Thursday, January 29, 2009

Blues for the Jews

The Silver Jews have lost their luster—at least that’s what singer/songwriter/ guitarist David Berman, the man behind the moniker, believes. So Berman is mothballing his critically acclaimed band—perhaps for good. According to a message board post credited to him on the worldwide bathroom wall last week, Berman suggested it was time to find a new line of work, that the band he started with Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich in 1992 had played its final note.

Coincidentally, around the time of his announcement, I was entertaining the idea of writing a post on the Silver Jews, just a quick little ditty to spotlight my favorite Berman lyrics. So that's what I’m going to do.

Normally, I try not to chase stories covered by all the other blahgs, so I won’t dwell on the whys, how comes and say it ain’t sos of this breakup story. What I will say is that Silver Jews have erected a magnificent and sturdy palace of sound in an ever-increasing ramshackle indie rock ghetto. Through six albums (including last year’s excellent Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea), three EPs and a handful of singles, Berman has explored humanity and all its banalities and absurdities from a most unique, idiosyncratic perspective. His songs, whether steeped in the absurd, the abstract, the droll, the metaphorical or the existential, have been routinely strange. But in their weirdness exists a thicket of simple truths. What’s more, Berman’s songs are impeccably crafted (he is an actual poet after all); they're unburdened by frills and cliches, favoring economy to deliver his peculiar profundities. Likewise, Berman’s dry, adenoidal, twangy delivery coupled with the organic, unadorned execution of a sympathetic band (think Velvet Underground meets Hank Williams) has made the perfect vehicle for his musings. With that, I give you my favorite Silver Jews lyrics:

“Repair is the dream of the broken thing.
Like a message broadcast on an overpass,
All my favorite singers couldn’t sing.”
‑“We Are Real” from 1998’s American Water (Drag City)

“Punk rock died when the first kid said
‘Punk’s not dead, punk’s not dead.’ ”
‑“Tennessee” from 2001’s Bright Flight (Drag City)

“There is a house in New Orleans.
Not the one you’ve heard about,
I’m talking about another house.”
‑“New Orleans” from 1994’s Starlite Walker (Drag City)

“In 27 years, I’ve drunk fifty-thousand beers.
And they just wash against me like the sea into a pier.”
‑“Trains Across the Sea” from Starlite Walker

“Hey boys supper’s on me.
Our record just went aluminum.”
‑“Dallas” from 1996’s The Natural Bridge (Drag City)

“So you wanna build an altar on a summer night,
You wanna smoke the gel off a fentanyl patch.
Aincha heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews.
And I always loved you to the max.”
‑“Punks in the Beerlight” from 2005’s Tanglewood Numbers (Drag City)

“Time is a game that only children play well.
How can I love you if you won’t lie down?”
‑“How Can I Love You If You Won’t Lie Down” from Tanglewood Numbers

“I asked a painter why the roads are all colored back.
He said, “Steve It’s because people leave and no highway will bring them back.
So if you don’t want me I promise not to linger.
But before I go I have to ask you about that tan line on your ring finger.”
‑“Random Rules” from American Water

“My ski vest has buttons like convenience store mirrors in the L-B-C.”
‑“We Are Real” from American Water

Postscript: The Silver Jews made their final appearance on Saturday, January 31, in McMinnville, Tennessee. The venue was the Volcano Room, located in the Cumberland Caverns, some 333 feet underground. Said Berman of the location: “I always wanted to go out on top. I guess this works, too.”

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Oh, Joy...?

Tuesday was inauguration day. The country reveled, getting all drunk on hope and change. And in spite of the icebergs that continue to pierce the hull of our great ship, they partied and danced into the wee small hours of the night. My stomach danced, too, but to a different tune, what I call the “That’s Not Rain! The Sky Really Is Quite Falling in Three-Fourths Time.” Ever heard of it? It just might be the next craze, a waltz that moves at the pace of a funeral dirge and is characterized by unsettling rhythms, abrasive squalls of electric feedback and distortion, harsh stabs of strings, violent horn squawks and a tribal beat that thunders like a mythical death rattle. And you don’t need a partner to dance to this number, just a belly full of worry.

I hate to poop on the party, but my outlook is not too sunny. I do not see a beacon of hope and prosperity on the horizon—just dense fog and gloom fraught with strife and struggle and the feeling that better days are nowhere near. Sure, I’m being pessimistic. But it’s difficult to be optimistic when all around you the reality of change is more like losing your job, shuddering your business, going into foreclosure, sinking deeper into oblivion. And so my dance card is full as I swing to this miserable waltz.

