When will the “Gloss Drop” by Battles?

                Battles helped me through 2007, one of the first years I had at work. Each time I re-visit “Mirrored” I think about the first time I truly felt independent. What I liked about Battles was how many different, somehow difficult snobbish genres into a likable whole. Usually I found myself forcing experimental music onto people. Now that Battles existed, I had a good ‘starting point’ to help people begin explorations of weirder genres like Post-Rock, Math Rock, or Experimental Rock. Certainly it helped when I tried to get people into Don Caballero. 

                People liked their sense of humor. For a purely instrumental band to have such a well-developed humor is rare. Trans Am had this as well, though Battles avoided that level of irony. Songs like “Atlas” and “Tonto” were full of life. They managed to both rock and experimentation with certain silliness. Actually, this used to be a lot more commonplace. Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart would be the two best examples of humor walking hand-in-hand with musical experimentation. I don’t know what happened to that sense of giddy discovery, but there seems to have been a halt to such things happening for the most part, at least on American soil in US-based bands. 

                Battles were here to defeat the po-faced experimental snobs. I thought how wonderful it was Battles broke down this wall between the two concepts. Countless times they visited New York City, usually for free. Each and every time I missed them, due to conflicts with time and space. As I heard they were releasing a second album, I grew excited at the prospect of it. Figuring they would be back, I felt happy. Gloss would drop. 

                Well, Battles are going to every place on Earth except New York. Shoot, they are even headed to Iowa City before they get to New York. I don’t want to say I’m insulted but I sort of am. Also, Tyondai Braxton, the wonderful guy who did the awesome electronic tricks (such as the vocal distortions on “Atlas”) has left the group as well. For a little while I wondered what kind of sound Battles might have without him, as I enjoyed his contributions. Tyondai brought levity to a group of people more familiar with Post-Rock than anything approaching fun.

                Some things never change. Warp Records still does an extremely poor job of preventing leaks. I don’t know why they are so terrible at it. Perhaps the fan boy network which grew up listening to Autechre has taught their offspring how to pirate music.  Whatever the reason may be, you can’t ignore that “Gloss Drop” leaked so badly morons who still use KaZaa could find it. The leak coming out so early boded well. Bands who leak early are generally beloved enough and the album worth it enough, particularly if the leak is of high sound quality. 

                How’s the album? It is still fun. After giving it a listen-through it will make “Best New Music”. I mean, there are members of the Boredoms at work on here. Will it get above its last score on Pitchfork? Considering they last got a 9.1 I doubt it. I think it is a good album but not as good or revolutionary. They basically hone their craft on here and continue to have fun. Pitchfork will probably give this album somewhere in the low to middle 8s for it. Most realistically it’ll get an 8.4 which appears to be their default best new music score. Everyone will remain happy if slightly disappointed at Battles’ inability to innovate beyond their original sound.

                An album roughly as good as a debut is nothing to worry over. Considering the quality contained within, it is still something I imagine will get trapped in my brain. I’d recommend it. Every second there’s about 80 different things happening. The prog rock tendencies haven’t been tempered. Just think of it as a polished version of their first album and you’ll be fine.

Daddy Bloggers

                   The New York Times has been on something of a ‘blog kick’. Lately they’ve had a bunch of articles focused on blogging, both positive and negative. Part of this may be to boost advertising revenue, so you’ll get a subscription to “The Economist” or buy an apartment in an extremely expensive part of Brooklyn or Manhattan. You know the kind of place so expensive I can’t even afford to get drunk there. A true crime if there ever was one. I’ve already focused on their negative ‘it’s dying’ article, now let’s go positive.

                Mommy Bloggers apparently make huge sums of money. Heather Armstrong leads the pack, making somewhere in the six figures per month. I’ve only seen a six figure sum in my life followed by the words ‘in debt’. Having thought about this for many hours, I’ve decided entering the field of Daddy blogs would be best. Now I’m not particularly motivated, due to being a sloth, but I have a foolproof plan on how to make a ton of money. See the below for a simple breakdown:

1.       Get married

2.       Have Children

3.       Write about said children in blog format

4.       PROFIT

As you can see, this verges on pure genius. Most Daddy blogs probably have uncool stuff, such as their efforts in building the kids a tree house or some such nonsense. Or they talk about their hobbies they’ve forced on their kids. Eventually their kids become some football captain or similar kind of ordinary stuff. My approach will differ dramatically from this. Finally I’ll help make Dads as cool as they ought to be.

