I could tell you about the physical impossibly of navigating downtown San Diego in a car (one-way streets anyone?) or about the semi-painful nostalgia of navigating a downtown anywhere after my suburban exile, or about the still-unsolved mystery of how my ticket managed to evaporate from my pocket as I drove, requiring I buy a whole other one at the door....
But you don't want to hear about any of that. What do you want to hear?
Well, the show was great. Like, capital letters GREAT.
The crowd was kind of what I expected. There were aging grungies, a few hipsters with their plastic glasses, at least one punk-rock girl (past her first blush of youth), Country fans with their cowboy shirts, hats, and boots. There were even combinations of the above. I ended up getting kind of adopted by a pair of soldiers in the front row who knew even more DBT lyrics then I did.
Opening act was The Henry Clay People, who looked like someone'd put hipster glasses on a bunch of grunge musicians, with their flannel shirts and their veils of unkempt hair. Their blond singer was set up stage left, while their guitarist, who's stoned-looking face never moved once the entire show, jumped on amplifiers, stood on one leg, and on numerous occasions, wandered over to the singer to lean against him, share his mike, or generally invade his personal space. It figures that those two are brothers. This group had to face a nice wall of malaise from the stoney crowd, as the apathy that greeted their entrance and first numbers was pretty impressive, but they broke through it, and by their fifth song, everyone was bouncing. They come from So-Cal (frontman shared stories of working at San Diego's maritime museum back in the day) but they sound like punk-rock from Missisippi, if that makes sense. One of the longest too: they played for over an hour but made the time pass quickly. They rocked the room, and were easily one of the most impressive opening acts I've seen.
But everyone was there for the Drive-By Truckers. They would play for about 3.5 hours, a testament to the depth of their catalog, and someone like me would only recognize maybe two out of three of the songs they played. They were heavy on the new material, which I love. They're the kind of group that just turns the stage into a long, happy roadtrip, and we're all going together. Patterson Hood doesn't so much sing his songs as act live them, delivering a performance of "Sink Hole" that'll haunt you for days. The core of this group is the contrast between band-leader Hood and his foil Mike Cooley. Mike Cooley is aloof and cool where Patterson is engaged and passionate, and tends to more mellow renditions of his songs live then you get on his recordings, but he can sound like the Devil Went Down to Georgia when he decides the occasion warrents it. His deeply empathic "Birthday Boy" was a highlight of both the newest album and the show. The third lead singer of the night, bassist Shonna Tucker, has a voice like thick sweet honey, enfusing "Someday it's gonna be I told you so" with some dance-floor bounce and striking heroic poses with a bass roughly as big as she was. The drummer looked like he moonlighted as a member of ZZ Top, or Sasquatch, but played with almost delicate precision. The third guitarist, wild card John Neff, was the band's non-entity. He seemed to have no destinguishing features at all except his playing, but his playing was enough.
I loved this show. I love this band. Even if the super-long run time in a club with no Verizon service meant my sister would be frantic to reach me by the time the show was done, that was the best show I've been to in ages.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Movie Review: GREEN ZONE
It is kind of impossible to talk about GREEN ZONE without comparing it to (or even calling it) a Bourne movie. Paul Greengrass directed the second and third installments of the Bourne trilogy, and Matt Damon is wildly recognizable as the amnesiac super-spy.
The Bourne movies were also, well, damn good movies. Jason Bourne is THE action-hero of early 21st century, post-9/11 America. He's an unstoppable bad ass, but he's also a kind of personification of the damage the War On Terror has done to America's idea of itself: haunted by horrible deeds he doesn't even remember, hunted by former bosses who now see him as a liability, he's something that must have looked like such a good idea on paper that it was worth breaking a few rules to make it happen, only for unintended consequences to turn Mission Accomplished into a clusterfuck. Bourne is damaged goods, and Matt Damon, to his credit, never let us forget it.
If there is something driving Roy Miller (Matt Damon)'s hunger for the truth besides sheer decency, we don't find out what it is, but that's alright, Damon is more then capable of grabbing us and just pulling us along for the ride. In fact the entire cast is spot on, which is not just good, but vital with a script this thinly written. Many characters are stand-ins for real people, painted in broad strokes, but it's still interesting to watch Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), the Judy Miller-styled reporter who's face lights up when she recalls how this high ranking official put the raw intel right in her hand, like it was one of the happiest days of her life. Brandon Gleeson radiates a kind of deep intelligence as Miller's CIA ally, who also carries the deeply held delusion that the truth matters.
Greg Kinear doesn't have a gesture or glance to spare as the Paul Bremer administration goon, who is so fixated on the Political victory that he just plain doesn't see the human cost of the choices he makes. When Miller eventually uses his fists to try and beat some sense into him, it's about as close to a comeuppance as this character gets.
The Iraqi casting is also impeccable. Khalid Abdulla plays the one-legged Iran/Iraq war veteran "Freddy" as a haunted, conflicted figure who strives to remind everyone that nobody, not even well-intentioned Miller, really understands Iraq. Yigal Naor, who played Saddam himself in a BBC docu-drama and plays Iraq's top general here, radiates the kind of quiet, iron-handed command that might actually be able to hold a country together.
This is really as pulse-pounding as action-thrillers get. You'll find the same hand-held camera shots, frenzied pace, and incredible chase sequences that you found in the last two Bourne movies, proving again that Paul Greengrass is a director who can make even "person reading an e-mail" seem full of kinetic energy. He might be physically incapable of shooting something dull. The quieter scenes are not so much quiet as eerie. He portrays the Green Zone as a kind of surreal island. The scene where our battle-clad soldiers barge in on a relaxed, beer-swilling pool party is jarring. That's the gap between the people who give the orders and the people who carry them out, and that's why the righteous intentions of the men on the ground are foredoomed to failure. It's hard to get worked up about such hypotheticals as bloody civil war when your beer is cold and you've got a reputation to protect.
A lot has been made of the politics of this movie, but even with it's rooted-in-reality screen credit, the plot of the movie is very clearly the plot of a movie: it puts one man at the center of all the action, gives him the drive to solve the mystery, and brings it all to a kind-of victorious conclusion...kind of. Of course you can't escape history, and as we all know the mess Iraq turned into, we settle for the sort of watered-down victory we get. Miller gets through Iraq with his morality intact. This, it turns out, is as much as can really be hoped for.
I think when current American cinema is writen about in retrospect, GREEN ZONE will turn out to be a significant movie. It's not the best film anyone's made about the Iraq War, but it's a director and a lead actor using all the tricks they've learned from the wildly successful Bourne films to make a real-world point. I hope this won't be Matt Damon's last collaboration with Greengrass. These two get eachother, and for all it's flaws, this is one of the most tightly constructed thrillers you'll see.
It's a damn good movie. I don't know if I've mentioned that enough. A damn good movie.
The Bourne movies were also, well, damn good movies. Jason Bourne is THE action-hero of early 21st century, post-9/11 America. He's an unstoppable bad ass, but he's also a kind of personification of the damage the War On Terror has done to America's idea of itself: haunted by horrible deeds he doesn't even remember, hunted by former bosses who now see him as a liability, he's something that must have looked like such a good idea on paper that it was worth breaking a few rules to make it happen, only for unintended consequences to turn Mission Accomplished into a clusterfuck. Bourne is damaged goods, and Matt Damon, to his credit, never let us forget it.
If there is something driving Roy Miller (Matt Damon)'s hunger for the truth besides sheer decency, we don't find out what it is, but that's alright, Damon is more then capable of grabbing us and just pulling us along for the ride. In fact the entire cast is spot on, which is not just good, but vital with a script this thinly written. Many characters are stand-ins for real people, painted in broad strokes, but it's still interesting to watch Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), the Judy Miller-styled reporter who's face lights up when she recalls how this high ranking official put the raw intel right in her hand, like it was one of the happiest days of her life. Brandon Gleeson radiates a kind of deep intelligence as Miller's CIA ally, who also carries the deeply held delusion that the truth matters.
Greg Kinear doesn't have a gesture or glance to spare as the Paul Bremer administration goon, who is so fixated on the Political victory that he just plain doesn't see the human cost of the choices he makes. When Miller eventually uses his fists to try and beat some sense into him, it's about as close to a comeuppance as this character gets.
The Iraqi casting is also impeccable. Khalid Abdulla plays the one-legged Iran/Iraq war veteran "Freddy" as a haunted, conflicted figure who strives to remind everyone that nobody, not even well-intentioned Miller, really understands Iraq. Yigal Naor, who played Saddam himself in a BBC docu-drama and plays Iraq's top general here, radiates the kind of quiet, iron-handed command that might actually be able to hold a country together.