Meanwhile, over at Pitchfork.tv this week, they’re screening Grant Gee’s rock-doc Joy Division, the 2008 documentary about, yes, Joy Division. The timing couldn’t be better. Nothing like a bleak story set in an eerie landscape of crumbling concrete and urban decay that typified Manchester in the late 1970s. And I thought times were tough here. They aren’t nearly as bad—at least in Seattle we have trees and shrubbery greening the grounds of our vacant buildings and closed warehouses and factories (although Manchester had better music than Seattle has now—sorry, Fleet Foxes). Anyway, the documentary is pretty good, but we all know how the story of Joy Division ends—with the beginning of New Order, of course. Oh, and Ian Curtis finally doing himself in (third time was the charm for him, sadly). And while Joy Division isn’t the life ring I should be reaching for, I’m certainly not gonna deny its company for a self-help book. I just want to wallow in the band’s anxious post-punk despair for a little while, and relish the grim brilliance of Curtis’s detached, cold moan over his mates’ jittery surges as they ride 1979’s Unknown Pleasures and 1980’s Closer into oblivion.

Soon, inevitably, the sun will finally make an appearance from behind the ominous curtain of clouds and fog and brighten my corners. At which point I’ll return my Joy Division records back to their rightful place on the shelf—right next to my beloved Wall of Voodoo records (talk about bleak—have you ever basked in the desolation blues of “Lost Weekend” from Call of the West?). That is until I lose my job or something.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Another Love Story

Love Forever Changes Collector’s Edition
(Rhino 2 CDs, 2008)

Did we truly need another reissue of Love’s Forever Changes? Rhino Records—liberator of castoff sounds consigned to the music dustbins of time—thought so, obviously recognizing that Love fanatics (such as me) will lap up anything related to the best rock album of all time (if you disagree with such a hyperbolic assessment, you haven’t heard album—enough). Hence Forever Changes, the 2-CD “Collector’s Edition.” Or Forever Changes Redux Ad Nauseum. Honestly, this latest retelling of the classic 1967 Love story adds very little, despite the wealth of material presented across the two CDs (43 tracks in all). Love’s 11-song masterpiece was perfect to begin with. The new edition doesn’t change that. And it’s no more essential than the 2001 reissue of the album (it features same remastered album, the same added outtake and demo, the same inclusion of a 1968 single and B-side, the same session highlights—all quite good). But this iteration has a whole second CD to fill, netting the listener a few more session highlights and remixes (all unremarkable) and, in the absence of newly uncovered “lost” songs, an alternate, rawer mix of the entire album (as if the original mix was flawed or inferior ?). But, lest I forget, this is a collector’s album—it’s for fanatics (and suckers for extras and et ceteras, which is why I forked over the dough for its $25 price tag).

I love Forever Changes. It’s one of the few records that I keep going back to. And, yes, it really is as good as everyone says (everyone being us dorky record collectors and music “critics”). It’s also aged a lot better than most of what emerged from the psychedelic era (of which I’m a big fan): Instead of getting eight miles high like the rest of their dope-smoking, acid-dropping cohorts, Love, chiefly mastermind vocalist/guitarist Arthur Lee and guitarist/vocalist Bryan MacLean (who wrote and sang two of the album’s classic songs, “Alone Again Or” and “Old Man”), peered through the hazy, phony optimism of peace and love, and saw a world—their world—in turmoil. They wrote of longing, melancholy, death and decay (serious bad vibrations, man!), casting long shadows with their evocative, mournful tenors over a sweeping soundscape of beautifully conceived and masterfully realized psychedelic folk. It was (and still is) a gorgeous, heart-breaking work, a major creative feat more coherent than Sgt. Pepper’s, more poignant than Pet Sounds. It was also a commercial flop, ultimately spelling doom for the band.

A year ago when my own life was in upheaval, I turned to my old vinyl copy of Forever Changes. I placed it on the turntable, dropped the needle and turned up the volume, before settling back on the couch in my empty room. As the opening notes of “Alone Again Or” emerged from the crackles and pops of my well-worn LP, I set my mind adrift and let the ghosts of Love sweep me into their current. For 42 minutes I surfed atop the undulating swells and found some much-needed solace. I doubt the Collector’s Edition will have the same effect.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Spirit of 78

Victrola Favorites: Artifacts of Bygone Days (Dust to Digital, 2008)

Giving the gift of music is a righteous thing to do, but it’s not nearly as awesome as receiving the gift of music—especially when the music you’re given is unexpected and superb. And by this I don’t mean the time my Mom gave me a tape of Air Supply’s Lost in Love for Valentine’s Day (I remember desperately (and futilely) fast-forwarding through this pungent pop turd looking for anything that rocked). No, a true example of a great gift of music is something like Victrola Favorites: Artifacts from Bygone Days, which a close friend so generously gave me for Christmas.

