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Following my review of Cinderella Man, here are some recommendations for pop culture you should, you must, consume. In keeping with Rebunk traditions that Tom and I in particular have embraced and made our own, some of these are not especially new, although just to keep you on your toes, a few are.
Books:
Last fall when I was over in England I almost picked up a copy of Mark Haddon’s the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Waterstone's, the UK's equivalent to Barnes & Noble, was having one of its pretty regular three books for 15 pounds sort of deals, and in a last minute decision I passed over Haddon’s book in order to grab a couple of other things that caught my eye. I know now that I made a big mistake, but I have recently rectified it. This wonderful little book tells the tale of (presumably) autistic Christopher John Francis Boone and his attempt to solve a mystery of a dog that turned up dead in his neighborhood. Haddon tells a remarkable, empathetic, clever, funny story. Boone is a character who will stick with you. The story reminded me most of another wonderful book from the last couple of years, DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little, which presents a title character reminiscent of Holden Caufield, but in a post-Columbine world. Buy them both. They will make your weekend.
CDs:
I have been on a serious cd buying spree in the last few months. Books and cds are my two main consumer passions. Indeed, these two pleasures pretty much justify my support for capitalism. Any socialist with great bookshelves and cd racks (and any person worth their salt possesses and fills both in the plural forms) is a poseur and a hypocrite. And probably is a Phish fan as well, but I suppose that is redundant. In any case, here are some of the many new cds filling my earhole of late, with brief capsule reviews:
Eels: Blinking Lights and Other Revelations -- Super ambitious two-cd album. As with most of its ilk (see Ryan Adams, below, and Guided By Voices) sometimes less could be more, but these discs represent a concept album, I think, and a hell of an accomplishment in any case.
Kevin Devine: Make the Clocks Move Sublime pop with an opening song, “Ballgame,” that makes you ache for the lead singer. Redolent of Elliot Smith.
Kings of Leon: Two albums:Aha, Shake, Heartbreak; Youth & Young Manhood - If you do not like these guys, you do not like rock & roll. The first song on Youth, “Red Morning Light,” might be the greatest rock song ever. And it has prominent cowbell.
Oasis: Don’t Believe the Truth - Not as good as their two mid-90s stunners, Definitely Maybe and What’s The Story Morning Glory?, better than most of the dross they have produced since, this album will have the British music press going ga ga. And since I’ll be over in England for the summer, I find that strangely enjoyable.
Pinback: Summer in Abaddon Almost indescribably good. These guys are hard to describe. Just get the album.
Sleater Kinney: The Woods A bit of a changeup from one of my three favorite new bands of the last ten years (alongside Kings of Leon and Whiskeytown), this album evokes classic hard rock while still staying true to the Olympia-based threesomes you-go-punk-grrl roots.
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: Cold Roses Ryan Adams is so disturbingly talented and prolific (this two disc set will be followed by another two-discer in a couple of months, and the rumor is that 2005 will see yet another album from the genius behind the aforementioned Whiskeytown) it is frightening. Adams is a bit more polished, but reminds me of Guided By Voices in one crucial factor – he is too prolific for his own good. Cold Roses would be far stronger were it just one disc, but as with everything he has ever done, parts of it are transcendent. Unfortunately by all accounts he is one of the biggest pricks on the planet. Oh well – trust the art and not the artist.
I just want to thank everyone for the spirited conversation here the last few days while the guys and I were engaged in shenanigans in southeast Ohio. Lots of good points came up. Steve's as big a music fan as (and maybe more of a music snob than) I, so maybe this will cajole him to post a little sumpin' sumpin'.
dc
Jonathan Coats -
6/11/2005
Add Span, The Bellrays, and Stereophonics to your list. All great bands.
E. Simon -
6/11/2005
It's admittedly hard for me to judge videos as an artform, but you've got to admit that Dave Grohl's done a damn good job of following up on the music and soundwriting talents of Nirvana. Makes me wonder if he wasn't behind most of it, although Cobain's edginess certainly defined them.
