a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

Being Comes Before Doing

First, to get it out of the way: As mentioned in the comments elsewhere, all Sedona made me do was miss Santa Fe even more. Nice rocks, depressing people, and a huckster on every block (and that's a VERY conservative figure). And despite the insistence of visiting relatives the weekend before, there was very little in the way of sculpture there that we couldn't find by walking a half-mile up the street. Enough said.

So back to work. And back to tuneage, this time from three longtimers of varying reputations. And let's just say if I gave you the names up front (and come to think of it, I did at the end of THIS), you'd probably pre-rate the three CDs in a different order than how they came out. I know I did. Anyway, cut to... and in ascending order....

Elvis Costello and the Imposters -- Momufuku. This'un's been getting props elsewhere, but let me put it in my own terms: Since the first brilliant half-dozen or so albums, following Elvis Costello has been a tricky proposition. There's no question the man can tackle any musical style he puts his mind to -- Elvis does country, Elvis does classical, Elvis does Bacharach, Elvis does N'awlins, Elvis does freaking opera, FCOL. That doesn't mean he does so with the hyper-wit, originality and especially raw passion of that first handful-plus albums. (To be fair, the chamberrific The Juliet Letters, shrill as it is in places, comes pretty close.)

And even on those occasions over the last 20-plus years when Elvis has "done Elvis," it's been uneven. Blood and Chocolate had the sound, but something was missing; Spike had actual moments of absolute brilliance, but an equal to greater amount of moments of true annoyance; All This Useless Beauty, by definition, was an uncohesive mess; Brutal Youth was probably the most successful, as the passions went other equally organic but nonetheless different places that worked.

So with Momufuku being billed as the latest Elvis-doing-Elvis album... well, it's at least worth a shot, right?

But for me, it largely misses. It starts off promising enough - "American Gangster Time" oughta get airplay, and "Turpentine" actually pushes the sonic envelope a way we haven't heard from Elvis before. And the closer "Go Away" comes the closest to capturing vintage Elvis -- "Why don't you come back, baby? / Why don't you go away?" hits just the right " I love you, I hate you, and I hate me even more" note that was all over his early work.

In between those two poles, however, it's kinda Son of Spike. Only without the brilliant anger of a "This Town," let alone a "Tramp the Dirt Down." "Harry Worth" and "Mr. Feathers" are kind of "God's Comic" redux and redux-er. Others, like the opener "No Hiding Place" and "Stella Hurt," sound right but miss in the same kind of Blood and Chocolate way. "My Three Sons" threatens to be an affecting ballad but again doesn't quite get there. And so on. But enough to go on.

Beck -- Modern Guilt. I don't hate this one nearly as much as I initially did, but I don't expect I'll be giving it much more airplay after I'm done writing this either. Actually, Andre at Tuesday Morning 3 a.m. gives an accurate but more charitable review, so if you'd rather look at it his way I won't mind.

Either way, it's easiest to look at it this way: Take 2006's disappointing The Information, throw out the reasonably high highs and the execrable lows, and the low-key (if you like, feel free to read that as: boring) but at least consistent 33 minutes (!!!??!!??!) that remain are what you have here. And as mentioned in that linked review, this one doesn't tell us anything new either. To borrow from Elvis, this is Beck's Punch the Clock, in every sense of the term. Or to quote from the aforementioned TM3am review, the words "contractual obligation" come prominently to mind. If you're looking for a return to form from the guy who's given us two of the best 10 albums of the past decade (Odelay and Sea Change), you won't find it. Heck, if you were hoping for at least another Guero or Mutations, y'r gonna be disappointed. But if your sights were set on simply something better than The Information, well, I suppose you've got it, then.

And just like wit' dat' bad Momufuku above, it starts out promising enough. "Orphans" won't knock you on yr butt, but it's a pleasantly quirky mid-tempo thing that the 21st-century Bowie has done well in the past and does well here. "Gamma Ray," likewise, ups the tempo into that rat-a-tat quasi-surf guitar thang he's done elsewhere.

"Chemtrails" disappears into the la-la land that marked a lot of The Information, but at least doesn't entirely embarrass itself. The title tune is minimalistic, pleasant, and that's about it. "Youthless" takes us back into danceability, and yeah, that's about it, too.