This is really as pulse-pounding as action-thrillers get. You'll find the same hand-held camera shots, frenzied pace, and incredible chase sequences that you found in the last two Bourne movies, proving again that Paul Greengrass is a director who can make even "person reading an e-mail" seem full of kinetic energy. He might be physically incapable of shooting something dull. The quieter scenes are not so much quiet as eerie. He portrays the Green Zone as a kind of surreal island. The scene where our battle-clad soldiers barge in on a relaxed, beer-swilling pool party is jarring. That's the gap between the people who give the orders and the people who carry them out, and that's why the righteous intentions of the men on the ground are foredoomed to failure. It's hard to get worked up about such hypotheticals as bloody civil war when your beer is cold and you've got a reputation to protect.
A lot has been made of the politics of this movie, but even with it's rooted-in-reality screen credit, the plot of the movie is very clearly the plot of a movie: it puts one man at the center of all the action, gives him the drive to solve the mystery, and brings it all to a kind-of victorious conclusion...kind of. Of course you can't escape history, and as we all know the mess Iraq turned into, we settle for the sort of watered-down victory we get. Miller gets through Iraq with his morality intact. This, it turns out, is as much as can really be hoped for.
I think when current American cinema is writen about in retrospect, GREEN ZONE will turn out to be a significant movie. It's not the best film anyone's made about the Iraq War, but it's a director and a lead actor using all the tricks they've learned from the wildly successful Bourne films to make a real-world point. I hope this won't be Matt Damon's last collaboration with Greengrass. These two get eachother, and for all it's flaws, this is one of the most tightly constructed thrillers you'll see.
It's a damn good movie. I don't know if I've mentioned that enough. A damn good movie.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Deke Dickland's Guitar Geek Festival in Anaheim: 1/16/10
This one went simply. I read a write-up of the event in the LA Times. I had nothing going on that day. I decided to attend.
I found the perfect parking spot right in front of the hotel. The only soul in sight was an old, fat, white-bearded man walking slowly out of the lobby doors, carrying an old guitar case.
There was a gold Mickey Mouse statue in the lobby. Someone had slung a music-note-shaped guitar on it. I was DEFINITELY in the right place.
3 PM--DOORS OPEN
- there was a big sign over the door saying "YOU FOUND IT: Welcome to the guitar geek festival!" The line of tattooed dudes, mostly older, mostly with long hair snakes around the bar. I start noting down band t-shirts to research later.
3:15 PM--THE SEEING RODRIGOS
This trio of mariachi-costume-wearing guitarists bragged that, since this is a "guitar geek" event, they'd ditched their drummer. This was probably a mistake. Their dedication to instrument purity was, uh, admirable, but their sound could really have used the grounding. Without it they sounded like they were playing slightly-rocked-up mariachi music on guitars, which they kind of were.
3:30 PM--MESHUGGA BEACH PARTY
Billing themselves as "the world's only all-jewish surf band" these guys wore long Orthodox robes, black hats and big bushy fake beards. They, thankfully, appeared as a full band, with two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboard-playing woman, AND a drummer. And no one was fluff. Mixing surf music and jewish folk tunes sounds like one of those ideas you'd have after drink number one-way-too-many, but surprisingly enough this band cranked it up and never looked back. Plus they shared "cultural knowledge" by reading aloud from a rhinestone studded Dead Joke Scrolls, which were exactly what they were advertised as. That's the kind of cheese that makes me love you forever.
4:15 PM--BUDDY AND SUZY
Sorry. I hadn't eaten yet that day, headed out for an urgently-needed burger and missed it.
5 PM--STEVE TROVATO AND CARL VERHEYEN
Apparently, rhinestone-hatbanded Deke has gotten more requests for the both of these players individually then for anyone else he's ever hosted at his guitar-geek festivals. Now they are touring together, so it works out perfectly for him. They were two rather out-of-shape guys in their forties or fifties, wearing colorful shirts who adored each other. Each one kept trying to out-love the other one, asking for lessons, passing off the lead chords, and asking if their wives were in the audience. I love to see a bromance in the full of it's bloom.
They were master-players, that much was obvious even to a layperson like me. A google search tells me that these two are very in-demand studio musicians. I don't know what songs they were playing, for all I know they just jammed up there for fifteen minutes, but I could have kept watching them for days.
6 PM--"CRAZY" JOE TRITSCHLER
This guy was a sort of Co-MC, helping Deke out and serving as foil and witty banter. He is a funny, funny guy. He played this gig on his "satanic midget guitar." It was satanic because it was high and evil sounding. Somehow the music didn't grate. Engineering new instruments seems to be this guy's stick. He sounds like a punk-rock Buddy Holly.
7 PM--"HONEYBOY" EDWARDS
Had to move my car and missed it. Sad about it too, as this guy is billed as the "last of the Delta bluesmen," a contemporary of Robert Johnson.
7:30 PM--ELECTRIC 12-STRING NIGHTMARE
The rules were simple. Bring your own twelve-string. One guy will tune them all. Reclaim your weapon, crowd onto the stage and play. There were 17 of them total, including one woman dressed up like Tinkerbell (not making it up). The song was "Mr. Tamborine Man" re-written as "Hey Electric 12-string man, please play in tune for me." Crazy Joe conducted with a big board that had the cords on it and a whammy bar as a baton. That's how you know this is a REAL guitar geek event.
It actually wasn't much of a nightmare. It sounded like chaos of course, but it was controlled chaos. Even Tinkerbell was a more-then-competent player. Deke said in conclusion that if he'd known it would sound so not-awful he wouldn't have called it the Nightmare.
7:45 PM--BRIAN LONBECK AND ELAINE FRIZZELL
The only thing I really remember about this gig was that these two are old with a capital O. Elaine had a huge brown wig, massive plastic glasses, and I don't think her hollow-body was plugged in. Brian Lonbeck was singing and playing, but while I remember it being pleasant, it wasn't so pleasant that I didn't ditch to use the bathroom and hit up the bar for the most watery gin and tonic I've ever had in my life.
8:30 PM--HISTORY OF THE STEEL GUITAR
THIS was interesting, and apparently it was attended by all the giants of the steel guitar scene, which is a small scene, but a real scene. One guy explained that the Acoustic Island slide guitar originated when the suer-plantation owners imported South-American cowboys to teach the native laborers how to heard cattle. When the cowboys went back to South America, they left their guitars behind. The natives, of course, had no idea how to tune or play these properly, but one day some guy must have dropped his knife on the strings and noticed the sound it made, which is how the instrument came to be played with a metal bar against the frets. Through further experimentation, it turned out that adding a bullet-shaped end to this bar enabled the instrument to make the full range of notes and octaves. A grammy-winning Island slide player demoed this technique, playing a piece that made me wanna hula dance right there, which would not have been pretty, so I'm glad I resisted the urge. A stand-up bass, jazz drummer, and ukulele accompanied.
Down the line the instrument got more advanced. First it got electrified, as demoed by one guy. Then effects pedals were added, as demoed by that rarest of creatures: a steel-guitar player who has been employed for 40 years. Apparently he is Merle Haggard' band-leader. At the very end of the line was a guy who invents his own steel guitars, who's machine created incredible futuristic kinds of sounds.
Informative AND entertaining. Perfecto.
9:30 PM--JOEL PATERSON AND THE MODERN SOUNDS
10:15 PM--DEKE DICKERSON TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY RAMONE
Best part of the show was seeing all the unhappy old people scowling down their noses at all the noise. If Deke hadn't been the event's MC, he would never have gotten away with it. I guess the supposed demise of the punk-rock generation gap has been greatly exaggerated.
Sponge-Bob's voice actor was the evening's Joey Ramone. He stressed that you need to put the Ramones in context: if you're a 14-year-old in a small town in the midwest and looking for balls-out rock music, and you turn on the radio and hear "More then a Feeling" and other bloodless drek, and then your friend's cool older sister goes to New York for a week and comes back with a Ramone's album that sounds like BLLARRRGHHGHG and off they went.
Thank you Deke Dickland. Thank you, SpongeBobby Ramone. I've tried to be a Ramones fan before. I didn't get it.
I do now. Thanks again.
11 PM--GEORGE TOMSCO AND 3 BALLS OF FIRE
Like Duane Eddy, George Tomsco is another part of an important instrumental group from the sixties, though he's not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and his work, though familiar, isn't as omnipresent as Eddy's. Still, he was a bubbly fifty-something Tex-Mex with an epic mustache and an effortless stage presence who was quick enough to fill in the missing notes when the weird little techno-keybord thing Deke was trying to play died on everybody. My primary impression of this gig was "warm." Everything about it was warm. And the music was great, but saying so is almost redundant right now.