Victrola Favorites is a two-CD collection sandwiched in a gorgeously designed clothbound hardback book, and was released some months back on the excellent Dust to Digital label. If you haven’t feasted your eyes and ears on this fantastic anthology, do so—it’s well worth your time and money (even if I didn't actually pay for mine). Victrola Favorites dusts off the faraway sounds (both in proximity and in age) that were etched into old shellac 78 RPM disks, some 40 years of international music reaching back to the infancy of recorded sound and culminating with final scratchy years of the 78.

This superb collection was culled from the vast record collections of Robert Millis and Jeffery Taylor, the passionate souls behind an elusive and noisy combo called the Climax Golden Twins and the most excellent Seattle record store Wall of Sound. Both Millis and Taylor have searched the world—physically, mind you, not virtually via the Internets—in their quest to uncover (and conserve) exotic and obscure sounds—be it a field recording of African tribal music, hot jazz from the '20s, a traditional Persian folk song or seminal twang from the Appalachians. Think of Millis and Taylor as modern-day Harry Smiths or younger contemporaries of Joe Bussard (the Maryland man who’s made it his life’s work to mine rare 78 gold throughout the Eastern and Southern U.S.), but with a decidedly international bent.

Victrola Favorites offers one of the most interesting and intriguing musical journeys ever committed to plastic. Over the course of two hours of music, Millis and Taylor take us through many lands and possibly hundreds of years of musical tradition. Indeed, there is much to discover: a 1930s raga from India, a sacred chant from Buddhist nuns circa 1915 (the collection’s oldest-known recording), strange yodeling from Persia, hillbilly music (witness Goebble Reeves’s amazing gargle-yodel on the “The Cowboy’s Dizzy Sweetheart”), a West Indian stomp (jazz meets calypso) courtesy of Harold Boyce and the Harlem Indians, Qawwali music from India, Blind Boy Fuller’s swingin’ blues side “Step It Up and Go” and Roy Smeck’s slide guitar wizardry on the 1928 recording of “Laughing Rag.” There are 48 cuts total—all of them excellent. Equally fascinating are the dozens of images of the records’ original artwork, vintage 78 sleeves and labels, photos, advertisements and more that color the book’s 144 pages (there’s also a finely written essay by Millis and a complete track listing).

Sure, the music of Victrola Favorites sounds antiquated and distant—the scratchy static and distortion generated by the stylus dragging across these brittle disks, as well as the rudimentary methods in which they were recorded, contribute to this. But don’t let that hinder you from entering this unusual world of sound; for once you do, you’ll find yourself returning again and again.

Do yourself a favor: treat yourself to this gift of music. You can find Victrola Favorites: Artifacts of Bygone Days at Wall of Sound here or at the Dust to Digital store.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Single Minded

Everyone's joining clubs these days, on account of it being the new year and all. I, too, joined a club, but not one of those. No, I now belong to the uber-exclusive Sub Pop Singles Club (well, I actually signed up last year). And I'm quite happy about it. For a one-time payment of $90, I can look forward to a vinyl 7-inch record arriving in my mail box every month for a year.

I missed the first go-around of Sub Pop's legendary vinyl clique. And the last one, too. During the original run, I was in college and broke. Not to mention, I didn’t know about Nirvana until 1990, so there was no way I would have been hip to the band’s eventual $1,000 collectable Singles Club offering, “Love Buzz.” I won’t pretend I was there from the beginning. Yes, I was living in the Northwest before almighty grunge eruption, but I was residing in Spokane, well east of grunge ground zero, and was pretty clueless, too, even though Seattle bands would occasionally stop through town (usually for a piss break, sometimes for a show) along 1-90, on their way home or eastward toward Minneapolis. As far as indie labels go, I was just discovering SST records, thanks to Bad Brains. I got into Bad Brains because somebody put I Against I in the reggae section at record store I frequented. Expecting a roots reggae experience I was instead stung by the sonic assault of hardcore Jah. And so began my entry into punk and hardcore and soon Sub Pop, grunge and indie rock.

After finally tuning into Sub Pop’s frequency, I still failed to register for its single of the month club (missing out on another Nirvana single, the Nirvana/Fluid split from 1991—and the only good record the Fluid ever had their name on). I was just too poor to subscribe. I did however manage to get my hands on some of the precious color sides when whatever surplus copies trickled into indie stores I started haunting. And when I was music director of a college radio station, Sub Pop occasionally sent me promo copies of Singles Club releases (I still prize that clear wax Dead Moon 7-inch). (By the way, my college station spun every Sub Pop release, no matter how bad, much to the chagrin of the radio guy at C/Z Records—Sub Pop’s Seattle junior competition at the time.)