"Walls" is probably the most interesting thing here. Some fiddle here, some ash-can drums there, a melody not totally unlike a more swaying "Losing My Religion," and some fairly intriguing if not quite scrutable lyrics: "You got warheads stacked in the kitchen / You treat distraction like an instant religion / The battlesticks snap at the rhythm / You give your best with the souls you've been given / 'Cause you know you're nothing special to them.... Hey, what are you gonna do / When those walls are falling down / Falling down on you?"

Mind you, any momentum from that is instantly killed by the meandering, blippy "Replica," but the sampled blues stomp "Soul of a Man" tries to regain some of it. And if it did, "Profanity Prayers" builds on it -- an actual driving melody that gives way to a sliding acoustic bridge before driving on. "Volcano" either closes the album on a moody note or plods to a finish, I still can't decide which. Maybe when I pull it back out several months from now I'll care enough to figure it out.

Alejandro Escovedo -- Real Animal. Put simply, while Elvis on a good day mops up the floor with Alejandro, 1) Elvis hasn't had a day this good in a quarter-century, and more to the point, 2) this album is everything Momufuku purports to be and isn't.

And Alejandro Escovedo is still a heck of a songwriter. Again, track down Por Vida (that rarity, a tribute album that works -- for 2 CDs, no less) for further proof. Granted, he wasn't always this good -- put bluntly, his first band, the San Francisco punk band The Nuns... well, sucked. They achieved notariety by opening for the Sex Pistols at their final (non-reunion) gig, but trust me, they weren't good. At all. Alejandro will come to admit this on the album at hand here, but as always, that gets ahead of our story.

What did happen, though, was he became a songwriter along the way who -- and like his hero and admirer Ian Hunter -- realized that developing a gentle side didn't have to mean becoming less passionate. No Depression called him "artist of the decade" -- a bit overstated, perhaps, but that fact that he deserved consideration, and the source therein, tells you that the guy's come a long way. Heck, the guy's last album was a Mexicali punk-pop chamber piece done with John Cale. Yeah, huh.

But for this one, Alejandro reaches back to his punk days. and every formative moment thereafter that he can get his hands on. He's living -- and quite often and quite vividly reliving -- in these songs. But rather than simply revisiting what's already passed -- and yeah, I'm looking at you again, Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus -- he transforms it. (All of which really makes me think you oughta track this down, tim, given your recent entries.)

And thus we finally get to the meaning of our title: Being comes before doing. And make no mistake, Alejandro is doing some big-time being here, only with 30 years of wisdom informing it.

So thus, you get at turns songs you could well imagine hearing in a punk club 30 years ago, but which sound fresher and a heck of a lot better constructed (the Iggy Pop tribute "Real as an Animal," "Chip n' Tony")... uplifting yet smart songs like "Always a Friend" and the heart-rending "Sister Lost Soul" (the chorus of which, "Sister lost soul / Brother lost soul / I need you..." won't get out of my head)... the obvious but stomping "Smoke," in which guitars and strings meet at dawn to shoot it out.... more standard passionate-ballad Alejandro fare such as the lovely "Swallows of San Francisco," "Hollywood Hills," and the closer "Slow Down"... even the swampy, slow-fiddled version of "Ashes to Ashes" that is "Golden Bear" (trust me here....)

A few songs deserve especial note. "Sensitive Boys," as one example, is a declaration of purpose that doesn't sound totally unlike Lou Reed's epic ballad "Coney Island Baby": "Nothing's ever what it seems / Too much ain't enough / We wore it like an open wound / We always felt too much... / Sensitive boys / The world needs you now (need you more than ever now)..."

The decidedly punkish "Chelsea Hotel '78" recalls not only Alejandro's own stint living in the infamous NYC hotel, but that of another certain resident who, as already mentioned, he'd previously crossed paths with:

Nancy called up to our room
Said, "Come and help with Sid"
We went down and looked around
The dealer let us in
We thought he was hysterical
The knife, it was a joke
Don't know if he did what they said he did
Nobody really knows....

