Sound Bites

No One Twisting His Arm...

I bought the new issue of The Big Takeover over the weekend. (REM's on the cover... am I the only one that thinks Peter Buck kind of looks like Bea Arthur these days?) I'm always anxious to tear into it -- it's always good and one of the few music magazines these days that takes longer than an afternoon to read -- but I was specifically looking forward to this one to read the second half of editor Jack Rabid's interview with New Pornographers' AC Newman. The first half, in the last issue (which also featured AC on the cover), was one of the best interviews with a musician that I'd read in I don't know how long.

To be honest the second half is not quite as good as the first -- Carl takes a lot of BT reader questions -- but he did talk about his band Zumpano who were signed to Sub Pop in the early '90s, and were really one of the first pop bands, along with Velocity girl, to be signed to the Seattle label that was then known as the home of grunge. Jack asks if there is any chance, what with New Pornographers' success, that we might see their two albums reissued...

AC: No, I still don't really want to do it. A friend at Sub Pop was talking about how they wanted to repackage both records as a two-for-one. But they're just a part of my past. I feel like it was a learning process.

JR: You don't wan't people to hear them???

AC: I just want them to go away.

JR: Why?! They're excellent!

AC: They're all right. I still feel kind of embarrassed by them. I feel like New Pornographers is the music I've always wanted to make.

JR: I can't imagine someone buying Zumpano records and not buying New Pornographers. Not buying it?!

AC: Maybe... I don't have any problems with those records. But some things from your past, you just want them to exist in their own time. It would be nice if they become really sought-after. If all the copies disappear, and then people start paying $100 for them on eBay... like Game Theory CDs from the '80s. Those have become sought-after because they're all long gone.

JR: Maybe I should sell mine!

AC: Apparently Lolita Nation is the one that everybody wants..

JR: I've got that.

AC: Get rid of it before the market falls out!

I had no idea Game Theory CDs were such hot property, though in a weird bit of happenstance I've been listening to Lolita Nation a lot lately -- which I won't be selling to anyone. I bought Lolita Nation my freshman year of college after hearing a couple Game Theory songs on that Enigma Variations 2 compilation I mentioned in my Wire post last week. (You all remember that, right?) And the college radio station was playing it and they sounded similar to a lot of other, paisley-wearing bands I liked at the time -- Let's Active, The Three O'Clock, and R.E.M.

Like a lot of double albums, Lolita Nation is a sprawling mess. Songs crashed into one another, with some half-baked 20 second snippets thrown in, along with a really weird sound collage near the end of the record. But in between all that unbridled creativity, there were all these amazing songs and I thought it was the most awesome thing I ever heard. Obsession set in quick. This was maybe the first record I'd heard at that point that attempted to bring a Beatles aesthetic to the "college rock" sound.

And again, the songs. Lolita Nation has at least ten great ones. Mitch Easter produced and, apart from some thin-sounding keyboards, it doesn't really sound all that dated. Probably because they resisted the reverby/gated drum sound that was so prevalent at the time. It really holds up. Most of Game Theory's album's are worth hearing, but Lolita Nation is genuinely essential.

Frontman Scott Miller says there's not enough demand for reissues, but seeing how '80s indie classics from Let's Active, The Three O'Clock ,and Dumptruck (who were probably equal on the obscurity level) can get them, surely so can Game Theory. The real reason is probably because Miller doesn't own the rights to the masters.  Until someone rectifies this situation, here are a few of Lolita Nation's choicest cuts:

MP3: Game Theory_- Not Because You Can

MP3: Game Theory- We Love You Carol And Alison

MP3: Game Theory - The Real Sheila

MP3: Game Theory_- Slip

MP3: Game Theory_- Chardonnay

Scott Miller's post-GT band, The Loud Family, are worth checking out too, as is the Loud Family website. He's a true musicologist, and has lists of his Top 20 albums for every year from 1965 - 1999, which makes a great shopping list for those who want to fill out their music collections.

Meanwhile, for those of you who started reading this thinking it was going to feature some Zumpano songs...

MP3: Zumpano - The Party Rages On

MP3: Zumpano - Behind the Beehive

Sonic Paramedics Weep for New Wire EP

Expect the worst. No matter how much you loved a band, even if they never made a bad record, and all the original members are participating in the new recordings. This is how I approach everything reunions and albums by bands who've been together more than 20 years. Cause chances are, it's going to suck.

But some groups you have more hope for than others. Wire are one of them. Like the Fall, Wire have never had any interest in nostalgia, constantly moving forward for the last 30 years. When they reformed in 1986 they refused to play songs from their first three records, though they did hire a Wire cover band, the Ex-Lion Tamers, to open for them. (They did however play some oldies in 2000 when I saw them at Irving Plaza -- a radical idea for them.) Even when the results are less than successful (1990's Manscape) you can never say they aren't doing their own thing.

Wire ceased to function a second time in the early 90s after making one record as Wir (drummer Robert Gotobed had left the group), but Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Bruce Gilbert and Gotobed resurrected the group around the millenium, and have trickled out new material in the form of a series of Read & Burn EPs in-between reissues of their classic albums.

