1. “Push Push (Lady Lightning),” Bang Camaro
A Boston band made out of a dozen local indie bands. A drummer, bassist, three lead guitarists and between twelve and twenty lead singers depending on who the can get to the gigs. Everybody likes AC/DC, nobody hates Def Leppard. Well, that’s Bang Camaro. Plus a little Van Halen, Dokken, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. It’s a gimmick and the band knows it. But it’s a damn good gimmick. I officially declare that if you don’t like this song after four listens and four PBR tall boys (note: 64 total ounces) you have no soul. Listen to the drums during the one minute outro. Fucking glorious.
2. “Surrender,” The Dropkick Murphys
Like the Sox, you kinda gotta like the Dropkicks if you live in Boston. However for non-Bostonians, who loath the Sox, the Dropkicks still rock. Nobody does Celtic punk better. They were always competent composers of gutter poetry, hardcore jigs and smart, simple lefty rallying cries, but the Dropkicks topped themselves with this year’s “The Meanest of Times.” “Surrender” is best paired with Bushmills (but not after those four PBRs because of that whole no beer before liquor thing).
3. “A Bottle of Buckie,” Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
A song about actually drinking makes sense about now. And nostalgia is good to. Ted Leo is a New Jersey punk (or arguably ex-punk) that is really starting to get into a Springsteen thing, albeit through the Clash. Whatever. This song makes me reminisce about stuff that never happened to me.
4. “Thrash Unreal,” Against Me!
This is a punk rock “Glory Days.” Or maybe it’s “Summer of ’69.” It’s so fucking cornball but it’s my favorite song of 2007. I love how he can’t not scream lyrics. I love the pop punk “oohs and aahs.” I love the exclamation mark after their name. Like “Push Push,” this song might seem annoying pre-fourth listen, but that fourth spin will hook you (Note: it will only hook you if you’re kinda wasted and have a friend to drunkenly scream the lyrics with. Also, you should say, “Man, this song fucking rules! IT FUCKING RULES!!!,” to your friend mid-song and then shake him/her vigorously. If my calculations are right, and I’m pretty sure they are, your will reply with half-mast eyelids, ‘Totally, dude, totally.”).
5. “Borne on FM Waves of the Heart,” Against Me! (with Tegan Quin – of Tegan & Sara)
If “Thrash Unreal” is the punk rock “Glory Days,” than this is the punk rock “Almost Paradise.” You know, that Mike Reno (Loverboy)/Ann Wilson (Heart) duet from “Footloose.” P.S. Notice the double shot of Against Me! Risky so soon, but all the best mixes have double shots.
6. “Girls Who Play Guitar,” Maximo Park
As long as I’m this deep in why not. Maximo Park is as danceable as New Order, while not nearly as skeletal. They cultivate club beats into these really sick, fully-bloomed songs as lush as a Beatles or Queen song. “Girls Who Play Guitars” may be this year’s best pop single.
7. “Energy,” The Apples in Stereo
It took six albums and 15 years for The Apples to get where they wanted to go. It was totally, totally worth the wait. They’ve finally realized modern rock’s promise of mixing the perfect pop/punk/new wave cocktail. “Energy” blends Cheap Trick, the Cars and the Ramones while always sounding vaguely like a ’70s sitcom theme song. Goes well with an indie rock “Totally ’80s” tribute album minus the crappy songs.
8. “Karma’s Out to Get Me,” Fancey
Todd Fancey is the New Pornographer least likely to succeed. Which sucks because this year he released the coolest New Pornographers solo project ever. On “Schmancey,” the Pornographer guitarist added a few more layers of sunshine and gloss to the AM radio gold redux he pioneered on his 2004 debut. It’s winter right now but this song will go really well with a summery rum drink.
9. “Take A Chance,” The Magic Numbers
Hooky, catchy, poppy, makes-you-wanna-dance-and-sing-and-twirl-in-circles music paired with stabbed-in-the-heart, kicked-in-the-crotch, makes-you-wanna-drink-a-bottle-of-Chardonnay-with-Bridget-Jones lyrics. Totally see this band live if you have the chance. Picture ABBA as a first-rate bar band covering the Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar” arranged as a rock opera by Pete Townshend. Now imagine that without any of the annoying qualities typically attributed to ABBA, the Archies and Townshend. Usually pop this complex and wonderful and this dependent on three-part harmonies and dueting guitar and bass lines doesn’t go over well live. But the Magic Numbers nail it.