David Lion Salmanson -
6/10/2005
Your missing the point. Your periodizaiton is way off. Alternative as a category is really mid-80s to early 90s, just as post-punk is after the 70s.
On Twin Cities in the 80s. Perhaps you missed the museum exhibit.
Husker Du, the Replacements, etc. etc. plus the whole Jam/Lewis production thing.
But the twin cities were just one center. LA had X and everybody on the Valley Girl soundtrack for example.
David Lion Salmanson -
6/10/2005
Jonathan,
They relocated to Austin two years ago from Massachussetts, where they still summer. Prior to that they were based in LA. Having seen them live several times, I assure you they rock significantly harder then Damn Yankees or Foreigner. The fact that they avoid prolonged mastubutory guitar solos does not diminish their rock factor. While quieter songs like Detroit or Buffalo and Lucky Day certainly have a restrained ferocity, First Lady of Rock, for example, is as good as anything Metallica or G n R put out. "Daddy, daddy what's that she said/ she said, 'I like Black Sabbath and Motorhead." Go with Born to Howl.
At least four of the reviewers used AC/DC comparisons. Works for me.
Steven Heise -
6/9/2005
I know Minneapolis quite well, having been born there and all. (The guys who sang 'Run Away Train' are Soul Asylum, and they're from Fargo/Moorhead btw) So I am slightly familiar with the music that has come from the area. The provincial comment was in response to Derek claiming I only really knew the impact of American bands, when I'd really be hard pressed to name anything more than Prince or Soul Asylum as having come out of Minneapolis.
While I won't argue that Hole and Screaming Trees were less than credible bands, that does not change the fact that Seattle is and was known as the center of the grunge movement. I understand that Nirvana and Pearl Jam weren't the best of friends, and the only other two bands from Seattle that could even make a claim to fame were less than credible, but these are two unrelated statements. Pearl Jam and Nirvana were both good bands, that helped add 'grungy musicians' to the stereotype of things from Seattle, next to Starbucks and Microsoft.
The attack on my age was well done, but I really don't see how that's very relevant. If we were discussing which bands were better live, then, sure, you'd have a point, as I have only seen the Smashing Pumpkins live (their free concert in Minneapolis) from the period we are discussing. But, music is music. One can pick up a CD or download a song these days and form their own opinion of what is good or bad depending on what they think of the sound they hear. So, unless the music of the period between 1992 and 1996 has become exlcusive property of David Lion Salmanson and I missed the memo, I shall continue to 'mouth off' about what I think of the bands from this era.
Steve
Jonathan Coats -
6/9/2005
Stone Coyotes are from NYC/Mass as per their website. They spend alot of time in Houston though. On the ROCK HARD scale they rank up there next to Foreigner or Damn Yankees, but certainly no higher.
David Lion Salmanson -
6/9/2005
This is a town that had Husker Du, the Replacements, the guys who sang Runaway Train, Prince, the Time, all playing in the same clubs.
That is not provincial. Seattle, on the other hand, had two (count them two!) bands Nirvana and Pearl Jam who pretty much hated each other and not in a Stones vs. Beatles kind of way. I suppose we could count Hole and Screaming Trees but to say that those were bands is um, stretching credibility.
"Even REM snuck in there for a while." AS they say in the 'hood around here. That's just "ignorint." REM, along with Talking Heads, Plimsouls, X, Minutemen, Replacements and gobs of other 80s gods - including from the British Isles: U2, the Clash, English Beat, the Alarm, Simple Minds, the Pretenders (not chrissy obviously), etc. etc. were the founders of alternative generally getting radio play only on this new thing called college radio, MTV (especially on IRS' The Cutting Edge and later 120 minutes) and a few radio stations most notably WLIR in NY and KROQ in LA. For someone who wasn't even old enough to see most of these folks during this era (unless Mommy took you, or for the smaller bands, because you weren't yet 21) you are mouthing off an awful lot. Read up and more importantly listen up. Get thee to the Rhino web site. Start with the soundrack to Valley Girl.
