Uber Reviews. What?

July 2010

Music Club

Cheap Trick- Dream Police

Cheap Trick is one of those bands that appeal to both sexes of the general masses while not being considered too soft by the critics. Why? Because of Zander's versatile voice and Nielsen's guitar chops.  Dream Police is a perfect representation of this broad appeal; straight forward rockers ("The House is a Rockin'), pop-rock (title track), syrupy rock ("Voices") and meatier, menacing rock ("Gonna Raise Hell" and "Need Your Love"). There is a slight aged feeling to the disc with their use of strings, echo and big drum sound but it doesn't damper the well written songs. Instead it makes them more endearing to us who listened during our HS freshmen. While Cheap Trick will never break barriers they have always put out pretty solid, hummable and accessible music. They deserve the accolades they are finally getting. (3.5)

Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca

I would love to see the written scores to their songs. Lets start with a nice melodic acoustic guitar, go apeshit in another time signature, add a driving 4/4 riff and then end with some of Zappa's synclavier experiments. This is a challenging listen, but to me an enjoyable journey. Maybe it is more an appreciation of how difficult their music is.Normally one can give up on a song within a 30 second span but on Bitte Orca you can't do that because you'll miss the next nugget. There is musical brilliance throughout this disc provided you give it the chance. Look for a cover at your local bar....  (3.0)

Jesse Malin & the St. Marks Social- Love it to Life

Jesse Malin doesn't put out bad albums because basically they are all the same album with a different title and cover. Can't hate it. Will probably keep it. Just won't remember it. (3.0)

Dire Straits- Making Movies

This DYN reviewer considers this Dire Straits best. Knopfler's guitar work is fluid, the songs smart and the band extremely tight. The songs veer from quirky "Les Boys" to rock out "Solid Rock" to anthemic "Tunnel of Love". The songs have fantastic builds and though four crank in at over 5 minutes they hardly feel that long because of the strength of musicianship. Not a weak cut to be found. (5.0) 

Frank Zappa Ghits

In being a fan I would have hoped to hear a little from all his different phases- doo wop, heavy blues, synclavier (second mention in one meeting), symphonic, experimental, jazz.... etc. This disc was primarily a top 40 Zappa compilation but a pretty good one at that.

Topic

Last record store- Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis

Best one around- I would say Newberry Comics and I think only this type of shop can survive. It has everything for everyone. Plus pop culture and gag gifts. Radio is partly to blame with so little interesting music played on the airwaves as is Disney and Nickelodeon pop acts. American Idol ain't helping either. There are few nerds like the DYN crew so a real record store would never fly. Most people don't care about digging around and only want what is spewed at them incessantly.