Read & Burn 3 is the first new recordings we've had in about five years, and these four tracks show they've lost none of their momentum. They're still playing songs at 12XU speed, impressive when you think Bruce Gilbert is in his '60s. I'm especially partial to the nearly 10-minute lead track "23 Years Too Late" as Newman and Lewis share vocal duties. Graham Lewis has always had this menacing quality to his vocals* and it's used to good affect here. Wire promise a brand new album in 2008 that will include no previously released tracks.

MP3: Wire - 23 Years Too Late (Buy Read & Burn 3)

*If I ever got to be music supervisor on a horror film, I would campaign for Wire's song "Feed Me" (from the Awesome The Ideal Copy) to be used in it. It's Graham Lewis at his creepy best.

MP3: Wire - Feed Me (Buy The Ideal Copy)

Pylon | Mercury Lounge | 11.07.2007

There was no doubt who was playing, as they had actual pylons on stage, lit up with bulbs underneath, bathing the proceedings in a warm crimson. It matched with the band's red attire, the men in t-shirts emblazoned with the word "Cool," the title of Pylon's 1979 debut single -- which also kicked of the band's set. Their first NYC show in probably 17 years, thanks to DFA reissuing their seminal 1980 debut, Gyrate, for the first time on CD.

There was also no doubt who was on stage from the second they broke into "Cool." Pylon may not have made an album since 1990's Chain, but it was apparent they've still got the chops. Drummer Curtis Crowe and bassist Michael Lachowski, in particular, don't seem to have missed in beat -- nothing sluggish or sloppy about their playing. And Randall Bewley's wiry guitar lines still sound fresh. In fact, Pylon felt more of the moment than nine-tenths of the bands who have been aping post punk sounds since it came back in fashion five years ago. They even broke out an old B/W portable trucker TV to add buzz and hum to "Driving School" -- a gimmick that still works.

If there was a weak link, it was singer Vanessa Briscoe who, after years away from the spotlight being a nurse and a mom, seemed a bit shy and self-conscious. At first. But about halfway through the set she loosened up (as did the crowd), started having fun and her charisma returned. By set's end, she was belting out "Beep" and "Danger" like no time had passed. Certainly the adoring crowd, most of whom were older than me by a good eight years I'm guessing (a nice change of pace for me, I must be honest), helped make things more comfortable. I kind of expected to see James Murphy amongst them, but if he was there I didn't spot him. Gang of Four drummer Hugo Burnham was there, however... as was, uh, my cheesemonger.

Setlist, courtesy nyctaper, who has the whole show on his site as lossloss downloads:

Cool | Dub | Driving School | Read a Book | Working is No Problem | Sugarpop | 3×3 | Gravity | Precaution | Weather | The Human Body | Crazy | K | Danger | Volume | Feast on My Heart | Stop It | Encore: M Train | Beep | Sloganistic

MP3: Pylon - Gravity (buy it)

The Mercury Lounge show was sold out, but I'm guessing there are plenty of tickets to tonight's show at Music Hall of Williamsburg. It's a more appealing bill, I think, with Oxford Collapse and Free Blood (ex-!!!), plus DJ slots from Hugo Burnham (billed as Gang of One, har) and Andrew Butler of DFA signees Hercules & Love Affair. All for $14! Cool indeed.

Yes, I Was Always Cool

My college radio station, WWVU-FM (AKA U-92), turns 25 this year and this weekend I'm back in Morgantown, WV for a big celebration/reunion.

I was Music Director there a long time ago, back when I wore a lot of turtlenecks.* When exactly? Well I think the posters may give it away a bit -- we can see Let's Active, The Smiths' Rank (Plus the Beatles, and, um the Eurythmics for some reason)... and I think I spy a Some Kind of Wonderful poster there on the door to the Control Room.

I'm going to be in that Control Room this morning from 10AM - Noon EST. And you can listen in to hear me screw up segues and misuse equipment in general. If you want. Just go to the U-92 website and click on the "Listen Live" link in the upper left corner. Or just click here if you have Windows Media. What will I play? Tune in and find out. And if you want to hear something, you can make a request in the comments section... though chances are I'm not going to play it. I only got two hours!

UPDATE: I almost didn't screw up at all. Here's what I played:

The Clash - Straight to Hell
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
The Darkness - Friday Night
Caribou - Eli
The Left Banke - She May Call You Up Tonight
Belle & Sebastian - Waking Up to Us
Spoon - Fitted Shirt
New Pornographers - From Blown Speakers
Built to Spill - Big Dipper
The Flaming Lips - Turn it On
Hot Chip - Over and Over
CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above
Super Furry Animals - Herman Loves Pauline
David Bowie - Queen Bitch
Echo & the Bunnymen - Rescue
The Smiths - What Difference Does it Make?
Jacques du Tronc - Le Responsible
The Strokes - You Only Live Once
The Fall - Cruiser's Creek
XTC - Life Begins at the Hop
The Shortwave Set - Casual Use
The Pastels - Coming Through
The Royal We - All the Rage
Pulp - Monday Morning
Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra - Some Velvet Morning
Luna - This Time Around
Pavement - Summer Babe
Electrelane - The Greater Times
The Jazz Butcher - Southern Mark Smith
The Go-Betweens - Surfing Magazines

 

*I have no idea why I'm holding all those plastic mugs.