April's Golden Showers, or New Music That Pisssed Me Off

Vampire Weekend – Self Titled

Is it just me, or did this lead singer overdose on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” before recording this CD? On the positive side, this is a rhythm fest and if you are predisposed to pogo-dancing, it’s probably worth cranking it up, but for me, it’s somewhat boring, other than the two piano ballads that are at best, just OK. I was talking with my wife while listening to this and we were joking about ho we could give it the shortest review ever. She suggested, “Vampire Weekend? No Fangs. I countered with “It bites”. Either way, it’s a 1 ½.

Field Music – Measure

A basic tenet of musical theory is that there are only 12 ‘semi-tones’ within an octave which means that all the good combinations – that is, the ones that are not challenging to listen to and are pleasing to the ear – that form ‘riffs’ that get repeated in rock music have probably been used before this band decided to try to create new ones. The result is that the songs are not easy to enjoy, regardless of the pleasant vocals and instrumentation. My favorite part of this CD was a flash of xylophone I one track that made me long for Ruth Underwood when she played with Zappa, but all in all, the disc I did get through was, as Randy Jackson might say when he doesn’t get something he’s judging, “just aiight” 2.

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

I remember checking out a disc of theirs about two years ago and thinking…hmm, pretty cool guitars but I’m straining to hear the vocals, so I popped this in and …WTF? It’s electronica. And I hate it. I couldn’t get through most of the songs. But I did listen to 2/3rds of each track, if that counts. I won’t go back and listen again anyway…fact is, Mong’s hip-hop mix was more appealing to me than this. Given a choice, I’d listen to Scarlet Johannsson’s Biggest Hits (pronounced “Biggest Tits”) before listening to this again. 1 star since they’re from Brooklyn, but that’s it.

Ike Reilly – Salesmen and Racists

Thank God for this CD this month…I needed a smile after the ‘new’ batch and this was terrific. The songs were inventive, interesting, fun and powerful without being too silly. Musically, they were melodic enough to be memorable, had enough of a dynamic range to keep me involved through the entire disc and if you can’t appreciate a lyrical hook like “Commie drives a Nova”, you probably don’t like Elvis Costello either. 4 stars.

Raging Slab - Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert

A long time ago, somebody said, “These guys are like Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Metallica, There’s no reason to try to describe their sound any more than that. For me, this is a really enjoyable listen as every song rocks, but with southern rock sensibilities, and “Take a Hold” is one of those songs that should have been MUCH bigger than it was, except it was released in 1993 at the intersection of “Grunge and Pop Alternative” which was getting all the rock radio attention at the time. Anyway, this is solid all the way through so 3 ½ for Raging Slab…heh…heh….he said “Slab”….

GH – Pete Townshend

I love the Stones and I love Keith Richards, and I really like the Who and what Pete Townshend brings to them so my revelation here is I have to give even bigger props to Pete Townshend than Keith because when Pete steps aside from “The Who” and delivers solo material, it aces out my guitar hero Keith and not many people can walk away from their respective super groups and do that. I guess the bottom line is Pete is able to create and produce great songs, both musically and lyrically and in large enough numbers so you can have a GH like this.

Topic…The Brackets. Tough decisions all around, but we could have saved ourselves a lot of time by asking, “What band created the most consistent ‘good’ music without having a bad period. That seemed to be the over riding logic of picking winners in crunch time as the criteria of ‘a mixed hour’ as opposed to ‘their best hour’ of music was given much weight. Not really sure if it would have changed to ultimate outcome, but some of the “sweet 16” and “elite 8” and even “final 4” results might have been different.