I made peace awhile ago in regards to what Weezer has become. Despite the diminishing returns of each album, they still have become masters in marketing themselves in ways that have nothing to do with their songs themselves (Exhibit A-Z: Snuggies!) Perhaps Weezer truly are the second coming of Kiss?
The pitch of style over substance was on display again this week. I saw the band's new single linked a few different places, but those mentioned were dwarfed drastically by news of the album's cover photo.
Delightful! Although Hurley was partial to another band, this photo couldn't be more joyous if he were fully decked out in a Mr. Cluck's uniform.
Will the album be good? Who knows? Probably not that good, but maybe kinda good! Does it matter? Not really! What matters is that I want LOST connections on all indie rock album covers from now on! So I took it upon myself to make several of them! Feel free to print these at and glue them to your CD covers. (That is a joke - nobody buys CDs. Please copy and past into your magical lower-left iTunes box to your heart's content.)
Was this good use of a couple hours on a Thursday? Or THE BEST use of a couple hours on a Thursday? You do the math.
We had some massive highs
We had some crushing lows
We had some lusty little crushes
We had those all-ages hardcore matinee shows
I have no idea how T.A. Skate Shop became a live music venue. When I was 15 years old, we walked in the front door, confused by what seemed to be a very ordinary showroom adorned with boards, wheels, and Airwalks. We realized that we needed to enter behind the building, and walked inside, confronted with several large half-pipes in every direction. Pinned against the far wall was a makeshift stage where SuperFatFlyBoy would rock out while the crowd watched, scattered throughout the room and sitting on various angles of skate ramps. It certainly seemed like an odd place for bands to be playing. This, of course, made the scene much more appealing.
Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer! I think he might have been our only decent teacher.
Every time I hear this line, I'm reminded of a documentary I saw on the Sundance Channel a few years ago. Let's Rock Again followed Joe Strummer in what would surprisingly turn out the be the last year of his life, on the road with his new band The Mescaleros.
For the most part, Let's Rock Again is a pretty typical tour doc, focusing primarily on Strummer's attempt to get his new band some notoriety after he had spent the previous decade-and-a-half basically out of the public eye. But there is one scene that blew me away, where Strummer roams up and down the Atlantic City boardwalk begging people to come to his show. This guy was in The Clash! And he's passing out handmade flyers! And usually getting rejected!
Strummer never seems frustrated, which is probably to be expected. Despite his influence, he's not a guy that would be easily recognized by the masses. He actually seems to be getting a thrill from embracing the DIY mentality and literally hitting the pavement to drum up business. (I also wonder if he has some weird side bet in place concerning how many times he can work Captain Beefheart into conversation.) He seems to be a man fully content and self-aware, refusing to rest on his legacy, while simultaneously embracing its existence. When reflecting back on guides in the school of rock stardom, does anyone really need any other decent teachers?
Do you want me to tell it like boy meets girl and the rest is history? Or do you want it like a murder mystery? I'm gonna tell it like a comeback story.
Growing up Catholic, one is exposed to an inordinate amount of so-called Christian music. And it’s all terrible. When I use the term "Christian music" in this context, I’m not talking about any songs found in church hymnals. I’m referring to music that falls under the commercial category of “Christian Rock.” Often while riding in my high school girlfriend's call, I would zone out while she played DC Talk or Jars of Clay and silently wonder. Was there something in the communion wine that prohibited these bands from writing lyrics that aren't terrible? You can usually tell after a few masses with a new priest who can put together a compelling homily and who can't. And apparently if you're going to front a Christian rock band, then you possess the same storytelling talents of the clueless priest who attempts to connect with younger church-goers with condescending lies about "hanging at the mall with some young skateboarders," or other such nonsense.
I guess I heard about original sin. I heard the dude blamed the chick. I heard the chick blamed the snake. I heard they were naked when they got busted. I heard things ain't been the same since.
