From: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org (seven-seas-moderated-digest) To: seven-seas-moderated-digest@smoe.org Subject: seven-seas-moderated-digest V2 #217 Reply-To: seven-seas@smoe.org Sender: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Precedence: bulk seven-seas-moderated-digest Tuesday, July 15 2003 Volume 02 : Number 217 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 11:01:36 -0500 (CDT) From: Amy Moseley Rupp Subject: seven-seas-moderated Re: seven-seas New Zealand Herald > That's clearest on the opening track Love In Veins with its vibrant > guitars and big string sweep, while the closing Stake Your Claim also > manages to come on a little New Order-ish, and he lifts a bit of Walk > on the Wild Side for Baby Hold On. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no "big string sweep" on *any* of the songs! Stake Your Claim doesn't really have any keys and is much more 90s than "New Order-ish." He sees what a lot of people see in "Baby Hold On" (though I don't -- but though now that I'm thinking of it there are a few strings in the *chorus* to that song). (sigh) Okay he spelled everything correctly and said a coupla relevant things, but otherwise he flunks the critic test. Hey, I just had this obvious but frightening thought for the first time, which y'all have probably had for years: if these journalists (cough) can be so wrong about *facts* neverless having a crap opinion ;-) then I can't trust their judgment about *any band* or album! And heck why stop there -- music journalists don't corner the market on error -- I suppose you can't trust *any* writing. (including mine? ;-) ) - --Amy ("I was doing okay until that big house fell on my sister.") ====================================== The Official Seven-Seas Web Page. www.bunnymenlist.com ====================================== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 09:41:28 -0600 From: "K. F. Smith" Subject: seven-seas-moderated Stylus Magazine http://www.stylusmagazine.com/musicreviews/ian_mcculloch-slideling.shtml Ian McCulloch Slideling Spinart 2003 {4.5} Reviewed by: Chris Rowland As if you didn't have enough reasons to hate Chris Martin. Now it turns out than in his spare time between banging Gwenyth Paltrow, gazing dreamily (but slightly suggestively) from posters on the dorm room walls of all the girls who think you're a "really nice guy, but just don't think of you that way," and ending any doubt as to whether the marriage of Buckley-esque vocal ardor to swirling, post-shoegaze British pop was something the world really needed (it wasn't), it seems that he's also found time to start something of a finishing school for washed up new wave stars. "I think we have re-established ourselves, more so with the Coldplay connection and Chris Martin talking about us in every interview. That helped. We played a lot of gigs around the world and became a great band again.Luckily for us Chris Martin did. It meant we bypassed every journalist to become the firmly established band. Having Chris sing your praises is not a bad thing. That's why we got the Q Award. Q liked Coldplay, we got the Q award in November and I can't even get an interview." So spake (former? current? occasional?) Echo and The Bunneymen frontman, Ian McCulloch in a recent interview. While the "we" he's referring to is Echo proper, Martin's fingerprints are all over McCulloch's third solo album, Slideling, as well. Echo and the Bunnymen formed in Liverpool in 1978. Initially a duo of singer McCulloch, and guitarist Will Sergeant (the Bunnymen) and their trusty drum machine (Echo), the perpetual bridesmaids spent the first half of the eighties refining their distinct (though ensconced heavily in new wave) sound. Fleshed out to a full band (but still regularly employing Echo and his descendants), by the time they released their first album in 1980, the Bunnymen were easily recognizable largely based on McCulloch's voice. Sounding like an amalgam of Siouxie's low banshee shriek and and Bono's anthemic belt, Mac's delivery -along with the band's fusion of thin, articulate electric guitar, spirited yet spartan rhythm section, all manner of analog keyboards and synth percussion, and occasional flourishes of eastern tones and instruments- earned the band a soft spot in the hearts of mopey kids with bad hair cuts all over the world. The Bunnymen spent the mid eighties refining and lightening their sound, mining dozens of variations of their fusion of dense art school drama and pop melodicism and anthemic choruses. During this time they released a number of poppy (if still melodramatic) singles so iconic of the era that last year, when Richard Kelly used the "The Killing Moon" to open his Twin Peaks meets 80s John Hughes flick Donnie Darko, it established the period as instantly and irrefutably as a date caption. It's in the late 80s that the story gets complicated. Since then there have been: a death (Drummer Pete De Freitas in a motorcycle accident), McCulloch solo albums, a Bunnymen album without McCulloch, a McCulloch/Sergeant album released under a different name, and a number of actual Bunnymen albums. None of it gives the sense of forward momentum; most of the Bunnymen work since then has sounded like a band struggling to keep up, torn between identity and relevance, while McCulloch's solo albums have fared only slightly better. Abandoning the drama and heavy-handed imagery of the group, McCulloch's first two solo albums were quirky, jangly affairs, full of space and light that showcased his increasing control over the nuances of his voice. His first, Candleland, is particularly aptly titled in that its songs are warm and bright and comforting but ultimately impermanent. So it's not really a great surprise that Slideling isn't a stunning leap forward. What is somewhat surprising though (and here's where Chris Martin comes in), is just how vapid and soulless Slideling is compared to recent Bunnymen work and McCulloch's other solo albums. With a band consisting of John Buckland (Coldplay) on guitars and Barriemore Barlo (Jethro Tull!?!?!) on percussion, (and allegedly featuring Martin himself somewhere or other) Slideling eschews all of McCulloch's recognizable quirks and endearing pretensions, replacing them with slick generic "mature" songs and arrangements that make Coldplay sound adventurous. The moderately bouncy opening track, "Love in Veins" may or may not actually have anything to do with drugs. But its "High on Life" chorus and bloodlessly pristine arrangement brings to mind nothing trippier than a Claritin ad. "Playgrounds and City Parks" slows things down a bit, to keep anybody from breaking a sweat. It sounds more like late period U2 B-side than anything Mac has ever done, complete with a Bono-rific coda, performed with just slightly less enthusiasm than one might have hoped. Things plod along similarly for the rest of Slideling's eleven tracks. Alternating between smoothly intoned mid-tempo rockers- dressed up with synth organs and tastefully overdriven guitar jangle- and smoothly intoned slow dance heart warmers that get a lot closer to Diane Warren territory than befits the man who wrote "Silver". It's a disappointing development, even within the context of a relatively unexciting late period. Mac and producer Cenzo Townshend have given us an album more interested in approximating the obviousness and commerciality of dad-friendly alternative pop than in constructing a showcase for McCulloch's historical strengths. ====================================== The Official Seven-Seas Web Page. www.bunnymenlist.com ====================================== ------------------------------ End of seven-seas-moderated-digest V2 #217 ******************************************