From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V3 #4 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Monday, January 6 2003 Volume 03 : Number 004 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Typical Liberal media and supraliminal advertising (ns) [] [loud-fans] chat? ["jer fairall" ] [loud-fans] Best of 2002 [Stewart Mason ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 18:24:22 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Typical Liberal media and supraliminal advertising (ns) On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Cardinal007 wrote: > Is anyone else concerned, like me, about the archetypal > > liberal media bias > > demonstrated by all the networks in their supraliminal ads for Chevy trucks > urging me to > > "like Iraq!" ? That's nowhere near as bad as the ads urging us to accept "The New Mayor of Truckville." LIke the political subtext isn't blatantly obvious. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing.... ::As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. __Neal Stephenson, SNOW CRASH__ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 22:14:54 -0500 From: "jer fairall" Subject: [loud-fans] chat? What, no one chatting tonight? irc.eskimo.com #loudfans Jer Race to Save the Primates - every click provides food! http://www.care2.com/go/z/primates ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 02:46:55 -0500 From: Stewart Mason Subject: [loud-fans] Best of 2002 1. Consonant - Consonant (Fenway) Clint Conley - for my money, always Mission of Burma's secret weapon and certainly their best songwriter - finally returns to music after close to two decades; shockingly, his songwriting is not only just as razor-sharp, it's actually better, with an elegance and maturity that wasn't there before. Key track: "John Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things'" 2. It's A Love Cult - Motorpsycho (Stickman) I'm starting to suspect that some of the people who are wetting themselves over the Soundtrack Of Our Lives are doing so only because they haven't heard Norway's Motorpsycho yet. These guys work the same stylistic street, but the prog elements are held to a minimum in favor of a pummeling brand of acid rock, the songs are more concise and melodic, plus they rock harder and they know how to write pop songs. Key track: "Neverland" 3. Murray Street - Sonic Youth (DGC) I wrote Sonic Youth off in 1992 after being very disappointed by DIRTY, but my interest was reawakened by those avant EPs they did a few years ago, and I was re-converted by their set at this year's Terrastock V festival, one of the three or four most stunning live performances I've ever seen. I don't really know what's happened in the last decade, but this sounds like the same band that did DAYDREAM NATION and GOO, 15 years older and wiser. Key track: "Karen Revisited," although "Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style" wins the song title award. 4. What It Is - Cordelia's Dad (Kimchee) This is actually the belated finishing and release of a set of songs Cordelia's Dad recorded about five years ago when they were temporarily exploring a side career as a rock band performing original material. Turns out that their own songs are just as mysterious and powerful as the traditional folk material they normally do, only a lot darker and weirder. Key track: "Brother Judson," about 19th century folk historian Judson Hutchinson, who committed suicide in 1859; modern science would now recognize Judson as severely schizophrenic, and the song is one of the most evocative depictions of mental illness I've ever heard. 5. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (Nonesuch) It's not really as weird as many people initially claimed - take away Jim O'Rourke's influence and it would probably sound more like SUMMER TEETH - but it's still probably the oddest-sounding album to debut in the Top 20 in 2002, and the songwriting underneath the feedback and number station broadcasts is as strong as ever. Key track: either "Poor Places" or "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" 6. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips (Warner Brothers) It's not THE SOFT BULLETIN, but you only get one major leap like that per career, and it's actually a better-constructed album than its predecessor. Key track: "Do You Realize??," the prettiest song Wayne Coyne has yet written. 7. Zap the World - Death By Chocolate (Jetset) An utterly inconsequential album, and therein lies its charm. The album consists primarily of bouncy instrumentals in a variety of Swinging London pastiche styles, interspersed with Angela Faye Tillotson's daffy stream-of-consciousness spoken word pieces, like Ivor Cutler reincarnated as a 19-year-old hipster chick. Key track: "Vox Wah Wah Pedal," a deadpan recreation of a 1967 radio ad by the Electric Prunes that's downright brazen in its record-store-geek pointlessness. 