A girl named Hallelujah (the kids call her Holly) serves the protagonist through Separation Sunday. The first line of the album makes she may be an unreliable narrator ("She said, ‘Always remember never to trust me.’") Throughout the next 42 minutes, one witnesses her rise and fall traveling all over the country (skipping over Dallas “cause Jackie Onassis said it ain’t safe for Catholics yet”). She repeatedly chooses vices over salvation as she struggles to overcome the wrongs done to her in the past. By the time she hits rock bottom, regaining consciousness in a confessional, drug-fueled parties and encounters with skinheads, pimps, and hoodrats have rendered her “a real soft girl who's having real hard times.”
We gather our gospels from gossip and bar talk then declare them the truth. We salvage our sermons from message boards and scene reports. We come on to the youth. We try out new testaments on the guys sitting next to us in the bars with the bars in their windows. Even if you don't get converted tonight, you must admit that the band's pretty tight.
From a musical standpoint, the band is not quite yet clicking on all creative cylinders as they would go on to do with Boys and Girls in America. They’re more or less still serving as a backing band for Craig Finn’s lyrical tour de force, which features little actual singing, but all the enthusiasm of a preacher committed to his cause. Most critics compare Finn's freewheeling detailed storytelling to Jack Kerouac, but here he seems to have more in common with Flannery O'Connor, sparing few details in depicting the downfall of sinners who continually betray their self-imposed moral codes.
While he gets a little too cute at times ("She got screwed up by religion / She got screwed by soccer players") he usually testifies with a written density that takes several listens to fully dissect, and even after multiple listens maintain ambiguity. This practice of course has no place is proper Christian rock, where redemption and faith are usually communicated through self-righteous simplicity, ensuring that the listener is spoon-fed the desired message. Even on the album's closing track, Holly's anthemic prodigal homecoming is tempered by a coda where she begs, "Don't turn me on again..." knowing that temptation and relapse are always around the corner. Her salvation is still a journey, not a destination. And despite any redemption achieved on a Sunday morning, there is another Saturday night lurking the next weekend.
Full Details of the BIBJ Millennial Playlist Hullabaloo are available here. Today's entry is #94: Positive Jam by The Hold Steady (2004)
The first song on a debut album must be a carefully chosen introduction. You want to grab the listener and say "This is our band. This is who we are, and this is what we have to say!" Based on this rationale, The Hold Steady seemed to have three points worth making when opening up Almost Killed Me.
If Craig Finn had been your American History teacher, you could have covered the 1920s through 1990s in under two minutes. No rotating numbers on blackboards needed.
Some f'd up stuff has gone down the last 80 years or so, and who wants to watch more mopey sad bastards on stage whining about it? This band is bringing the positivity! And they will show no signs of stopping in the future.
They're going to do that weird thing where they use the band name as a lyric. This is a call to action. Hold Steady.
woke up in the 20s. there were flappers and fruits in white suits. it was right before the crash. we got thrashed throughout the 30s. queuing up for soup in scabby sores. and they sent us off to war. we came back in the 40s. there were wheelchairs, guns and tickertape. we poured it on the floor and made love to the interstates. we got shiftless in the 50s. holding hands and going steady. twisting into dark parts of big midwestern cities. tripped right through the 60s with some blissful little hippie. some kennedys got shot while you were screwing san francisco. the 70s got heavy we woke up on bloody carpets. got tangled up in gaslines. i guess that's where it started. the 80s almost killed me let's not recall them quite so fondly. some kennedy o.d. while we watched on mtv. in the 90s we were wired and well connected. put it all down on technology and lost everything we invested.
It's a safe bet to assume this band will appear again in the countdown.
On a Thursday night when the Chicago windchill descends to 40 degrees BELOW ZERO, it's nice to think about baseball. And in this day and age when everyone is bleeding cash, it's a positive experience to attend a charity event and give yourself a nice ego boost to balance the depression on viewing your checking account balance. With that in mind, the sold out benefit at the House of Blues benefiting Cubs kids charities had all bases covered.