Steven Heise -
6/8/2005
Provincialism? Oh, that cuts deep. I know I can remember where I was when I first heard What's the Story (seventh grade, Jonathan Wichmann's house as he had it on tape, which we subsequently wore out over a few months time), but I would be hard pressed to remember the same for Nevermind.
I would not disagree persay with your definition of post punk, but if post punk covers bands post 1970 then one would have to define true punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Ramones as post punk groups, when I believe most people would consider them to be true punk.
As for the concept of grunge being a marketing tool, you are correct, but it is no more of a marketing tool than the term 'alternative' which was what all these groups were ultimately labled as by record companies. The Alternative revolution consisted of bands such as Oasis, Nirvana, the Toadies, the Smashing Pumpkins, and even REM snuck in there for awhile. To argue between which term has less credibility due to it being mostly a marketing ploy and not its common recognition (more people would lump Nirvana into 'grunge' than post punk i would argue), strikes as almost a post modernist form of debate, putting form over function. Nirvana is known as a grunge band. They came out of the Seattle area, as did a number of similar bands, thus creating a scene, that had a distinct sound and style. I am not claiming that this scene was completely isolated from any other scenes that might have influenced it. I know the Pixies were a huge influence on Nirvana, and while I am not very knowledgeable about the Minneapolis scene (you want to talk about provincialism?) I am not discounting any influence they may have had on the Seattle one.
As for your comments Mr. Salmanson, I could not agree more about their intelligent use of videos, and I long for the days of the late 80s and early 90s where videos were more than just some guy riding around in his Escalade with scantily clad women shaking their rears at him, as asthetically pleasing as that might be.
Steve
David Lion Salmanson -
6/8/2005
Gotta agree with DC here. Nirvana did not spring whole from Seattle. It was the culmination and break through of the Minneapolis sound, X, and other Sub-pop and Slash bands. What was brilliant about Nirvana was not the music (which was very, very good) or the songwriting (which was extraordinary) but the video sensibility. The video for Teen Spirit is still powerful years later. Like Michael Jackson in the 80s, they temporarily rescued a crappy media form and turned it into Art.
David Lion Salmanson -
6/8/2005
As long as we are talking Austin bands, the best band in America (after Los Lobos of course) is an Austin based group called The Stone Coyotes. Double bonus: the lead singer/guitarist looks like my mom but rocks harder than dolomite.
Derek Charles Catsam -
6/8/2005
Steve --
"Postpunk" is a word the respected critic Robert Christgau coined to describe the underground music explosion (Replacements, Husker Du, pixies, Sonic Youth, etc.) that occurred after the 1970s. Nirvana fits better into that conception that the tired "grunge" concept that was dated before it even began. I think I'm a bit aware of the Seattle scene. I'm also familiar with both its antecedents and what followed. "Grunge," if it ever existed as more than a marketing ploy, is simply a subset of postypunk. Disagree? Look at Nirvana's influences. Look at the covers they play on their MTV Unplugged performance. I own just about everything from the Seattle scene, but it is best not looked at in isolation. "Postpunk" has a long and rich usage as a critical and descriptive term. I'm afraid you have much to learn before you go on lecturing about music here. You might want to check out Rhino's "Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the 1980s underground." It's a four disc set with some great stuff, and will show you that postpunk emergence.
Whether What's the Story did more for Britpop in the US than its predecessor is a bit secondary once one realizes that Britpop is, first and foremost, British. trust me when i say that the british music press and public seized on Definitely Maybe and saw What's the Story as a continuation of it; many, maybe most, prefer the first album. Believe it or not, Oasis' impact is enormous in the UK. Many Brits of a certain age remember when Definitewly maybe broke in the same way that Americans of a certain age remember the minute they heard nevermind (junior year at Williams, Greg Ennis' room in the Swill Den). For someone going on to study British colonialism at grad school, your provincialism is shocking, Steven, just shocking!
dc
Steven Heise -
6/7/2005
Concerning the Patriot's History I figured as much, I leafed through it at Barnes and Noble the other day and the parts I read were not very impressive, though I can see solid reasons for it to gloss over the buildup to the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Now onto the contentious part. Nirvana is grunge, not post-punk. Any genre with the name 'post' in it implies that it has lost all of its originality and has turned overly serious. Nirvana, this was not. For the better part of the early nineties the Seattle grunge scene included such bands as Nirvana (who were the most influential in the scene), Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam.