MIDNIGHT--DUANE EDDY
Hey, this guy looks familiar...
Yes, the random guitar-carrying old man I'd spotted as I arrived was none other then the evening's headliner, the Hall of Famer himself. Well HUH.
The only instrumentalist to get into the rock-n-roll hall of fame. I guarantee you have heard his songs before. It was cool to Deke, Crazy Joe, and other parts of the other acts gathering around a man who is clearly a hero to all of them. Deke said that ever since he was a kid, he's dreamed of the day when he will get to play "Peter Gun" with Duane Eddy, who replied "Let's do it." This gig brought the house down. Rocking and heartwarming.
I'm glad I went.
I found the perfect parking spot right in front of the hotel. The only soul in sight was an old, fat, white-bearded man walking slowly out of the lobby doors, carrying an old guitar case.
There was a gold Mickey Mouse statue in the lobby. Someone had slung a music-note-shaped guitar on it. I was DEFINITELY in the right place.
3 PM--DOORS OPEN
- there was a big sign over the door saying "YOU FOUND IT: Welcome to the guitar geek festival!" The line of tattooed dudes, mostly older, mostly with long hair snakes around the bar. I start noting down band t-shirts to research later.
3:15 PM--THE SEEING RODRIGOS
This trio of mariachi-costume-wearing guitarists bragged that, since this is a "guitar geek" event, they'd ditched their drummer. This was probably a mistake. Their dedication to instrument purity was, uh, admirable, but their sound could really have used the grounding. Without it they sounded like they were playing slightly-rocked-up mariachi music on guitars, which they kind of were.
3:30 PM--MESHUGGA BEACH PARTY
Billing themselves as "the world's only all-jewish surf band" these guys wore long Orthodox robes, black hats and big bushy fake beards. They, thankfully, appeared as a full band, with two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboard-playing woman, AND a drummer. And no one was fluff. Mixing surf music and jewish folk tunes sounds like one of those ideas you'd have after drink number one-way-too-many, but surprisingly enough this band cranked it up and never looked back. Plus they shared "cultural knowledge" by reading aloud from a rhinestone studded Dead Joke Scrolls, which were exactly what they were advertised as. That's the kind of cheese that makes me love you forever.
4:15 PM--BUDDY AND SUZY
Sorry. I hadn't eaten yet that day, headed out for an urgently-needed burger and missed it.
5 PM--STEVE TROVATO AND CARL VERHEYEN
Apparently, rhinestone-hatbanded Deke has gotten more requests for the both of these players individually then for anyone else he's ever hosted at his guitar-geek festivals. Now they are touring together, so it works out perfectly for him. They were two rather out-of-shape guys in their forties or fifties, wearing colorful shirts who adored each other. Each one kept trying to out-love the other one, asking for lessons, passing off the lead chords, and asking if their wives were in the audience. I love to see a bromance in the full of it's bloom.
They were master-players, that much was obvious even to a layperson like me. A google search tells me that these two are very in-demand studio musicians. I don't know what songs they were playing, for all I know they just jammed up there for fifteen minutes, but I could have kept watching them for days.
6 PM--"CRAZY" JOE TRITSCHLER
This guy was a sort of Co-MC, helping Deke out and serving as foil and witty banter. He is a funny, funny guy. He played this gig on his "satanic midget guitar." It was satanic because it was high and evil sounding. Somehow the music didn't grate. Engineering new instruments seems to be this guy's stick. He sounds like a punk-rock Buddy Holly.
7 PM--"HONEYBOY" EDWARDS
Had to move my car and missed it. Sad about it too, as this guy is billed as the "last of the Delta bluesmen," a contemporary of Robert Johnson.
7:30 PM--ELECTRIC 12-STRING NIGHTMARE
The rules were simple. Bring your own twelve-string. One guy will tune them all. Reclaim your weapon, crowd onto the stage and play. There were 17 of them total, including one woman dressed up like Tinkerbell (not making it up). The song was "Mr. Tamborine Man" re-written as "Hey Electric 12-string man, please play in tune for me." Crazy Joe conducted with a big board that had the cords on it and a whammy bar as a baton. That's how you know this is a REAL guitar geek event.
It actually wasn't much of a nightmare. It sounded like chaos of course, but it was controlled chaos. Even Tinkerbell was a more-then-competent player. Deke said in conclusion that if he'd known it would sound so not-awful he wouldn't have called it the Nightmare.
7:45 PM--BRIAN LONBECK AND ELAINE FRIZZELL
The only thing I really remember about this gig was that these two are old with a capital O. Elaine had a huge brown wig, massive plastic glasses, and I don't think her hollow-body was plugged in. Brian Lonbeck was singing and playing, but while I remember it being pleasant, it wasn't so pleasant that I didn't ditch to use the bathroom and hit up the bar for the most watery gin and tonic I've ever had in my life.
8:30 PM--HISTORY OF THE STEEL GUITAR
THIS was interesting, and apparently it was attended by all the giants of the steel guitar scene, which is a small scene, but a real scene. One guy explained that the Acoustic Island slide guitar originated when the suer-plantation owners imported South-American cowboys to teach the native laborers how to heard cattle. When the cowboys went back to South America, they left their guitars behind. The natives, of course, had no idea how to tune or play these properly, but one day some guy must have dropped his knife on the strings and noticed the sound it made, which is how the instrument came to be played with a metal bar against the frets. Through further experimentation, it turned out that adding a bullet-shaped end to this bar enabled the instrument to make the full range of notes and octaves. A grammy-winning Island slide player demoed this technique, playing a piece that made me wanna hula dance right there, which would not have been pretty, so I'm glad I resisted the urge. A stand-up bass, jazz drummer, and ukulele accompanied.
Down the line the instrument got more advanced. First it got electrified, as demoed by one guy. Then effects pedals were added, as demoed by that rarest of creatures: a steel-guitar player who has been employed for 40 years. Apparently he is Merle Haggard' band-leader. At the very end of the line was a guy who invents his own steel guitars, who's machine created incredible futuristic kinds of sounds.
Informative AND entertaining. Perfecto.
9:30 PM--JOEL PATERSON AND THE MODERN SOUNDS
10:15 PM--DEKE DICKERSON TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY RAMONE
Best part of the show was seeing all the unhappy old people scowling down their noses at all the noise. If Deke hadn't been the event's MC, he would never have gotten away with it. I guess the supposed demise of the punk-rock generation gap has been greatly exaggerated.
Sponge-Bob's voice actor was the evening's Joey Ramone. He stressed that you need to put the Ramones in context: if you're a 14-year-old in a small town in the midwest and looking for balls-out rock music, and you turn on the radio and hear "More then a Feeling" and other bloodless drek, and then your friend's cool older sister goes to New York for a week and comes back with a Ramone's album that sounds like BLLARRRGHHGHG and off they went.
Thank you Deke Dickland. Thank you, SpongeBobby Ramone. I've tried to be a Ramones fan before. I didn't get it.
I do now. Thanks again.
11 PM--GEORGE TOMSCO AND 3 BALLS OF FIRE
Like Duane Eddy, George Tomsco is another part of an important instrumental group from the sixties, though he's not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and his work, though familiar, isn't as omnipresent as Eddy's. Still, he was a bubbly fifty-something Tex-Mex with an epic mustache and an effortless stage presence who was quick enough to fill in the missing notes when the weird little techno-keybord thing Deke was trying to play died on everybody. My primary impression of this gig was "warm." Everything about it was warm. And the music was great, but saying so is almost redundant right now.
MIDNIGHT--DUANE EDDY
Hey, this guy looks familiar...
Yes, the random guitar-carrying old man I'd spotted as I arrived was none other then the evening's headliner, the Hall of Famer himself. Well HUH.
The only instrumentalist to get into the rock-n-roll hall of fame. I guarantee you have heard his songs before. It was cool to Deke, Crazy Joe, and other parts of the other acts gathering around a man who is clearly a hero to all of them. Deke said that ever since he was a kid, he's dreamed of the day when he will get to play "Peter Gun" with Duane Eddy, who replied "Let's do it." This gig brought the house down. Rocking and heartwarming.