Opening the show was Cubs fan Tom Morello, which seemed fitting. When it comes to putting together a children's' charity event, I've always claimed that the main ingredient is vitriolic political rock, especially when the inspiring anger solely revolves around a President who has less than a week left in office. Within Morello's set, he ripped through an cover of AC/DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, but replaced the lyrics with new ones all about the Bush administration. My show-going colleague hit the nail on the head when she called it "The worst Weird Al song ever." Morello did better off ripping through an inspired version of Bruce Springsteen's "Ghost of Tom Joad," then closed his set shouting through an angry 10-minute diatribe over "This Land Is Your Land," while an increasingly bored crowd waited it out.
With that unevenness behind, the giant novelty check was wheeled out claiming a donation of over $41,000 for the night. The applause was quickly drowned out by the Cubs rep remarking to the crowd that in the previous two years of this benefit, the Cubs have won two straight division titles. Surprisingly, this did not go over well with Cubs fans - it's almost like they want more than a division title! Another thing that's great about events like this in Chicago is that any time somebody mentions the Cubs at all, the Sox fans (about 1/3 of the crowd) vehemently boo. It's all very entertaining for a charity event.
Spirits were due for a pick up. Enter The Hold Steady. Not only is their most recent album title a constant motto for Cubs fans, but the band took to the stage and represented with flying colors for the children. Having seen this band five times in the last couple years, their evolution as stage musicians has been intriguing to see. When I saw them at the Music Mill in 2007, I dubbed them the heir apparent to Guided By Voices based on their sheer enjoyment of playing live, combined with the copious amounts of booze they consumed throughout the set. At each show since then, they've been drinking less, and sounding better. Who knew those two factors might be related?
As Andy Kindler accurately noted on the Late Show, it always seems odd that one of the most engaging frontmen in rock looks like he should be doing your taxes. Nobody leaves unaffected by Craig Finn's manic shuffling, including my show-going colleague who was inspired to buy their first two albums from the merch table after the show. The mundane stories of boys and girls in America consistently are transformed into epic tales of spirituality and self discovery, with sweeping guitar hooks and an almost embarrassingly optimistic view that "We can all be something bigger." The pure earnestness of the redemptive powers of music strip away even the most jaded cynicism, and it's a mesmerizing experience.
If that wasn't enough to get everyone on the same page, Finn proved he can unify through other methods. After kicking off the set by ripping through eight straight songs without a spare moment, Finn naturally took time to talk up the Twins, eventually reaching a truce with Cubs and Sox fans alike by pointing out that "at least we all hate the Yankees."
My mission for Halloween 2007 was simple. Since I've moved to Chicago and learned to cope with the rigors of waking up in the morning consistently for the first time in six months, I've been playing things close to the vest. I've yet to go to work with a hangover, and more often than not I've been getting an appropriate amount of sleep each night. Clearly, this had to stop, and what night was better for ending this trend than this? With that in mind, I headed to the Metro for what turned out to be an ass-kicking show from Art Brut and The Hold Steady. Both bands brought it hard in the costume department, although Elvis jumpsuits are not always flattering. The Hold Steady also announced that the show was being recorded for a live album/DVD, which should be outstanding as the show was epic.
As I was walking to the Metro, I thought I would swing by and check out the big gay Halloween parade careening up Halsted. This year marked the 11th annual North Halsted Parade, and I applaud any event that combines a costume contest for children with the shenanigans of Boystown. Where else can you combine the cuteness of this......with the subtlety of this... In case you're wondering, the collective pictured above dubbed themselves "The Cockettes." They were pretty tame compared with some of the more adventurous parade-goers.
But try as they might, Santa's not so little helpers did not win me over for best costume of the evening. That honor belonged to another attendee. I don't think I've ever been jealous of a kindergarten-aged lad, let alone jealous of their wardrobe, but I was in complete and unadulterated envy of this tyke's get up: What kid this age has any basis to know who Conan O'Brien even is? I guarantee when I was his age I wasn't begging my mom to let me dress up as Tom Snyder for trick-or-treating. Kudos to you kid. You've set the bar high for Halloween 2008. Hope you weren't planning on dressing as a Cockette. That costume is taken.
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