I’m talking of course about cool dads. Sure, this phrase has been around for a while. Those are the dads who remained cool as they grew older. Most dads tend to start watching History Channel and find how taffy is made to be absolutely mind-blowing. Not I, said the cool dad guy. Instead, you’ll read about the mixes I created for my children so when they got to kindergarten they already knew about bands like Faust, Captain Beefheart, Nick Drake, Slint, Tortoise, and other obviously hip bands. As other children wonder why they sing “Wheels on the Bus” over and over again, my kids will be immune to such garbage.

Of course, I can’t do it alone. What I’ll be looking for is a special someone, preferably around my level of artiness or higher. Anyone in the blogging profession (excluding political bloggers gross), theater, film, music, painting or similar professions is a sure thing. Someone with experience in website site would be ideal. I’m looking to have my kids be so damn cool you’re nearly jealous of them. That’s my goal.

         Since it is a Daddy blog, there will need to be some drama. My kids might start getting into argument about Jackson Pollock versus Rothko, Zappa versus Beefheart, and so on. For life contains so much drama, I just want mine to have a snobbish, almost unbelievably out of touch view on culture, music and so on.

        Blogs don’t always end the way you want them. I’m assuming the same goes for kids, I don’t know, I haven’t had any kids yet. While I can try my best to protect them from interests in popular music and culture, I know the old saying “If you blog about something, you must set it free” or something like that. Knowing my kids might rebel against my interests, I’ll be gentle. There won’t be any of that “Dragon Lady” stuff where I deprive my kids of things they enjoy. Honestly, I’m not sure if my kids will be interested in everything I present to them, but I want them to realize all that’s out there, which include esoteric bands and film directors.

        Will I be a good father, a good daddy blogger? I don’t know. I hope I can. Can you be both a good father and good daddy blogger, or does something have to give? My hope is I can have both, since I’m not sure what my skill set is exactly. Being there for my kids, writing endlessly about them, I’d be that guy who goes on about their kids at parties, except I’d be earning sweet money cake for it.

        Let me know. Do you think I can find a special someone, settle down and blog about our offspring? Or will I continue to make far too many obscure musical references even as I write about the joys of being a father?

100 Records That Set the World on Fire….While No One was listening

               Lists are helpful. The Wire put out this list before the turn of the millennium, so there was bound to be some stuff too recent to get an accurate appraisal on. Some of the stuff they recommended on here ends up being pretty good, with maybe a bias or lean towards jazzier stuff. Thankfully they avoided the fate of Nurse with Wound list; their selection includes a fairly diverse group of artists and genres.

                Browsing quickly through the list, there are some great picks. Charles Ives would be one of them, even a century later he’s yet to receive the attention he deserves for his groundbreaking work, in the early 20^th century no less! Part of my adoration for Ives has to do with how he balanced a professional career with his more artistic inclinations. Maybe that’s a bit of an inspiration of how I could do the same thing.

                Unfortunately, like many of these “Look at our Great Taste” lists, there are a few expected mentions and some dullards. Faust gets mentioned on virtually any music snob’s taste, as does Captain Beefheart and a few others. Though these lists ostensibly are a reaction against the monotony of having the Beatles and the Beach Boys plastered everywhere, they fall into similar habits. Jazz gets a huge amount of attention. Some of the selections of the artists seems accurate, but their precise recordings a bit questionable. For the Residents, they pick an EP of theirs rather than one of their full-length weird-outs, like “Fingerprince” or “Not Available” which are more easily available.  A few other artists suffer from this, the “we listened to their whole discography and picked the most obscure release” syndrome. Sometimes this is a good idea, since it attracts attention to something which normally gets overlooked, but in some of these cases that’s just not the case. 

                The dullards are quite dull. Esquivel isn’t a great innovator by any means; even his most experimental stuff probably gets played in your local elevator. Choosing a William S. Burroughs audio tape from the 60s seems a bit silly too, especially considering how he did more interesting stuff later in life with bands. Oh, he’s dryly reading. How exciting. I’m a fan of his work too, but I can’t see myself being wowed by his voice alone. This might be more of a personal preference of mine. 