I'm glad I went.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Back to Back to the Grind: 1-8-2010
When I was growing up in this town, I didn't hang around coffeeshops. I didn't really hang around anywhere. But I'd been to "Back to the Grind" quite a few times in my life. Their coffee is strong, their hot chocolate comes with generous amounts of whipped cream, the lemonade is cheap as hell, and as the biggest independent coffee spot in downtown it's possibly the hippest place to be seen.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they sometimes have bands there. Like they did tonight. No cover charge, one drink minimum, and three local acts. This was a chance to get to know the "scene" in my suburban So-Cal town, such as it is, so I figured it was really time for me to stop lolly-gagging and head OUT on a Friday night.
The first band was Mothers of Gut. The guitarist I talked to said it was the frontman's idea. He washed his hands of the name. The guitarist held his Strat like he was worried he would break it, the sweater-wearing, emo-haired bassist could have been wearing a mask and no one could tell, the frontman had a huge bushy moustache that I couldn't see past. The drummer was the only one who looked like he was having any fun. They did not so much play their music as construct it, and they layered on the effects so heavy that the guitar sounded like it was under water, the singer was in a tile bathroom, the bassist was playing a synthisizer and the drummer was...who knows. This is music that takes itself very, very seriously. Get some production behind Mothers of Gut, and it could really fly. The coffee house is not for them.
After that, The Polite were a breath of fresh air. Where Mothers of Gut had been tense, joyless creatures, The Polite were all smiles, cracking wise with the people at the front coffee tables, taking a long time to tune their instruments, and it seemed like they personally knew all of the people who suddenly flooded the bar. The coffee house was packed and at least one hipster leaning against the bar knew all the words to the songs. They were poppy and punky and a bit surfy, and even if they didn't challenge much, they are extremely easy to like.
The RAGA was the last group, with a barrell-chested, hollow-body wielding, Spanish-singing frontman, who sound not unlike Los Lobos's less muscular little brother. Not an un-apt metaphor for East LA vs. Riverside.
Not many dendrites in this group, but a fun diversion.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they sometimes have bands there. Like they did tonight. No cover charge, one drink minimum, and three local acts. This was a chance to get to know the "scene" in my suburban So-Cal town, such as it is, so I figured it was really time for me to stop lolly-gagging and head OUT on a Friday night.
The first band was Mothers of Gut. The guitarist I talked to said it was the frontman's idea. He washed his hands of the name. The guitarist held his Strat like he was worried he would break it, the sweater-wearing, emo-haired bassist could have been wearing a mask and no one could tell, the frontman had a huge bushy moustache that I couldn't see past. The drummer was the only one who looked like he was having any fun. They did not so much play their music as construct it, and they layered on the effects so heavy that the guitar sounded like it was under water, the singer was in a tile bathroom, the bassist was playing a synthisizer and the drummer was...who knows. This is music that takes itself very, very seriously. Get some production behind Mothers of Gut, and it could really fly. The coffee house is not for them.
After that, The Polite were a breath of fresh air. Where Mothers of Gut had been tense, joyless creatures, The Polite were all smiles, cracking wise with the people at the front coffee tables, taking a long time to tune their instruments, and it seemed like they personally knew all of the people who suddenly flooded the bar. The coffee house was packed and at least one hipster leaning against the bar knew all the words to the songs. They were poppy and punky and a bit surfy, and even if they didn't challenge much, they are extremely easy to like.
The RAGA was the last group, with a barrell-chested, hollow-body wielding, Spanish-singing frontman, who sound not unlike Los Lobos's less muscular little brother. Not an un-apt metaphor for East LA vs. Riverside.
Not many dendrites in this group, but a fun diversion.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
A Night at the Roxy: 11-4-09
My first solo expedition into LA, to a club with no little mythology of it's own thanks to the fame of the Sunset Strip. The Viper Room, the Wiskey A Go-Go, the House of Blues, and the Roxy. I wasn't sure really what to expect. What does fame bring a place, really?
Apparently it brings it a section of V.I.P tables so precious that the bouncers won't even let you lean against the half-height wall that surrounds them. There's definitely a percentage of people who patronize this place for reasons other then an interest in music.
You could see them, hovering around the bar, talking, looking important, and completely ignoring whatever poor guy happened to be making noise on the stage at that moment. They were sitting at the tables like that older gentleman, engrossed in conversation with his two playboy-bunny lady friends sporting boobs that could double as emergency life-rafts. There was one short older lady accompanied by two younger guys who stood really close to the stage and looked stony all night. There was one tall thin girl off stage left who looked like she smelled something foul. There was the drunk dude with all the yakuza tattoos who wanted me to know all about his metal podcast that he does with some guy from New York. He was trying to pick me up, but not in a threatening way: I think he was just drunk and lonely. Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. The Roxy is definitely prime ground for people-watching.
It's also definitely built with the live show in mind. The ceiling was high, the stage was low, the bar (technically two bars and a cocktail waitress) was in the back, the merch area has it's own alcove and bright neon sign. The men's room also had a neon sign. The ladies room did not. I call discrimination. Lady's room was also at the entirely other end of the venue, just off the lounge-type area by the entrance where I guess you could wait for your friend/date/agent/escort to show amid red light-bulbs, smokey mirrors, and a giant poster for a Bruce Springsteen show. At the Roxy. From the "Born to Run" tour. That's the kind of place this is.
Anyway, the first band up was Putnam Hall, a power trio with a long, lean, Asian front-man with a reedy, barking voice and a little slab of a guitar, an aloof drummer who gives off a sort of "adult supervision" kind of vibe, and a bass player who really impressed me by wielding his large, heavy instrument like he was born with it in his hand. You don't often see BASS PLAYERS who are showmen, yet all four bands that night had charismatic bassists. I'm not familiar with Putnum hall's music, and it didn't make that strong an impression on me, but they were enjoyable. They have a striped-down indy rock kind of vibe. They are also apparently good friends with Resident Hero, who's front-man was spotted in the audience and honored with a rousing, tone-deaf cover of his hit "Happy Without Me." It was endearing.
The next band Media Orphan had a sax player. That just about sums it up. And it seemed like the snazzy-hatted-bassist was the band leader. Also a short, stocky guitarist as proud as a peacock with a full tail of feathers, and an even MORE aloofly amused drummer. They also had a dedicated singer with a barrel build and a voice to match. I wish they'd given the sax more solo time: that instrument gave the band a kind of film-noir flavor that could really have been taken farther. How cool might a jazz-age rock band be?
But Resident Hero was who I came to see. Ever since I encountered their live-video special and got "Happy Without Me" stuck irrevocably in my head for two days, the more I learned about this group, from the raw honesty of their sound to the fact that Ryan White (the frontman/songwriter/band leader) still waits tables and can't seem to land a record deal, the more I liked them. I got their White EP and wore it out. Then I got their album and am still in the process of wearing that out too. Their brand of music is melodic rock with teeth, both beautiful and intense, and I was determined to catch them live when I could.
They didn't disappoint. They are one of those groups that walks onstage and explodes. Ryan White, who has a round, boyish face completely dominated by a pair of huge blue eyes, is kind of the most non-threatening-looking guy to ever transform into a shrieking, heart-sick demon when he gets onstage. He's the kind of performer who can do knee-slides and thrash his instrument without the slightest hint of cheese, because the emotions just run that high.
The broad-shouldered bass player is like a superhero, playing from a stance so wide he's basically doing the splits, with a five-stringed instrument and a sizable board of effects peddles. I wish to hell I could remember what Ryan White asked him for, something to the effect of "Play me something dirty and magnificent" but the result was a roaring intro to one of my favorite songs, "Life in Hell," which brought the house down.
And I was surprised by the drummer: lean, sharp-edged and long-haired, he's got the kind of dramatic flare you don't normally see this side of Brian Viglione* hollering the words without a microphone, pulling his hair, rocking back and forth, shooting himself in the head with a drumstick... it's like the music is all in his head and it's ripping him apart. He's the face of the story. Together this power trio crammed more passion and more fire into their seven-song set then some hour-long shows I've seen in my life. It was so worth the hour-and-a-half I spent in the car.
Lukas Rossi was the headliner. I'd run into his eye-lined self outside the venue when I first arrived to hear Resident Hero sound-checking, which made me happy, but the box-office closed, which made me less happy. He came out of the front door, and since no one else was around, I asked him when the box-office would be open, and he told me eight and I was relieved. That was kind of as deep as our conversation got, but he did laugh at a lame joke I made about his glittery hat giving him the power to fly, so I was kind of obligated to at least check out his set. His very professional street-team leader also cornered me after Resident Hero, saying she thought she recognized me but giving me a wrist-band and telling me she would want to know what I thought of Lukas after the show. I said I'd stick around.
