Record Reviews
Daniel Johnston
originally published June 7, 2006
It’s impossible to talk about Daniel Johnston’s brilliance as a songwriter without referring to his mental illness. The imbalance that keeps these parts of his persona teetering in motion gives tension to the strikingly innocent voice, which emanates from his troubled mind. With Welcome To My World, Johnston offers an autobiographical collection of songs that span his lifelong battle with a broken mind.
His songs are painfully honest, and just as his lonesome croon in “Walking the Cow” will melt hearts, “Never Relaxed” is a catchy reminder that all is not well in Daniel’s world.
Crude and uneven production qualities serve as a buffer into his frame of mind. And whether strumming a guitar in “Sorry Entertainer” or plunking away on a piano in “Story of an Artist,” the cathartic joy Johnston gets from music manifests itself in manic tempos. In “Chord Organ Blues” and “Speeding Motorcycle,” Johnston’s frantic playing creates a percussive sound when the keys click against the piano. His burdens weigh heaviest when singing about love, or worse, eternal damnation. Religion plays a sinister role in dragging him down, and his devil-damaged dysfunctions come to light with deranged enthusiasm. Johnston makes plain that he knows the difference between good and evil, but his sense of reality is wrapped around a myriad of delusions. In this waltz between his truly sweet character and unhinged thought processes, his songs exude a sense of true and brittle genius.
Chad RadfordRecord Reviews
Beirut
originally published June 7, 2006
Despite the on-line references to “lush Middle Eastern orchestration,” Beirut’s name is a misnomer. But the thing is, there was already a band called Berlin, and they were a little too famous and different in sound to steal from, and apparently Sarajevo didn’t spring to mind, but that’s really where you should orient yourself geographically to listen to Beirut. For kids (Zach Condon is a mere 19 years old), they sure do work the Eastern European melancholy horn vein as though they’re embittered residents of a formerly communist country.
One can easily make the connection to the current generation of young Russian writers, like Gary Shteyngart, who manage to mix somber post-Soviet musings with a whiskey chaser of comedy. That is, they all seem quite aware of what, exactly, they’re romanticizing, but neither does this make them stop. The fact is, there is a certain aesthetic appeal to a poor and militarily oppressed society awash in gray light (think Tito more than Stalin), and Gulag Orkestar grabs it hard. Beirut’s pretty guitars and slightly wailing vocals are the only place the Neutral Milk Hotel connections are perceptible (Jeremy Barnes is in the group), but even there, it’s a stretch.
Mostly, what you will come away with is an echo of the waltzy horns, which walk all over the record with determination and make one want to stay up late in a café, drinking unpronounceable and unfiltered alcohol and perhaps hugging large men with mustaches. If you, too, cannot resist a 3/4-time tune that combines accordion, trumpet, glockenspiel, almost-military drums and double-tracked gypsy vocals in both ears, you are my friend and this is your album.
Hillary BrownRecord Reviews
Another Fiasco
originally published June 7, 2006
Aw geez. Okay, the positive aspects of If Never Was Enough are that Another Fiasco plays together pretty tightly and that the production, courtesy of engineer David Barbe, is clean and crisp. Other than that, there’s absolutely no reason at all to listen to this. This album is 12 tracks of nearly every classic rock style one can think of, and the local band Another Fiasco has proven itself utterly unable to make any of it sound fresh and original.
Beginning with the bar-rock jam of “Moonraker,” the band then shifts into the sub-Doobie Brothers piano-groove of “80 Pounds” before making the move into the Blues Traveler snore of “Air To Breath.” With the needless excursions into moronic electronic stuff like “David Byrne” and the Doors-meets-Herbie Hancock insult of “Getting It On In The Ghetto,” The members of Another Fiasco seem intent on making sure they have written at least one song for every artist in their record collection. Overall, though, the styles present are either straight-up, guitar-based bar-rock, mid-tempo reggae/ folk jams or lowbrow funk rip-offs. It’s all such a ridiculous combination of predictable, Anytown, USA, rock that it almost feels as if I’m beating up on a band that has no defenses. But, you know what? Fuck that. This is intelligence-insulting music.
It’s odd that a record that adds nothing to the conversation also seems so self-conscious. The tracks herein sound painstakingly recorded and multi-layered. Lyrically, well, the band needs a tutor. To call the songs cliché-ridden doesn’t come close; it’s more like the band took the lyrics from a book of clichés and strung them together.
In the end, If Never Was Enough is the sound of the 1970s, America’s irritating pimple of a decade, coming into full and predictable blossom on the ass of a Ladies' Night drink special throwdown at Hooters.