In 1993, as the mainstream mutation of grunge continued to fascinate the “Alternative Nation,” Sub Pop pulled the plug on its Singles Club, citing waning interest. At its height, the club boasted almost 8,000 subscribers. By the end of the first run, fewer than 2,000 belonged. Malaise soon spread to the rest of the label. Sub Pop quit signing local bands. Its roster started to suck and the label no longer held sway as a proprietor of hip and cutting-edge music. Not to mention it courted with financial ruin more often than decent new bands. Sub Pop still had plenty of attitude, of course, just not the music to back it up (i.e., Jale, Hardship Post, Five Style, Mike Ireland, Hazel, Grifters, Chixdiggit, Green Magnet School, Heroic Doses, Six Finger Satellite, Combustible Edison, Blue Rags, Heather Duby, 10 Minute Warning, Trembling Blue Stars, Yo-Yo's, Plexi, Supersuckers—according to lore, every record the ’Suckers sold of 1995’s Sacrilicious Sounds... cost the label $50). Nevertheless, I still kept tabs on the label, both as a frustrated fan and as a music journalist. (Sadly, my friends the Makers failed to revive the label, and the Murder City Devils’ massive hype didn’t equate with strong sales.)

But even though the label had been “going bankrupt since 1988,” you could always expect Sub Pop to throw more money at a problem. So right around the turn of the century, just before bands like the Shins, Hot Hot Heat, the Postal Service and Beardo the Folk Singer (you’ve probably heard his songs in a commercial) rescued the label from certain doom, Sub Pop revived the Singles Club. True to form, I failed to enlist again. Not sure why—I could have made a fortune on eBay with that White Stripes single, or even the Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie and Bonnie Prince Billy sides. Oh, I remember why I didn’t fork over the cash: I was barely eking out a living as a writer (surprises me, too). Which is how I managed to get my hands on a couple of these exclusive records—Modest Mouse, Ugly Casanova and Zeke (thank you, Chris Jacobs and Steve Manning!). Oh, and I scored the Kent 3 single, too (which is still very easy to get and very worth getting). But interest in Singles Club redux didn’t amount to more than 2,000 subscribers and went defunct after a couple years.

Like a true record-collecting dork, I’m in the vinyl trade. I collect and sell records. I’m one of those jerks who earns a decent return on limited-edition, mint copies of color pressings of whatever band you’re into presently, but didn’t hear early enough to have scored a copies of that band’s early output. So you bid and I make a handsome profit. Think Melvins, Ween, Mr. Bungle, Pavement, Guided By Voices, Modest Mouse, Sunny Day Real Estate, Murder City Devils, Desert Sessions, etc. (Though, truth be told, I haven’t actually hawked anything on eBay in almost a year.) As you might imagine, I was ecstatic when Sub Pop announced last summer that as part of its 20th anniversary commemoration, it would bring the Singles Club back for another encore—but only for one year. Twelve months, one single per month, starting in August, 2008. And they would only make 1,500 subscriptions available. Seeing instant profit potential, I didn’t hesitate to join this time (expectedly, all subscriptions were quickly claimed). Funny thing, though: in all my time peddling records on the Internets, I’ve only bid on and purchased Sub Pop singles, I’ve never auctioned any.

The first installment of Sub Pop Singles Club 3.0 arrived in August. It was “Gebel Barkal” b/w “Version” by Om, a band originally composed of Sleep’s rhythm section—bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Haikus—and whose recent album Pilgrimage (Southern Lord) was a favorite on the home hi-fi. This particular single—stamped on flesh-colored vinyl with a sleeve design that harkens back to the Sub Pop singles of yore—marked the first recordings with Grails’ Emil Amos who replaced Haikus on the drums. Within a week of its arrival the single was fetching as much as $50 on eBay—not a bad return when you think about the cost of each single (roughly $6.50 per). But I wasn’t about to part with it—even if it’s not quite as significant as anything off Pilgrimage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, but it’s not quite satisfying: Just as the tidal force of Om’s swelling rhythm is about to thrash itself on the rock, the band abandons ship. And the flipside is merely a dub rendering of the A-side, complete with the requisite, if cliché, drum reverb and melodica. But it’s single, after all, and one unavailable to the masses at that.

I’m also keeping the other SP singles that have since arrived on my doorstep, records by Unnatural Helpers (featuring members of the Catheters, Double Fudge and Kinski), L.A. girl punks Mika Miko (who get loose and lo-fi on two sides of opaque yellow vinyl), Black Mountain (thankfully minus Amber Webber’s vexing fake yodel) and most recently Brooklyn’s Blues Control (abstract in the abstract).

So far the only of the five Sub Pop singles eBay vinyl fiends aren’t clamoring for is Unnatural Helpers’ four-song pounder, “Dirty, Dumb and Comical.” I guess no one cares about the band’s pedigree or that the propulsive title track which kicks this thing into motion packs a mighty wallop—easily one of my favorite riffs in recent memory. My advice, bid on this one; you’ll get a hell of a bargain.

As for what’s on tap for January, who knows? I’ve yet to see anything new listed in the Discography section of subpop.com. Nevertheless, I’m happy to finally be part of the club.