I lied to them. It was almost midnight. I had an hour-and-a-half drive ahead of me to get home. Watching Lukas, immediately after Resident Hero was an interesting study in contrasts. Resident Hero are not virtuosos, but they set the stage on fire. This Lukas clearly IS a virtuoso. He's got a voice that can shift effortlessly between Thom-Yorke style eerie balladeering, punk-rock-barking, metal screaming and everything else. His band were slick and professional, and he had some vaguely amusing banter with his alcoholic bass player. He was deft on his guitar and just oozed style. He was the only one to actually have a small crowd standing exactly at the edge of the stage, gagging to see him. But he could not wake them up. Looking around I saw polite head nodding and toe tapping. That was as much enthusiasm as people could muster for the evening's headliner, and he'd been playing for forty minutes already.
I bailed. Sorry Lukas, sorry street-team lady, but if you're gonna play last, you better be worth the wait and you just weren't.
Anyway, Dear God, make Resident Hero super-stars already please. And while you're at it, world peace would be nice too. Alright? Thanks!
*if you don't know who Brian Viglione is, he was the drummer of the theater-geeks-turned-rock-star Dresden Dolls. Check out his theatrical magnificence here.
Apparently it brings it a section of V.I.P tables so precious that the bouncers won't even let you lean against the half-height wall that surrounds them. There's definitely a percentage of people who patronize this place for reasons other then an interest in music.
You could see them, hovering around the bar, talking, looking important, and completely ignoring whatever poor guy happened to be making noise on the stage at that moment. They were sitting at the tables like that older gentleman, engrossed in conversation with his two playboy-bunny lady friends sporting boobs that could double as emergency life-rafts. There was one short older lady accompanied by two younger guys who stood really close to the stage and looked stony all night. There was one tall thin girl off stage left who looked like she smelled something foul. There was the drunk dude with all the yakuza tattoos who wanted me to know all about his metal podcast that he does with some guy from New York. He was trying to pick me up, but not in a threatening way: I think he was just drunk and lonely. Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. The Roxy is definitely prime ground for people-watching.
It's also definitely built with the live show in mind. The ceiling was high, the stage was low, the bar (technically two bars and a cocktail waitress) was in the back, the merch area has it's own alcove and bright neon sign. The men's room also had a neon sign. The ladies room did not. I call discrimination. Lady's room was also at the entirely other end of the venue, just off the lounge-type area by the entrance where I guess you could wait for your friend/date/agent/escort to show amid red light-bulbs, smokey mirrors, and a giant poster for a Bruce Springsteen show. At the Roxy. From the "Born to Run" tour. That's the kind of place this is.
Anyway, the first band up was Putnam Hall, a power trio with a long, lean, Asian front-man with a reedy, barking voice and a little slab of a guitar, an aloof drummer who gives off a sort of "adult supervision" kind of vibe, and a bass player who really impressed me by wielding his large, heavy instrument like he was born with it in his hand. You don't often see BASS PLAYERS who are showmen, yet all four bands that night had charismatic bassists. I'm not familiar with Putnum hall's music, and it didn't make that strong an impression on me, but they were enjoyable. They have a striped-down indy rock kind of vibe. They are also apparently good friends with Resident Hero, who's front-man was spotted in the audience and honored with a rousing, tone-deaf cover of his hit "Happy Without Me." It was endearing.
The next band Media Orphan had a sax player. That just about sums it up. And it seemed like the snazzy-hatted-bassist was the band leader. Also a short, stocky guitarist as proud as a peacock with a full tail of feathers, and an even MORE aloofly amused drummer. They also had a dedicated singer with a barrel build and a voice to match. I wish they'd given the sax more solo time: that instrument gave the band a kind of film-noir flavor that could really have been taken farther. How cool might a jazz-age rock band be?
But Resident Hero was who I came to see. Ever since I encountered their live-video special and got "Happy Without Me" stuck irrevocably in my head for two days, the more I learned about this group, from the raw honesty of their sound to the fact that Ryan White (the frontman/songwriter/band leader) still waits tables and can't seem to land a record deal, the more I liked them. I got their White EP and wore it out. Then I got their album and am still in the process of wearing that out too. Their brand of music is melodic rock with teeth, both beautiful and intense, and I was determined to catch them live when I could.
They didn't disappoint. They are one of those groups that walks onstage and explodes. Ryan White, who has a round, boyish face completely dominated by a pair of huge blue eyes, is kind of the most non-threatening-looking guy to ever transform into a shrieking, heart-sick demon when he gets onstage. He's the kind of performer who can do knee-slides and thrash his instrument without the slightest hint of cheese, because the emotions just run that high.
The broad-shouldered bass player is like a superhero, playing from a stance so wide he's basically doing the splits, with a five-stringed instrument and a sizable board of effects peddles. I wish to hell I could remember what Ryan White asked him for, something to the effect of "Play me something dirty and magnificent" but the result was a roaring intro to one of my favorite songs, "Life in Hell," which brought the house down.
And I was surprised by the drummer: lean, sharp-edged and long-haired, he's got the kind of dramatic flare you don't normally see this side of Brian Viglione* hollering the words without a microphone, pulling his hair, rocking back and forth, shooting himself in the head with a drumstick... it's like the music is all in his head and it's ripping him apart. He's the face of the story. Together this power trio crammed more passion and more fire into their seven-song set then some hour-long shows I've seen in my life. It was so worth the hour-and-a-half I spent in the car.
Lukas Rossi was the headliner. I'd run into his eye-lined self outside the venue when I first arrived to hear Resident Hero sound-checking, which made me happy, but the box-office closed, which made me less happy. He came out of the front door, and since no one else was around, I asked him when the box-office would be open, and he told me eight and I was relieved. That was kind of as deep as our conversation got, but he did laugh at a lame joke I made about his glittery hat giving him the power to fly, so I was kind of obligated to at least check out his set. His very professional street-team leader also cornered me after Resident Hero, saying she thought she recognized me but giving me a wrist-band and telling me she would want to know what I thought of Lukas after the show. I said I'd stick around.
I lied to them. It was almost midnight. I had an hour-and-a-half drive ahead of me to get home. Watching Lukas, immediately after Resident Hero was an interesting study in contrasts. Resident Hero are not virtuosos, but they set the stage on fire. This Lukas clearly IS a virtuoso. He's got a voice that can shift effortlessly between Thom-Yorke style eerie balladeering, punk-rock-barking, metal screaming and everything else. His band were slick and professional, and he had some vaguely amusing banter with his alcoholic bass player. He was deft on his guitar and just oozed style. He was the only one to actually have a small crowd standing exactly at the edge of the stage, gagging to see him. But he could not wake them up. Looking around I saw polite head nodding and toe tapping. That was as much enthusiasm as people could muster for the evening's headliner, and he'd been playing for forty minutes already.
I bailed. Sorry Lukas, sorry street-team lady, but if you're gonna play last, you better be worth the wait and you just weren't.
Anyway, Dear God, make Resident Hero super-stars already please. And while you're at it, world peace would be nice too. Alright? Thanks!
*if you don't know who Brian Viglione is, he was the drummer of the theater-geeks-turned-rock-star Dresden Dolls. Check out his theatrical magnificence here.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Pearl Jam at the Viejas Arena: 10-8-09
This was how it went. The show was in San Diego. My sister lives in San Diego. I figured I could go to San Diego, see the show, and crash at her place. However, the Angels had a playoff game at the very day of the concert. My dad got tickets for my sister and himself. She would not be in San Diego at the time. She told me I could still come, and she ordered her boyfriend to look after me. This ended up working perfectly.
My sister's boyfriend is named Mike. He was extremely accommodating. So much so that he was actually OK with us ditching the lousy seats we were given and sneaking closer. So instead of being up in the nosebleed section staring at Matt Cameron's back all night, we were actually only a few rows up, off stage left--
But you know what, you don't really care about any of that. I'll talk about the show now.
First off, Ben Harper rocks. There's lots of other ways to say that, but none of them sum it up so nicely. He's clearly a powerful enough force to rock a venue on his own, and he deserved way better then a half-empty arena of concert-goers who are barely paying attention. At least they WERE barely paying attention until the tiny, flannel-clad Eddie Vedder staggered onstage and he and Ben ripped through a cover of "Pressure" which really woke everyone up.
Eddie, it turned out, wasn't just staggering around because he's clumsy. Someone who made his name climbing hundreds of feet onto lighting fixtures, leaping over speaker cabinets, and generally being a human tornado wouldn't have made it into his forties if he was clumsy, but at this show he'd be limiting his stuntwork to some gravity-defying yoga-type poses with the very sturdy microphone stand. Other things he tried, like the jumps, the throws, and the simply walking across the stage wouldn't work so well for him.
