rest.

Final score: 3/10. 

Lesley Gore - "You Don't Own Me" (the song remains the same)

I should acknowledge the recent passing of Lesley Gore.  Best known for popular but fluffy songs like "It's My Party", "Judy's Turn to Cry", and "She's A Fool", Lesley made her lasting mark on music with the feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me", the 2nd single from her 1964 LP "Lesley Gore Sings of Mixed-Up Hearts".  Even though all of these songs came out in 1963 and 1964, they still sound like the 1950s -- before the Beatles ushered in the "modern" sound of music.

Tame by today's standards, I can only assume it packed quite a punch in 1964.  And while "You Don't Own Me" was covered by many different artists, its feminist message seems to serve as a safer, surrogate message for artists that would later come out. 

Lesley Gore: Live TV (I'm pretty sure this is not lip synced), studio
Dusty Springfield: studio
Joan Jett: studio