8. What Did for the Dinosaurs - Bevis Frond (Rubric) A sterling followup to VALEDICTORY SONGS, an album that sounded just plain pissed-off and fed-up. This time out, Nick Saloman has seemingly made his peace with the current pop scene and where he belongs in relation to it, happy to keep doing what he likes. Key track: "What Did for the Dinosaurs," where Nick realizes that he's turned into his father, but doesn't care. 9. Aldhils Arboreteum - Of Montreal (Kindercore) Of Montreal were my least favorite of the Elephant 6 contingent for years, the group where rough-hewn looseness finally tipped over once and for all into half-assed sloppiness and half-written tunes. This album, on the other hand, sounds like Kevin Barnes actually taught the songs to the rest of the band before they punched the record button, and the newfound directness does wonders for them. Key track: "Isn't It Nice?" 10.Welcome Black - The Negro Problem (Smile) You could probably burn one lengthy kick-ass CD from the best tracks from this album, THE NAKED DUTCH PAINTER AND OTHER SONGS and MUDDY SWEETBOOT, but this is the best of the three spotty albums. Like POST-MINSTREL SYNDROME, it's uneven, with side two far preferable to side one, but Heidi Rodewald is far better integrated into the band than she had been on JOYS AND CONCERNS, and it's also Stew's most emotionally and musically varied album in years. Key track: "Bermuda Love Triangle" 11. Have You Fed the Fish? - Badly Drawn Boy (XL) I totally didn't buy into the hype over Badly Drawn Boy's debut, which didn't impress me much at all, but then I kinda dug the soundtrack to ABOUT A BOY, and this album - which is simultaneously odder and much more accessible than his earlier work - led me to discover that there's actually a gifted songwriter under the hipster pose. Beck's SEA CHANGE got more press, but this album does the same thing better. Key track: "You Were Right" 12. Velocity of Sound - The Apples In Stereo (SpinArt) Robert and Hilarie get a couple new bandmates and dig out the Primitives and Darling Buds LPs, stripping things down and speeding them up into amazingly concise little slices of buzzsaw pop that do start to bleed into each other after a few but individually are as much fun as anything they've ever done. A refreshing change of pace, and a necessary one. Key track: "Baroque" 13. Grimstone - The Lucky Bishops (Woronzow) Straight-up power pop album of the year, from a band that proves that you can still do something interesting with two guitars, three singers and four chords, and that "traditional" doesn't have to mean "derivative and boring." For everyone who still loves their old Dentists 45s. Key track: "Napoleon" 14. Lapalco - Brendan Benson (StarTime) Frankly, I didn't much like ONE MISSISSIPPI, but on LAPALCO, Brendan Benson and Jason Falkner get together and make the album that they should have made the first timeor that Virgin should have released, more to the point. The songs are better, the production more varied and interesting, and Benson's vocals are much better this time round. Key track: "Folk Singer" 15. Film Molecules - Tender Trap (K) First Talulah Gosh, then Heavenly, then Marine Research, now (since keyboardist Cathy Rogers is now busy exec-producing and hosting TLC's Junkyard Wars) Tender Trap, the core duo of singer Amelia Fletcher and bassist Rob Pursey keeps making smart, funny, ultra-catchy pop albums with a surprising level of lyrical depth behind the cutesy pop tunes. Key track: "Face of '73" 16. OK Go - OK Go (Capitol) It hasn't held up quite as well as I would have liked it to, but this is still the Big Noisy Pop Album that I turn to most often when that's what I'm in the mood for. Key track: "Get Over It," second only to Sheryl Crow's "Soak up the Sun" as single of the year. 17. Distant Effects - Major Stars (Squealer) The third album by Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar in their latest incarnation as the Cambridge noise rock scene's answer to Quicksilver Messenger Service, DISTANT EFFECTS is not quite as pulverizing as they are live, but this is still the guitar drone album of the year. Key track: "Elephant" 18. The Acid Gospel Experience - Scenic (Hidden Agenda) Guitar drone album of the year runner-up, space rock/chill-out division. This is one of those rare instrumental albums that I don't start to tune out after a while, tribute to how well Bruce Lichter and company manage to maintain melodic and structural interest in a style of music that's usually far more amorphous and tuneless than this. Key track: "Under A Wing," with guest piano by Harold Budd. 19. Alice/Blood Money - Tom Waits (Anti) If I have to pick one, I'd have to go with ALICE, Waits' collaboration with Robert Wilson on a semi-opera about Lewis Carroll's fixation on young Alice Liddell that manages to keep from sounding either prurient or disapproving. Either album, however, is Waits' best sustained work since RAIN DOGS. Key track: "The Part You Throw Away" 20. Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone - The Walkmen (StarTime) The singer sounds disturbingly like Bono sometimes - okay, rather a lot of the time - but the musical cues owe more to the likes of late '60s Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Can and the Church, with a little very early R.E.M. and circa-PAINFUL Yo La Tengo thrown in for good measure. Southern gothic psychedelia then, I guess. Whatever, it works. Key track: "Revenge Wears No Wristwatch" JUST OUT OF THE RUNNING (any of these could be #21): McCarthy - Helms (Kimchee) (Key track: "Robots Are Great, But Are We Ready For Them To Dance on Their Own?") Veni Vidi Vicious - The Hives (Sire) (Key track: "Hate To Say I Told You So") Outside - Pat Orchard (Sad Tiger) (Key track: "Earthbound") Demons Dance Alone - The Residents (Ralph) (Key track: "Neediness") Genetic World - Telepopmusik (Astralwerks) (Key track: "Breathe") PROMISING DEBUTS: 1. Norah Jones - Come Away With Me (Blue Note) / I would like this a lot more if it weren't so relentlessly polite, but Jones' vocals are undeniable, and the blend of jazz, pop and country (the latter largely not commented upon, but surely I'm not the only one who hears Floyd Cramer in the piano solos on "Don't Know Why") might be tailormade for your favorite casual dining chain, but the songwriting is uniformly strong and the production isn't nearly as uber-slick as it might have been. Key track: "Don't Know Why" 2. Kelly Osbourne - Shut Up (Epic) / Hey, I'm surprised too, but other than the last track, a dreadful power ballad, and the nothing-special remake of one of Madonna's lesser singles, this is a perfectly fine piece of girly-punky-pop, everything the Avril Lavigne album was supposed to be but wasn't. The best tracks here wouldn't sound out of place on a Muffs album. Key track: "Come Dig Me Out" 3. popInterstate - A Lesser of Two Knievels (www.popinterstate.net) / Reminds me a lot of the Posies' Failure in some ways, and has several good-to-great songs, but there's a four or five-song stretch in the middle that's pretty dire. Key track: "Weight Lifter" 4. Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights (Matador) / Yeah, that guy does sound a lot like Ian Curtis, albeit in a higher register, but musically, I hear some sort of weird blend between early Soft Boys, MARQUEE MOON and 154-era Wire. None of this is a bad thing. Key track: "Stella Was A Driver and She Was Always Down" 5. Brunettes - Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks (Capitol New Zealand) / Quirky but catchy new wave-influenced boy-girl pop from a new Kiwi duo with about a .500 batting average, but the songs that work are just brilliant. With a little effort, their next album could be even more entertaining, and it's also just possible that on the first warm spring night of 2003, I'll decide this is the greatest album ever. Key track: "Summer Love" 6. Ed Harcourt - Here Be Monsters (Capitol) / He's better live, but there's a number of promising songs here. The English Michael Penn, perhaps? Regardless, this deserves better reviews than it tended to get. Key track: "Shanghai" 7. The 45s - Fight Dirty (Yep Roc) / The 45s are yet another garage rock band, but you get the idea that they'd be playing this kind of no-bullshit rockin' pop even if this wasn't the Next Big Thing. Star player is organist Trey Tidwell, who looks like the young Tom Waits and plays like the young Augie Meyers. Key track: "My Kind of Girl" RECORDS I LIKED A LOT BY ARTISTS WHO I'M ALMOST ALWAYS FOND OF, WHICH WEREN'T QUITE IMPRESSIVE ENOUGH TO MAKE THE LIST PROPER: Available Light - Allen Clapp (March) When I Was Cruel - Elvis Costello (Island Def Jam) Out Like A Lamb - Doleful Lions (Parasol) Lost In Space - Aimee Mann (Superego) Three Dollar Man - Ray Mason Band (Captivating) Halos and Horns - Dolly Parton (Sugar Hill) The Crispy Taste of Hell - Preoccupied Pipers (MP3.com) Lucky 7 - Reverend Horton Heat (Artemis) Phrenology - The Roots (Columbia) Finisterre - St. Etienne (Mantra) Nextdoorland - The Soft Boys (Matador) The Naked Dutch Painter and Other Songs - Stew (Smile) Muddy Sweetboot - Stew (self-released) Age of the Sun - Sunshine Fix (Kindercore) The Golden Dove - Mary Timony (Matador) ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V3 #4 *****************************