December Crap

Music Group December 2006

Beck – Could have reviewed this without listening to it, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I guess he’s taken off in a few odd directions over the past few years, but this seems exactly what I remember him being at the start. Quirky rhythms and beats, oddball lyrics with inventive phrasing, etc. All pretty good, although none of it is great. So why do I find this so uninteresting? I guess because every song is what it is 30 seconds in and they never get better as the song goes on. 2.0

Jason and the Scorchers – All I kept thinking as I listened to great song after great song was – “how the fuck did these guys get past my radar screen?” Then I remembered – These guys must be from the ‘80’s. No money, lousy job, miserable marriage and no internet. Oh, and I guess spending the 80’s in a drunken stupor probably didn’t help, either. Christ, I didn’t discover the Replacements until 1993, so I guess anything is possible. Anyway, this is a balls out classic that seems to get better with every listen. Part Replacements (the highest praise possible). part electric Joe Ely, part Thorogood but still original. An almost perfect cross between Austin style country and rock & roll. I put this somewhere between 4.5 and 5, but since I can't give it a 4.75 (Ken would be apoplectic over how to post the score and we wouldn't want THAT), so I guess it's closer to... 4.5

Fear - This has always been a minor favorite of mine, mostly because it has it’s moments of humorous brilliance (“let’s have a war, we’ll start in New jersey”) and some pretty interesting arrangements for a “punk” record. It hasn’t necessarily aged well and the bright spots seem fewer and farther between than I remember, but that’s not the biggest problem. It seems a bit staged at this point. Faux Anger. Still…..not awful and even though the failures outnumber the winners on this album, the winners have enough bite, humor and truth to get this to 3.0

Decemberists – Bad start to this record. Oh, not the music. Way before you get to the music. You get the name of the band (pretentious – not sure why, it just is), the artsy fartsy cover (pretentious) and any band that thinks it’s cool (or whatever!) to put part 3 of a song before parts 1 and 2 (which in another act of pretention is [are?] really one song) ought to be put to sleep or beaten with a 2 x 4. Or both. Luckily for these pretentious geeks, they have talent. None of it really soars to a level beyond “well crafted, well written, well performed,” but not much these days even approaches that level and it’s interesting – something I would have bet the house against before listening to it. 3.5

Topic

Rhythm Guitar – It’s the foundation for all great rock music. You can do without bass (sorry Mike M, but you can), you can do without drums and you can do without lead guitar. But you can’t do without rhythm guitar. It just ain’t rock and roll if it ain’t there. And for a guy who doesn’t play an instrument, I can’t think of anything more fun than slashing out kick-ass crunchy loud rhythm riffs while assuming any number of great rock guitar poses, including, but not limited to jumps, windmills and lunges. It simply would be more fun than playing any other instrument. Primary influences in this dream include Pete Townsend, Keith Richards, Johnny Ramone, Billy Zoom, Paul Weller (early Jam days only) and Paul Armstrong of the Flashcubes.