And it makes no sense
And it makes perfect sense
And it makes no sense
And it makes perfect sense

Hearing said vocals actually shouted by our normally sensitively passionate crooner kinda brings it all together. It really does both make no sense and perfect sense. Which, after all, is kinda the punk ethos -- if not the rock and roll ethos -- in a nutshell.

The centerpiece, though, is the spitting, urgent celebration "Nuns Song," which takes the aforementioned ethos to places the guy couldn't've possibly imagined -- or frankly, had the chops for -- 30 years earlier. Some great heavy bass accompanies the delivery here:

We don't want your approval
It's 1978
We know we're not in tune
We know we'll never be great
We made it this far
A little piece of fame
Up on the bandstand
Nobody knows no shame...

Jennifer Moscone
Don't need nobody's pain
She had enough desire
To shatter window panes
She said, " I don't fall for small talk"
Down on Leavenworth and Polk
She said, "I don't need your heroes
To make my life a joke"

We've got too much to live for
It's not too late
We've got so much to live for
It's not too late....

As always, take it or leave it. And as always, yr loss if you leave it.

Posted by: burninglight at 23:57 | link | comments (9)

Comments:

#1  21 July 2008 - 16:13

 

Can't you review something like The Beatles white album sometime? :-b

So, what's a good Elvis Costello starting point? Isn't "Imperial bedroom" supposed to be a good one?

Jim

LDVoyager

#2  21 July 2008 - 16:43

 

I'm pretty the White Album was covered by others quite some time ago. You oughta know whether that one's worth picking up by now. :P

And yeah, I'd say Imperial Bedroom is his best. Elvis grows up in public. This Year's Model and Armed Forces are great examples of the Angry Young Elvis (and which still sound great). Get Happy! is heartbroken and angry Motown Elvis, and my 2nd favorite. King of America is also really good -- Americana Elvis, complete with T-Bone Burnett production, years before T-Bone became a household name but already could produce the heck out an album. And so on. :)

burninglight

#3  21 July 2008 - 17:23

 

Cool, I'll probably pick up IB sometime. I still remember Rolling Stone proclaiming "Elvis Cosetello's Imperial Bedroom is more like an Imperial Mansion!"

And that is the sole reason that I have heard of the album and remember the name of the album.

But T-Bone Burnett! Guess what album he just produced. The new Mellencamp that just came out. Supposedly its a wonderful CD. Other than the usual threat of an assanine lyric here or there, it sure seems hard to go wrong with a combination like that.

Jim

LDVoyager

#4  21 July 2008 - 19:24

 

I noticed that. I want to believe the little twerp is really back, but I'll need to hear it first. :)

burninglight

#5  21 July 2008 - 19:45

 

Yeah, sometimes there's a little too much much "Cougar" still in the Mellencamp. Kinda ticks me off; he uses the gimmick a little too shamelessly. In an interview he even admitted that he sometimes tells his band "OK, we're going to need to be in John Cougar mode" if it fits the particualr audience better than the clean-cut image.

He comes out with a great song like "This is Our Country", and then in his interviews uses all kinds of obscenities. It like "Dude, if you're so big on us respecting your name, then why don't you make it worthy of respect with your art."

Jim

LDVoyager

#6  21 July 2008 - 19:46

 

I gotta admit though, that "Our Country" tune is awesome. That one will be around forever.

Jim

LDVoyager

#7  23 July 2008 - 00:55

 

OK, I'm tracking through the Mellonhead album as we speak. He's done worse, to be sure, but so far nothing here that I'd put on the level of his '80s output.

burninglight

#8  23 July 2008 - 02:57

 

Hmmm, Isn't it supposed to be a blues-based project?

Any obvious "hit single" type of songs on it?

Jim

LDVoyager

#9  23 July 2008 - 03:10

 

Maybe this reviewers take sums it up:

"Classic songs like 'Pink Houses' and 'Jack and Diane' once married Mellencamp’s cynical lyrics with big, radio-ready hooks, but Life Death Love and Freedom takes a harsher approach to middle-aged Midwestern life. Blunt and stubbornly engaging, it may be Mellencamp’s most candid effort in years."

So, it seems like its a candid, but someaht boring, project? Which would not surpirse me. So, is that what you are gathering from it?

Jim

LDVoyager

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