Blitzed. Three sheets to the wind. Shitfaced. Hammered. Furry. Zipped. Talking to Earl on the Big White Phone (my favorite). Call it whatever you want, it's probably why Eddie Vedder squeaked on his highest notes and breathed through his lowest, but losing his voice didn't stop him at Outside Lands, so getting swimming drunk wouldn't stop him in San Diego. Pearl Jam was wrapping up the American leg of the Backspacer world tour with this show, and three members of the group spent important parts of their lives in the city so they were treating it like a homecoming and celebrating accordingly. "We got lots of family and friends here," said Eddie, "and you guys are making us look really good, so thank you!"
As usual, you'll have to go elsewhere for the setlist. It didn't strike me as that special until the encores, which were heavy on the hits, but this was one of those shows where the energy hit the roof early and just stayed there. The crowd was on their feet, almost every song was a sing-along, and the group were fired up. Quoth Eddie: "We got a shitload of amps and guitars, lets blow the roof off this motherfucker."
THIS is why Pearl Jam has made it almost twenty years. played tens of thousands of shows over almost twenty years, but they seemingly effortlessly convince you that tonight, tonight, is as special for them as it is for you. They are as glad to see you as you are to see them. After tens of thousands of shows to massive audiences all over the world, how the hell they manage to do it is beyond me, but Mike (who had only a passing knowledge of Pearl Jam) walked out of there talking about what a down-to-earth, genuine, likable guy that singer seemed to be. He said it was cool that they played "Last Kiss" facing the seats directly behind them where Mike and I would have been if he hadn't gotten away with stealing closer. That was considerate of them. Then Mike asked if he could burn my Pearl Jam CDs to his computer, and what that song they'd played about surfing was called.
It was called "Amongst the Waves" and it was from Backspacer. We listened to it in the car on the way back to the apartment. Eddie had intro-ed that song by saying "This is a song you'll like if you're a surfer. Or you'll like if you're in love. If you're a surfer in love it'll blow your fucking mind." They ended up playing most of Backspacer that night, including "The Fixer," "Got Some," "Johnny Guitar," (less obnoxious live then it was on the record) and a powerful version of "Just Breathe" that featured just Eddie, alone, with an acoustic guitar. "We've been playing this with a string quartet, but...fuck it, this time I'm going naked." For the record, he remained fully clothed throughout the whole show. Just saying. Mike said that song was what proved to him what a singer Eddie Vedder really is. Even if I, sadly, can no longer deny that the alcohol and a lifetime of smoking have eroded the window-rattling power he had when he was twenty-five, the raw, unironic, unapologetic honestly of his voice is still among the most formidable weapons in Rock and probably (hopefully) always will be.
Eddie told stories about the band's respective histories in San Diego: Matt Cameron was born there, Mike McCreedy lived there as a kid, Eddie spent about two decades there after leaving Illinois, discovering surfing, learning guitar, and working odd jobs as well as morphing into the open wound he'd be when he shipped a demo-tape to some dudes in Seattle who were looking for a singer.
One more story from Eddie: Pearl Jam's single longest-running roadie (now working for Ben Harper) was the first of the band's extended "family" to take the big step into adulthood and have a kid. He had an adorable little daughter, all the more adorable (according to Eddie) for being named "Lou. What's cuter then a girl named Lou?" Eddie remembered going to the hospital the day after she was born to visit her, and catching the new parents on their way home. Dad went to put the new Mom in the car, and somehow Eddie was left holding this day-and-a-half-old baby, trying to shelter her from the pouring Seattle rain.
"She just turned sixteen today!"
He brought "Lou-Lou," a blond girl in a sporty hat who was only a little bit shorter then the front-man, out onstage, put his arm around her, and hugged her like an adoring uncle. Then he had the whole arena sing "Happy Birthday" to her while the band brought out a cake and had her blow out the candles. I didn't miss that when it looked like she didn't have enough lung-power and was gonna miss a candle or two, Eddie, hovering just over her shoulder, lurched forward to help, but she got it. Everyone cheered.
Someone just became the coolest kid in school. Suck it, My Super Sweet Sixteen. You brats all WISH you could be Lou-Lou.
I ask you, how many multi-millionaire, A-list, globe-trotting, platinum-selling bands would do that for the kid of a former roadie?
Mike McCreedy's old high-school drama teacher, whom he has kept in touch with over the years, was there, and that fact had inspired Eddie to track down an important teacher from HIS high-school days, and actually find him! "After thirty years, I just had to tell him..." he gestured around at the audience. "Check this out! This one is for them." And they played Betterman... which of course the entire audience sung along to.
Eddie talked about how he had worked as a night-shift security guard, and had had "a really great boss" whom he had begged to let him get a mohawk, saying "I really appreciate this job and it's a great job and I appreciate that you gave me responsibility, making me SUPERVISOR of night-shift security and gas-pump detail," he said with relish, "and I wish I could promise it would be worth it but I can't because I don't know, it might never go anywhere at all, and I like this job a lot but if I don't do this thing, this punk rock thing, I..." he didn't finish the thought.
And his boss thought about it, hemmed and hawed and eventually said "Yeah, you should do it."
The boss was actually there that night: a huge black guy in the VIP section that Eddie kept pointing at through the whole story. He was pointing back and pumping his fist. The mood was so joyous and communal that Eddie closed with, "I liked that job, it was a great job, but this job, this job I've got now...I AIN'T NEVER GONNA QUIT!" You believe he means it.
I can't help but wonder if that boss had ever heard Eddie sing before he decided to humor his rock and roll dreams. I wonder if he suspected that he'd be standing in a stadium full of thousands of people all transported, all because of his supervisor of night-shift security and gas-pump detail. And his band, of course.
Who knows where talent comes from. Some people are just born with the raw stuff to conquer the world. But it doesn't do everything: far more people have talent then manage to build an actual life with it. Some crash and burn trying. Most take a look at the odds and choose a normal, reliable life instead, keeping their talent locked in a secret box inside them.
Some make it to Viejas Stadium, standing center-stage with their old mentors just off stage left, bursting with pride while an entire arena belts out the words to a song you wrote in your room when you were a teenager.
Also, there is Mike McCreedy. If you ask me he is, bar none, the best guitarist to come out of Seattle since Hendrix himself.
I'm going to quote Jason Owens of the San Diego News Network because it summises the ending of the show perfectly:
Finally the curtain call. Lou-Lou returned to the stage. The two music teachers, who had replaced their students for a cover of "Little Wing," also came back to the stage. Everyone threw their arms around each-other, and bowed deeply.
They don't make rock shows better then this one.
My sister's boyfriend is named Mike. He was extremely accommodating. So much so that he was actually OK with us ditching the lousy seats we were given and sneaking closer. So instead of being up in the nosebleed section staring at Matt Cameron's back all night, we were actually only a few rows up, off stage left--
But you know what, you don't really care about any of that. I'll talk about the show now.
First off, Ben Harper rocks. There's lots of other ways to say that, but none of them sum it up so nicely. He's clearly a powerful enough force to rock a venue on his own, and he deserved way better then a half-empty arena of concert-goers who are barely paying attention. At least they WERE barely paying attention until the tiny, flannel-clad Eddie Vedder staggered onstage and he and Ben ripped through a cover of "Pressure" which really woke everyone up.
Eddie, it turned out, wasn't just staggering around because he's clumsy. Someone who made his name climbing hundreds of feet onto lighting fixtures, leaping over speaker cabinets, and generally being a human tornado wouldn't have made it into his forties if he was clumsy, but at this show he'd be limiting his stuntwork to some gravity-defying yoga-type poses with the very sturdy microphone stand. Other things he tried, like the jumps, the throws, and the simply walking across the stage wouldn't work so well for him.
Blitzed. Three sheets to the wind. Shitfaced. Hammered. Furry. Zipped. Talking to Earl on the Big White Phone (my favorite). Call it whatever you want, it's probably why Eddie Vedder squeaked on his highest notes and breathed through his lowest, but losing his voice didn't stop him at Outside Lands, so getting swimming drunk wouldn't stop him in San Diego. Pearl Jam was wrapping up the American leg of the Backspacer world tour with this show, and three members of the group spent important parts of their lives in the city so they were treating it like a homecoming and celebrating accordingly. "We got lots of family and friends here," said Eddie, "and you guys are making us look really good, so thank you!"
As usual, you'll have to go elsewhere for the setlist. It didn't strike me as that special until the encores, which were heavy on the hits, but this was one of those shows where the energy hit the roof early and just stayed there. The crowd was on their feet, almost every song was a sing-along, and the group were fired up. Quoth Eddie: "We got a shitload of amps and guitars, lets blow the roof off this motherfucker."