10. “Mutiny, I Promise You” The New Pornographers
This should have been the 2007 summer’s jam. (Hey, where was this summer’s jam? Where was the “Crazy,” the “Hey Ya!,” the “When Doves Cry”? One of the shit things about the fall of radio, MTV and major labels. No more ubiquitous summer jams). Anyway, this should have been it. It’s got everything a summer jam needs: a rising, euphoric beat; gentle, breezy female harmonies; a cool, sticky, melting-down-you-arm ice cream cone melody.
11. “Underdog,” Spoon
Spoon’s Britt Daniel is today’s indie rock poster child. No nasty mane of hair, inked up arms or detached distance from his fans, Britt’s a clean-cut and chatty (but not with the press) dude celebrating mainstream influences the Beatles, Elvis Costello and Motown. Just listen to this song. Listen to this absolutely perfect song. Hooky Kinks and Monkees moments, ’60s soul pop spiked with a tiny bit maximum R&B, that same “symphony in a song” thing pioneered by Phil Spector, Berry Gordy and Brian Wilson. If you don’t like this after the first 23 seconds I will refund the cost of this mix.
12. “American Wedding,” Gogol Bordello
Have you ever been to American wedding? Where’s the vodka, where's marinated herring? Nothing gets these bitches going, not even Gypsy Kings. Gogol’s fourth album is the year’s best drinking soundtrack. Hands down. No debate. Every polka-punk thump, violin screech and poetic, Ukraine-accented chant makes you wanna reach for the Smirnoff (or if you went to American University, the Tenleytown Vodka). You should really be drunk by this point the whole mix won’t make the right impression.
13. “Walken,” Wilco
I always thought they were overrated wankers. They just needed a better guitarist. Nels Cline was hired and problem solved. Jeff Tweedy just needed a foil. Top five album of the year thanks to Nels Cline’s guitar solos.
14. “Been There All the Time,” Dinosaur Jr.
J Mascis is a big weirdo but he’s really, really good at writing songs. Also the guitar solo, hello? There’s a reason I put him back-to-back with Nels Cline.
15. “Do You Remember?,” Cheeseburger
Rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t get more childish than Cheeseburger. I don’t think that this song can be enjoyed, or even tolerated, sober.
16. “Icky Thump,” White Stripes
Paging Mr. Zeppelin, Mr. Led Zeppelin to a white curiosity phone. We wanna hate Jack White for being a pompous nut job who’s convinced he’s Page and Plant in one. But we can’t cuz even after making the most derivative album in a career of full of derivative stuff, White’s genius has tricked us (read: me) into thinking he invented rock.
17. “Gotta Get Outta This City,” Baker
Locals. Really cool. Real new wavy but not as wussy as the New Porno types.
18. “I Can’t Take It No More,” John Fogerty
Fuck Clapton, the Stones, Steve Winwood and Springsteen. No, no, I take that back, I take that back a thousand times. Springsteen rules. But geez, why are all these old dudes so friggin’ anemic now? Fogerty’s new album ain’t a masterpiece but at least he’s still pissed, can still rock and knows how to mic a guitar.
19. “Brainstorm,” Arctic Monkeys
Hailed by the UK press as the greatest thing since either the Clash or the Beatles, they are not. But they don’t suck as the backlash suggests. There’s only a few albums away from making an album of the year. But don’t see them live yet. They’re still too cool for school and look like well dressed, drunk mannequins.
20. “Alcohol,” Gogol Bordello
Self explanatory.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Friday, November 30, 2007
This Week's Album: Sigur Ros - "Hvarf/Heim"
An odds-and-ends, double-disc collection of unreleased songs, re-recorded, mostly acoustic numbers and a B-side, “Hvarf/Heim,” again proves the Sigur Ros' two great theses: Melody matters more than lyrics and new age can rock as hard as rock can rock. Singing in their native tongue, the Icelanders rely on melody, not words, to carry their soundscapes, which borrow as much from George Winston and Enya (without sucking at all) as from Radiohead, U2 and the Cure’s “Disintegration." The platitudes you have probably heard about them as still dead-on. Haunting, yes. Bombastic, sure. Sublime, for sure. Complex, very.
Last Best Show: My First Ween Show
A trip to a Ween show is like a visit to Oz. Remember when Dorothy awoke in that wigged-out Technicolor dream? Everything was recognizable - cornfields, apple trees, ruby slippers - but totally new. This is a Ween concert.
Wednesday at a nearly sold-out Orpheum in Boston, Ween’s guitars, amps and fog machines looked like guitars, amps and fog machines. But they were somehow different. Brighter, more vivid, with a wicked menace just around the corner just like, that's right, OZ.