Gordon Lamb Another Fiasco is playing at the Georgia Theatre on Friday, June 9.Record Reviews
Camera Obscura
originally published June 7, 2006
It’s not just the wallpaper that makes me think Let’s Get Out of This Country resembles my neighbor’s astonishing camellia bush: house-high, covered in red flowers, frighteningly lush. Camera Obscura has found the ground where Ronnie Spector sings country songs, the mix of wall-of-sound grab bag and Nashville pop. It’s a break-up album without any real melancholy, sung, perhaps, by a robot girl with no grasp on human emotions. But that’s not a very nice thing to say about Traceyanne Campbell, who manages to knock Jenny Lewis back some paces (if not feet over head) in this particular sweepstakes: cute girl does '60s-country-influenced pop with clever words and heart-wrenchingly pretty melodies.
The thing that astonishes most is what Let’s Get Out of This Country, Camera Obscura's third, does with strings. They swoop around, they pluck sharply and playfully, they sing of pain, they get so loud you can hardly bear it, and they hold their own against the percussion, which is saying something when, much like on Spector’s stuff, it could consist of anything that makes a crash or a bang. The slow songs are lovely (“Country Mile,” “Dory Previn”), but the ones that come at you like a Mack truck are, appropriately, the ones that flatten all resistance. The title track (which bears a subtle resemblance to “We Didn’t Start the Fire”), the thumpy “If Looks Could Kill” and the first single “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken” can’t sustain their energy the whole way through, but at least they have it to begin with, and what a flowery punch in the jaw it is.
Hillary BrownRecord Reviews
The Red River
originally published June 7, 2006
Hooray for the Internet and MP3 blogs for bringing us people like Bill Roberts. Mr. Roberts is the force behind this odd little self-released CD, which comes with a cute hand-drawn cover (crayon on lined paper) and about 46 minutes of strange songs that sway gently between beautiful and experimental/ ambient. Most songs filter the vocals through something that makes them fuzzy - not teddy-bear fuzzy, but garage-band fuzzy - and the levels make it sound like Roberts is both recording in his bedroom and moving around one centrally located mic as he does so.
Sometimes he’s in the corner of the room, and sometimes he’s right up close. Sometimes there’s a plane passing overhead or someone laughing softly. Sometimes there are long, uncomfortable silences that could be snipped. And maybe it’s the title working its magic, but the songs add up to a dry, windswept place upon which the water is encroaching. That is, there is a soft resignation drawing on gospel music of the idiosyncratic and individual tradition that runs under things. If it weren't for the irrevocably indie-tinged tone of the recordings and Roberts’ voice and for the electronic bleeps that poke their heads in the door on some songs, it would be easy to think Some Songs About A Flood had been dug up on 78 from the basement of a dust-covered historic shack (especially “The Mighty Tide”).
The album has weaknesses (the aforementioned silences, presumably meant to create atmosphere, and a tendency to hold back rather than head toward an emotional moment at full speed), but it’s at the very least a minor precious stone, especially when considered alongside many an independently produced work. Email the guy to track down a copy; he's at songsredriver@yahoo.com.
Hillary BrownRecord Reviews
DMC
originally published June 7, 2006
So, in a lot of ways, this is a bit like if your dad made a rap album: someone who used to be cool and at least could have gone to Woodstock, someone who’s really into his own thing, someone who might still be cooler than average but fills you with mortification as he rocks out to some Harry Chapin. DMC's “Just Like Me” features Sarah McLachlan doing “Cat’s in the Cradle” on the chorus and is about DMC finding out he was adopted.
And yet, there does come a point when you have to give your dad some credit and accept him as a well-rounded human being. That embarrassment that gives way to a sort of respect typifies DMC’s new solo album Checks, Thugs, and Rock n Roll, on which he’s changed his usual vocal delivery for something a little higher, scratchier, more nasal than the sound he’s known for. Sure, he thinks the kids today have a lot of problems, and that’s mostly what the album is about. It also features “rock and roll” much more prominently than most rap albums, and it’s often overkill.
On the other hand, Checks, Thugs, and Rock n Roll has a bigger, warmer tone than most other stuff in the genre, and on headphones it’s kind of impressively mainstream. It could be a Lenny Kravitz album at times, if not for the charm that McDaniels brings even to songs like “What’s Wrong,” which mourns the state of the world today in maudlin fashion (Napoleon contributes a fine guest performance) that somehow gets under your skin. “Only God Knows” covers a lot of the same territory in its reinterpretation of the often-plaqued poem “Footprints,” and “Sucka Sucka” ends up as a fairly effective (if mostly clean) diss track.
Not only did your dad make this album, but your dad would listen to it. And that’s okay sometimes.
Hillary BrownIf you are having problems with the site, or have questions or suggestions, please contact us here. Thanks!
Care to comment on this article? Click here!
You will be the first person to comment on this article.