THIS is why Pearl Jam has made it almost twenty years. played tens of thousands of shows over almost twenty years, but they seemingly effortlessly convince you that tonight, tonight, is as special for them as it is for you. They are as glad to see you as you are to see them. After tens of thousands of shows to massive audiences all over the world, how the hell they manage to do it is beyond me, but Mike (who had only a passing knowledge of Pearl Jam) walked out of there talking about what a down-to-earth, genuine, likable guy that singer seemed to be. He said it was cool that they played "Last Kiss" facing the seats directly behind them where Mike and I would have been if he hadn't gotten away with stealing closer. That was considerate of them. Then Mike asked if he could burn my Pearl Jam CDs to his computer, and what that song they'd played about surfing was called.
It was called "Amongst the Waves" and it was from Backspacer. We listened to it in the car on the way back to the apartment. Eddie had intro-ed that song by saying "This is a song you'll like if you're a surfer. Or you'll like if you're in love. If you're a surfer in love it'll blow your fucking mind." They ended up playing most of Backspacer that night, including "The Fixer," "Got Some," "Johnny Guitar," (less obnoxious live then it was on the record) and a powerful version of "Just Breathe" that featured just Eddie, alone, with an acoustic guitar. "We've been playing this with a string quartet, but...fuck it, this time I'm going naked." For the record, he remained fully clothed throughout the whole show. Just saying. Mike said that song was what proved to him what a singer Eddie Vedder really is. Even if I, sadly, can no longer deny that the alcohol and a lifetime of smoking have eroded the window-rattling power he had when he was twenty-five, the raw, unironic, unapologetic honestly of his voice is still among the most formidable weapons in Rock and probably (hopefully) always will be.
Eddie told stories about the band's respective histories in San Diego: Matt Cameron was born there, Mike McCreedy lived there as a kid, Eddie spent about two decades there after leaving Illinois, discovering surfing, learning guitar, and working odd jobs as well as morphing into the open wound he'd be when he shipped a demo-tape to some dudes in Seattle who were looking for a singer.
One more story from Eddie: Pearl Jam's single longest-running roadie (now working for Ben Harper) was the first of the band's extended "family" to take the big step into adulthood and have a kid. He had an adorable little daughter, all the more adorable (according to Eddie) for being named "Lou. What's cuter then a girl named Lou?" Eddie remembered going to the hospital the day after she was born to visit her, and catching the new parents on their way home. Dad went to put the new Mom in the car, and somehow Eddie was left holding this day-and-a-half-old baby, trying to shelter her from the pouring Seattle rain.
"She just turned sixteen today!"
He brought "Lou-Lou," a blond girl in a sporty hat who was only a little bit shorter then the front-man, out onstage, put his arm around her, and hugged her like an adoring uncle. Then he had the whole arena sing "Happy Birthday" to her while the band brought out a cake and had her blow out the candles. I didn't miss that when it looked like she didn't have enough lung-power and was gonna miss a candle or two, Eddie, hovering just over her shoulder, lurched forward to help, but she got it. Everyone cheered.
Someone just became the coolest kid in school. Suck it, My Super Sweet Sixteen. You brats all WISH you could be Lou-Lou.
I ask you, how many multi-millionaire, A-list, globe-trotting, platinum-selling bands would do that for the kid of a former roadie?
Mike McCreedy's old high-school drama teacher, whom he has kept in touch with over the years, was there, and that fact had inspired Eddie to track down an important teacher from HIS high-school days, and actually find him! "After thirty years, I just had to tell him..." he gestured around at the audience. "Check this out! This one is for them." And they played Betterman... which of course the entire audience sung along to.
Eddie talked about how he had worked as a night-shift security guard, and had had "a really great boss" whom he had begged to let him get a mohawk, saying "I really appreciate this job and it's a great job and I appreciate that you gave me responsibility, making me SUPERVISOR of night-shift security and gas-pump detail," he said with relish, "and I wish I could promise it would be worth it but I can't because I don't know, it might never go anywhere at all, and I like this job a lot but if I don't do this thing, this punk rock thing, I..." he didn't finish the thought.
And his boss thought about it, hemmed and hawed and eventually said "Yeah, you should do it."
The boss was actually there that night: a huge black guy in the VIP section that Eddie kept pointing at through the whole story. He was pointing back and pumping his fist. The mood was so joyous and communal that Eddie closed with, "I liked that job, it was a great job, but this job, this job I've got now...I AIN'T NEVER GONNA QUIT!" You believe he means it.
I can't help but wonder if that boss had ever heard Eddie sing before he decided to humor his rock and roll dreams. I wonder if he suspected that he'd be standing in a stadium full of thousands of people all transported, all because of his supervisor of night-shift security and gas-pump detail. And his band, of course.
Who knows where talent comes from. Some people are just born with the raw stuff to conquer the world. But it doesn't do everything: far more people have talent then manage to build an actual life with it. Some crash and burn trying. Most take a look at the odds and choose a normal, reliable life instead, keeping their talent locked in a secret box inside them.
Some make it to Viejas Stadium, standing center-stage with their old mentors just off stage left, bursting with pride while an entire arena belts out the words to a song you wrote in your room when you were a teenager.
Also, there is Mike McCreedy. If you ask me he is, bar none, the best guitarist to come out of Seattle since Hendrix himself.
I'm going to quote Jason Owens of the San Diego News Network because it summises the ending of the show perfectly:
The biggest hits had already been played, but the show didn't end. Eddie thanked everyone from the heart and said goodbye, but the show didn't end. Mike had to leave to get to the car before he got ticketed, but the show didn't end. The house lights came up, but the show didn't end. Mike turned the end of his solo into a whole other song while his bandmates ran around throwing guitar picks, set-lists, and drumsticks at the crowd. Up until the very end, the energy level was just insane. Like that, it was over."While Vedder takes center stage on almost anything and everything Pearl Jam, the final two songs were definitely about Mike McCready and his guitar.
With the crowd hungry for another Pearl Jam hit, the band delivered with a version of “Alive” from the debut album that featured McCready and Vedder climbing on to the tops of the stage-side speakers as McCready wailed on what may be the band’s most familiar guitar riff.
By the time they closed with “Yellow Ledbetter,” which McCready transitioned into a Hendrix-esque “Star-Spangled Banner,” there was nothing left to give."
Finally the curtain call. Lou-Lou returned to the stage. The two music teachers, who had replaced their students for a cover of "Little Wing," also came back to the stage. Everyone threw their arms around each-other, and bowed deeply.
They don't make rock shows better then this one.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Dreamer Reviews: Black Gives Way to Blue
Grunge was a genre that saw more then it's fair share of brilliant singers. Layne Staley of Alice in Chains was one of them. Layne had a voice like a heartbroken werewolf, all bitterness and wild power, and he could hold his own easily with rock's best frontmen.
Layne Staley is also the one Grunge casualty to boast of an end even more harrowing then Kurt Cobain's suicide blast to the head. A shotgun, though gruesome, is at least quick. Layne chose the long, lonely, painful path of the hard-core drug addict. In the end, he had become so isolated that he would be dead for weeks before his 6'1, 86-pound body was finally found.
Maybe that's what Jerry Cantrell, the band's surviving principle songwriter, is referring to in "All Secrets Known," the opening track of Black Gives Way to Blue. This is Alice in Chains first album in fifteen years, and first album ever without Layne, but their former band-mate casts a long, dark shadow over the group that they have only just begun to make peace with.
The song starts with a Slash-in-a-haunted-house style riff, which swings back and forth as the vocals kick in. "Hope / A new beginning/ time/ time to start living," a life-affirming sentiment made flat and factual by the droning, weary singing. Jerry Cantrell, lead guitarist and the band's principle songwriter, has mostly taken over lead vocal duties, and his voice, though tuneful with a pack-a-day grizzled edge to it, lacks the dog-of-war power that Layne took with him to his grave. Instead Jerry sounds flatly amazed that life continues on even after "we died." There's no joy here, just perseverance in a world that won't ever be the same, and for reasons everyone knows about.
The group members have, for the most part, avoided talking too explicitly about Layne in public, but for for me it makes the most sense to think of this album as the band's attempt to say goodbye to their band-mate properly, even if posthumously. Like most posthumous goodbyes, they'll probably spend the rest of their lives trying to get it right.