                A great deal of these I haven’t heard. What I will be doing for these will be tagging whichever ones relate to the list with the phrase: “100 Records that set the world on Fire” for easier navigation. I hope by going through these I’ll stumble upon some excellent material and edit out the dross for you, the listener. Despite some of my reservations about this list, I feel this is probably one of the more diverse ones I’ve seen. Their emphasis on a wide range geographically and time wise gives it a broader, better perspective, and they at least try to avoid the obscure of the sake of being obscure, though they fall into that pit a few times. 

                Finally, I do enjoy these lists and if you have any others I should pay attention to, let me know. Wire has the added bonus of including other sites’ reviews of the albums. Of particular note was Q Magazine calling “Metal Machine Music” one of the 50 worst albums of all time, thus confirming their status as old fogies who don’t “get it”.

RIP Donald Glen Vliet (January 15th, 1941 – December 17th, 2010)

Captain Beefheart, probably one of my most adored musicians, passed away today from multiple sclerosis. Though I haven’t posted a review of his many albums on here, rest assured that will be amended. Trout Mask Replica is of particular importance, I think once I heard that album I listened to it solid for an entire month. 

                Besides his music, there was his attitude. How he operated was not how others operated. Some might see his weirdness as a put-on, but I think it was genuine. Growing up in the middle of nowhere and moving around can create a difficultly in relating to other people. Using art as a form of escape isn’t unusual, but he grew relatively obsessed with it.

                Rituals related to his sculpting continued strong as he created a band. Despite having no training playing a piano, he created songs on it to be translated into full-fledged songs. In case having multiple rhythms and intentionally loose playing wasn’t enough, there are the lyrics. The lyrics feel like the rants of a crazed lunatic on the street corner who used to be a Poet Laureate.

                Getting the pieces ready took forever. People had a hard time liking him. His music was one thing, but then he spread random information in order to create a myth. Members of his band stated he tried (and succeeded) in brainwashing them. He bullied the bejesus out of them, tormenting them, physically hurting them at times. Living in a house with the windows blacked out, he created his masterpiece “Trout Mask Replica”. 

                Nothing he did ever seemed understandable. It was as if he wanted to make music that could have an infinite number of responses. Delta Blues (back when rock referenced blues instead of itself), free jazz, and bits of the avant-garde came together in the most incoherent mess ever to create a career. Most of what he did escaped categorization, there’s really no way to describe the utterly bizarre nature of what he did. I’m personally shocked that people listened to this, enough of them to actually give Donald an actual career.

                After he ended his obsession with music, he went back to art. The music industry had nothing left to offer this iconoclast. Ending it in 82, he stated that he couldn’t take that world anymore. Plus, a lot of those ideas and sketches had been around in his head for some time, and he let them out. Nature and art were the only things left for him, and he quietly pursued them until his death.

                I’m going to miss this guy. One of the few weirdos who existed outside all norms, he truly was an American original, unwilling or unable to conform to some late hippie or mystical stereotype. By hiding himself in the California desert he maintained control of what other people’s perception was of him, something he could do more easily by keeping quiet than speaking.

Les Georges Leningrad - Deux Hot Dogs Moutarde Chou 7.3

These guys turn trashiness into an art form. When I was lucky enough to see them perform live at the Knitting Factory (when it was downtown, before it moved to cheaper pastures) they wore bizarre outfits. It felt like pirate punk rock, with paper mache heads.  

It is dirty, noisy, kind of gross music. Of course I mean this in the most flattering way possible. All the right references are here: from the junk rock of Royal Trux to the fractured fuck-up of the early Residents. In case neither one of these things are your bag, they also do very odd dance punk.

Actually, it is the dance pop that you won’t be able to let leave your head. “Fast and Bulbous” that description penned by the great Captain Beefheart, would definitely apply to “George V”. I can’t even begin to describe why this song is so great, but I’ll try. The simplest bass comes in with a simple chord banged over and over again. Some French Canadian female sings incoherently into the microphone occasionally accompanied by an even more French Canadian male. Instead of a musical breakdown, you get that repetitive drum machine playing over random radio station scanning as the singer approximates what sounds like vomiting into the microphone. I love this song with all my heart.

Not every song works out so well. For each good song, there’s sometimes the following aimless meandering. They really do work as a bit more high energy; otherwise the heavy weirdness comes off as a little silly. “Didi Extra” has a more traditional getup than say “George V”. I think the refrain is something about a “big cock” but then part of the joy is having no idea what’s going on at all.

Overall, I prefer this to their much more dance orientated second release. This one just has way more fun in it. And although it is a bit indulgent, the obsessive weirdness makes up for it.