Backed by a bassist, drummer and keyboardist, the Pennsylvania duo of Gene and Dean Ween began simply. Dean led the band through “Fiesta,” the instrumental opener to Ween’s new album, “La Cucaracha.” Gene joined in for the lo-fi punk of “Nan.” Then the fog rolled in like think reefer smoke, the laser lights fired up like the mothership descending and the eerie, magnificent music swelled to Oz-like levels.
With the weighty, grand rock of “Take Me Away,” the show transitioned from a couple of talented dorks jamming in their basement to the kind of spectacle you’d expect from a Blue Oyster Cult arena tour circa 1977. The pomposity raged on with the P-Funk-on-cough-syrup of “The Grobe,” the Jimmy-Buffett-on-coke of “Bananas and Blow” and the weed-happy prog metal of “Transdermal Celebration.”
The dream reached peaks during the guitar histrionics of “Voodoo Lady,” which riffed on Prince’s “Partyman,” and the epic new tune “Woman and Man.” Dean is a six-string nut whose solos stole generously from both unsurprising (Hendrix, Zappa) and unpredictable (Eddie Hazel, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Ritchie Blackmore) sources.
Gene, Dean’s foil and the band’s main vocalist, is an anti-frontman. Everything Bono ain’t, Gene is: a lump of atypically charismatic oddness born to lead a band with no qualms about performing a song like "HIV," in which the only lyrics are "HIV" and "AIDS." But Gene’s range extends to tenderness. “Your Party” was built of sensitivity and nostalgia as much as weirdness and whimsy.
Beyond Gene and Dean, the third factor at a Ween show is the crowd. A band with a cult that seems just one bad trip away from drawing pentagrams in goat’s blood, the Orpheum audience was as unhinged as any. Basically, these people were fucking fucked up. Lots of hotboxing (and maybe lines) in the bathroom stalls, collapsing in the aisles mid-dance/freakout, and screaming requests with a rock lust as impassioned as Romans calling for the next slave to be tossed to the lions.
Undoubtedly the faithful will tell you Ween’s show was Boston’s best of the year. Don’t believe them. That’s just the Oz hangover talking. But don’t scoff if they tell you Dean’s “Voodoo Lady” riffage was as good as anything Eddie Van Halen pulled off at the Garden last month. They may be right about that.
Wednesday at a nearly sold-out Orpheum in Boston, Ween’s guitars, amps and fog machines looked like guitars, amps and fog machines. But they were somehow different. Brighter, more vivid, with a wicked menace just around the corner just like, that's right, OZ.
Backed by a bassist, drummer and keyboardist, the Pennsylvania duo of Gene and Dean Ween began simply. Dean led the band through “Fiesta,” the instrumental opener to Ween’s new album, “La Cucaracha.” Gene joined in for the lo-fi punk of “Nan.” Then the fog rolled in like think reefer smoke, the laser lights fired up like the mothership descending and the eerie, magnificent music swelled to Oz-like levels.
With the weighty, grand rock of “Take Me Away,” the show transitioned from a couple of talented dorks jamming in their basement to the kind of spectacle you’d expect from a Blue Oyster Cult arena tour circa 1977. The pomposity raged on with the P-Funk-on-cough-syrup of “The Grobe,” the Jimmy-Buffett-on-coke of “Bananas and Blow” and the weed-happy prog metal of “Transdermal Celebration.”
The dream reached peaks during the guitar histrionics of “Voodoo Lady,” which riffed on Prince’s “Partyman,” and the epic new tune “Woman and Man.” Dean is a six-string nut whose solos stole generously from both unsurprising (Hendrix, Zappa) and unpredictable (Eddie Hazel, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Ritchie Blackmore) sources.
Gene, Dean’s foil and the band’s main vocalist, is an anti-frontman. Everything Bono ain’t, Gene is: a lump of atypically charismatic oddness born to lead a band with no qualms about performing a song like "HIV," in which the only lyrics are "HIV" and "AIDS." But Gene’s range extends to tenderness. “Your Party” was built of sensitivity and nostalgia as much as weirdness and whimsy.
Beyond Gene and Dean, the third factor at a Ween show is the crowd. A band with a cult that seems just one bad trip away from drawing pentagrams in goat’s blood, the Orpheum audience was as unhinged as any. Basically, these people were fucking fucked up. Lots of hotboxing (and maybe lines) in the bathroom stalls, collapsing in the aisles mid-dance/freakout, and screaming requests with a rock lust as impassioned as Romans calling for the next slave to be tossed to the lions.