As to Definitely Maybe I was kidding about nobody ever hearing it, but I believe its a bit of an overstatement to claim that, when mentioned in the same sentence as What's the Story Morning Glory, it was as influential as Nirvana's Nevermind or In Utero. What's the Story Morning Glory in my opinion did more for Oasis and the spread of Britpop through the U.S. than Definitely Maybe. Does a album need to be universally reknowned to be a stunner? No, of course not, but it does help if the music on the album is memorable. I know I've listened to Definantly Maybe but I can't name a single song off of the disc. Morning Glory on the other hand has at least four tracks I can name off the top of my head, all of which (with the exception of Wonderwall) were solid songs, most of which will be remembered by people today. Nothing against Oasis, I really do like them and I am considering picking up their new album but your claim that both of their albums were stunners seems a bit over the top.
And anyways I'd put No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom way ahead of both Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe on the list of stunning albums.
Steve
Tom Bruscino -
6/7/2005
Number 1 for me was Pearl Jam at Red Rocks, Summer 1996 (I think).
Derek Charles Catsam -
6/7/2005
Steve --
Avoid Patriots' History. Not because of the politics, but by almost no account is it actually very good. If you want a perspective from that vantage point, read Paul Johnson's History of the US, or just go read some of the classic consensus historians.
No one has heard of Definitely Maybe? You're kidding, right? That album did for 90s Britpop what Nirvana did to postpunk. And in order to be a stunner of an album, it has to be universally well known? i bet i can name thirty stunning albums off the top of my head that you've never heard of (especially if you think no one has ever heard of Definitely Maybe).
dc
Derek Charles Catsam -
6/7/2005
Oooohh -- I love this idea, and might steal it for a future post. #1 for me was paul westerberg before his first post-replacements solo album came out. he did a show under a pseudonym, Thelonius Grimm and his Brothers Monk, and as a huge Mats fan, I found it astounding. It capped a great day in Boston when i was living there in 94.
dc
Derek Charles Catsam -
6/7/2005
Jonathan --
I'll check out Podunk when I get back to town. team America and Chapelle are already part of my collection. Thanks!
dc
Steven Heise -
6/7/2005
"Not as good as their two mid-90s stunners, Definitely Maybe and What’s The Story Morning Glory?"
Just an update for you, nobody has ever actually heard of or listened to Definitely Maybe, which makes it somewhat difficult for it to be a stunner.
As for books, I'm wondering if you've happened to have picked up A Patriot's History of the United States? I was considering buying it today, but instead went with the next book in Asimov's Foundation series, since I'm trying to get through that before September and the whole school thing.
Steve
Jonathan Coats -
6/7/2005
Austin band
Grady album titled - Why u so shady?
Jonathan Coats -
6/7/2005
10 - Kenny Wayne Shepherd Stubbs 2002
9 - Eric Johnson 2001 La Zona Rosa
8 - Indigenous 2001 La Zona Rosa
7 - Sugarhill Gang Austin Liberty Lunch 1995?
6 - Podunk, Los Lonely Boys - New Years Eve Red Eye fly in Austin 03
5 - RATM - first album Liberty Lunch in Austin 93?
4 - Rage against the machine - Battle of LA San Antonio Alamodome
3 - ZZ Top Eliminator
2 - U2 Achtung Baby 1992 Texas Stadium Public Enemy opened up
#1 Audioslave - Austin Music Hall 03?
Jonathan Coats -
6/7/2005
This album didn't come out this year but it is worth it. Local Texas(Austin) band Podunk. Everyone I know who has heard it loves it.