Undoubtedly the faithful will tell you Ween’s show was Boston’s best of the year. Don’t believe them. That’s just the Oz hangover talking. But don’t scoff if they tell you Dean’s “Voodoo Lady” riffage was as good as anything Eddie Van Halen pulled off at the Garden last month. They may be right about that.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Sonrisa Salvaje is the holy grail of hoke. When you dig up an album of sea chanteys sung barbershop quartet style by William Shatner, Mr. T, Hervé Villechaize and Roger Moore, call me. Until then David Lee Roth’s Spanish version of Eat ’Em and Smile will be camp champ supreme. But being campy doesn’t stop it from being fuckin' great. Recently issued on CD for the first time – the original vinyl and cassette album was quickly deleted from Warner’s catalogue – “Sonrise Salvage” has hair metal’s best band (guitarist Steve Vai, bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Gregg Bissonette) and Roth stumbling through “Asi Es La Vida” (“That’s Life”) like some manic Spanglish Sinatra. Como que no se puede amar?
Last best show: Heaven & Hell - 5/17/07 - Tsongas Arena, Lowell
Born a century too late to thrill the great halls of Europe with debuts of Puccini’s masterworks, Ronnie James Dio’s fate is to rock, like a hurricane, thousands of headbangers with his opera-ready, vibrato-heavy, soaring vocals.
Dio is currently rocking Heaven and Hell (the title of his first album with Black Sabbath), which is, in essence, Black Sabbath minus Ozzy plus Dio. This may sound like total shit, and it is if you never liked Sabbath to begin with, but if you dig metal you’ll dig this elfin-yet-trollish frontman belting out songs about “Children of the Sea” and “Voodoo” and other AD&D shit.
As infantile as anything peers Judas Priest or Iron Maiden ever wrote, Dio’s lyrics border on absurd—“There’s a place just south of Witches’ Valley / Where they say the wind won’t blow / And they only speak in whispers of a name / There’s a lady they say who feeds the darkness” from “Lady Evil” are proof of that. As does his stage presence—in all black he stalks the stage like a cat (or at least like a dancer from “Cats”). But put together with his voice, his lyrics and posing combine to form a mighty metal overlord.
What’s not infantile is Tony Iommi’s guitar (or maybe it’s just infantile in a better way). In the 40 years since Iommi picked up the guitar he’s continued to weather and absorb metal’s evolving style. He’s added the furious flurry of notes from speed metal and the sharp grind of modern metal while retaining his trademark riffage. “Sign of the Southern Cross” was as epic as “Iron Man,” the monster plod of “Shadow of the Wind” somehow made the same riff he’s written a dozen times sound new and the bluesy, echo-heavy effects during the long instrumental break in “Heaven and Hell” sounded downright David Gilmore-esque.
The quintet has a combined age of over 200 but they attacked the extended set like kids on their first tour of Japan in ’74—something Sabbath just can’t do with a space case like Ozzy anymore.
Dio is currently rocking Heaven and Hell (the title of his first album with Black Sabbath), which is, in essence, Black Sabbath minus Ozzy plus Dio. This may sound like total shit, and it is if you never liked Sabbath to begin with, but if you dig metal you’ll dig this elfin-yet-trollish frontman belting out songs about “Children of the Sea” and “Voodoo” and other AD&D shit.
As infantile as anything peers Judas Priest or Iron Maiden ever wrote, Dio’s lyrics border on absurd—“There’s a place just south of Witches’ Valley / Where they say the wind won’t blow / And they only speak in whispers of a name / There’s a lady they say who feeds the darkness” from “Lady Evil” are proof of that. As does his stage presence—in all black he stalks the stage like a cat (or at least like a dancer from “Cats”). But put together with his voice, his lyrics and posing combine to form a mighty metal overlord.
What’s not infantile is Tony Iommi’s guitar (or maybe it’s just infantile in a better way). In the 40 years since Iommi picked up the guitar he’s continued to weather and absorb metal’s evolving style. He’s added the furious flurry of notes from speed metal and the sharp grind of modern metal while retaining his trademark riffage. “Sign of the Southern Cross” was as epic as “Iron Man,” the monster plod of “Shadow of the Wind” somehow made the same riff he’s written a dozen times sound new and the bluesy, echo-heavy effects during the long instrumental break in “Heaven and Hell” sounded downright David Gilmore-esque.
The quintet has a combined age of over 200 but they attacked the extended set like kids on their first tour of Japan in ’74—something Sabbath just can’t do with a space case like Ozzy anymore.
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