Check My Brain has become a hit all over rock radio and it's easy to see why: the churning, droning guitars are classic Alice in Chains. Jerry Cantrell's singing voice may or may not be up to sharing space with a ghost, but he's a powerhouse on the guitar and probably always will be. He doesn't have the naked virtuosity of Mike McCreedy but his brand of droning, haunted, bluesy metal sounds like nothing else you'll hear.
The song's topic is Cantrell's re-location from Seattle, with it's rain and oppressive cloud of memories, to sun-bathed Los Angeles which he declares "alright" with all the enthusiasm he can muster. It looks like California is one of the last places he expected to end up, let alone be happy. You get the sense that he's not really at peace with being at peace, calling himself "a creep in the fog," but he's found healing there, for better or worse.
Last of my Kind is the first track on the album co-written by new member William DuVall, and it starts with an atmospheric, haunted ambiance before degenerating into the kind of deconstructed, post-apocalyptic noise of see-sawing, screaming guitars and slow, thundering drums. It's a one idea song and while rocking hard, I found it a bit musically underwhelming.
The lyrics are pure Alice in Chains too: a portrait of a mythical outcast, exiled and forced to scrounge for survival in a world that hopes the hardship will beat him into complacence. It's dark, it's dream-like, and it fits right into the pantheon of dystopian metaphors that Alice in Chains has always traded in.
Your Decision is the first track on the album worth actually buying it for. It's a mostly acoustic number and displays an unexpected strength for the new Alice in Chains: sentiment.
I was listening to this track on headphones in the middle of the community college computer lab and I started tearing up. In public. Some mournful cello adds portent to the situation, the acoustic guitars have an almost folk feel before the aquatic, electric solo kicks in. This is one of the first tracks were new guy William DuVall's supporting vocals are audible,
The lyric writer was, simply, powerless. He couldn't stop "you" from destroying yourself. He couldn't change the fact that, when faced with the world, you chose to die rather then deal. They needed you. You choose fear instead. It's a choice you made knowing what it meant, and it inflicted no small damage on the people around you. "You feed the fire that burned us all/when you lied."
The singer loves you and he hates you, he's washed his hands of you for the pain you've caused him, he desperately misses you. There's something bitter and angry in this song, wounded and howling, quiet and sad. Tragedies are whirlwinds, and there are no easy answers. Art might be unique in it's ability to take something so painful and make it into something so beautiful. The spell it casts lasts long after the song ends.
This live performance is noteworthy too. First because the lack of strings and the totally acoustic treatment of the song makes it sound more frank and places everything in a smaller space. William Duvall's choice to wear sunglasses onstage is an interesting one: they make him stylish but anonymous. Jerry Cantrell's face, on the other hand, says everything. He's the beating heart of this band. Maybe he always was.
Bands tend to stick together because they believe they can bring out the best in each other. If the three of them didn't still believe they have something to offer the world, as a group, then this resurrection would have never happened. Where DuVall fits in I don't know quite yet.
A Looking In View was the first taste anyone got of this album, being the framework of the atmospheric and very NSFW music video that featured, in succession: child abuse, obsession, decay, repression, dehumanization, religious fanaticism, despair and, at the end, something resembling renewal. The whole sad play is bathed in the colors of despair and isolation, and there's even a visual reference to Alice In Chains very first hit single. This video is what got me paying attention to this band's comeback. Bands that play this grim card are a dime a dozen now, but this one might just be the real thing. Another interesting note: the band themselves don't actually appear in the video, and that works too.
The song itself is like a dirge: the tempo is torturously slow, like a migrane throb, but everything piled on that kick-drum beat comes on like a hurricane: the bass-line is breakneck, the guitars drone and shriek, the vocals snarl. It's a long song, over seven minutes long, ending in a fade-out. It's a fairly accurate barometer of whether or not you'll like this new Alice in Chains: if you got through the whole thing, then you'll get through the whole album. It's also the second song on the album to end in a fade out. Apparently new AIC is more interested in how things start these days then how they end.
When The Sun Rose Again is where things slow down for me. Well they slow down for everyone, it's a very slow piece with acoustic guitars and shakers easily audible, and though this combination is usually a recipe for sadness, this song is more pensive and vaguely ominous then sad, and the lyrics are the album's most ambiguous yet. "Were you burned away/ When the sun rose again?" could be a reference to the resurrection of the band, or a retelling of The Snowman so that doesn't narrow it down. "Pray / squeal when you're caught/ cry/ it's not my fault," which, though straight-forward enough in it's imagery, could refer to any number of things. "Time to trade in never-befores / Selling out for the score" could be nitpicked to death. We're in dense metaphor country here, but at least we're out of fade-out country. The next songs flow flawlessly, one into the other, letting the landscape build: a feature they didn't even have to make a big deal about in the promos, (cough)Timbaland!(/cough)
Acid Bubble starts out sounding like A Looking In View's little, more sensitive brother with it's buzz-sawing guitars, the murderously slow pace, but the relentlessly dark tone suddenly takes a more mysterious turn when the chorus starts soaring. "I am the child that lives and cries in the corner." Since this is AIC we're talking about, they soar on broken wings close to the ground, but they are on wing nevertheless. This is as anthemic as post-Layne Alice in Chains is gonna get, I suspect. It even contains a Green-Day-Style plot-twist when the style shifts to a menacing march that sounds like an army advancing, then retreating, then taking the hill for good over the songs six minutes.
Lesson Learned reminds me of "Last of my Kind" in that it's another sloggy rock number that is shorter then "A Looking In View" and doesn't have "Acid Bubble's" militant plot-twist. However, it does have a nice tremolo-heavy solo.
It could be interpreted as being about that rock-bottom moment when you learn that the end is not the end. "Nowhere to buy in, most of us hiding, others are shining" is another nice positive thought wrapped in so much world-weary drear that you'd ALMOST think the singer was being sarcastic if the tone wasn't so frank. This is a quality Jerry Cantrell's voice has that Layne's never did. Layne was a beast of the underworld, and he never went near sentiment without the armor of angry resignation. Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall can voice the occasional positive thought without sounding sappy or insincere. "In your darkest hour you strike gold."
Take Her Out is yet another sloggy, droning rock number. Make no mistake: this album is not a triumphant return for one of the 90s most evocative rock groups. The musical choices themselves are redundant enough to make this a promising start at best. Yes, the sludgey metal IS Alice in Chains, but Cantrell himself is usually more then willing to dabble in other styles. I hope they just need to get their nerve back.
All the same, I'm probably not alone in suspecting that "Her" in the title is Alice herself (i.e, his band) and this song is as close to an answer to those who question his right to resurrect the group as we are probably going to get.
If I'm sure of one thing, it's that Jerry Cantrell wants to be in this music thing for the long-haul. His millions haven't robbed him of the fire in his belly. He's also realized that he's always going to be "Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains," expected to play those songs. Well, he wrote those songs.
"I feel time is dragging on/ Aren't you getting tired of me?" he asks. Who is he asking? Himself? The fans who keep showing up to his shows? The band-mates who where quick to answer his homing beacon? The people waiting for him to decide whether to claim AiC for himself or split from it entirely? All of them?
"Want to take her out again." At least he knows he wants to do what he's doing. It's everything else that's uncertain.
Private Hell is slow, with a mournful tone the electric guitar solo gently weeps, the arpeggio riff the song seems written around is beautiful, strong, and very sad. It'd be too easy to say this one is about the self-imposed suffering that you-know-who locked himself into. He's not the only one in the world who ever died this way. Choosing to stay in the cell you made for yourself, opting out of love, joy, and eventually life itself, nevertheless the song doesn't have much of "Your Decision's" droning bitterness. This song is a cry of mourning.
Black Gives Way to Blue. If you need one reason to get this album, it's this song. The song is a sensitive arrangement of acoustic guitars, a slow tempo, delicate, rushing cymbals, and one crying electric guitar that made me think of Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight:" slow, beautiful, and as full of love as a guitar can be. I even heard a xylophone in there somewhere. The band really pulled out all the stops for this song.
By the way, according to the liner notes, the piano was played by Elton John. Elton John + Alice in Chains = Owch my brain. However, if it sounds dorky in concept, it's not at all dorky in practice. This is the only piano I can find anywhere on the album and it gives this track a graceful solemnity.
Every time they've performed it live, it's the last song they play, and they've played it "for Layne." And maybe this is the best way to handle Layne, his legacy, and their own grief. After all the blessing, damning, begging, loving, cursing, and crying is over, this is the best thing you can do for the ghost you see everywhere.
You tell him you'll never forget him.
You tell him you love him.
Then you let him rest.
If this is the start of a new stage of Alice in Chains, or just the farewell the band deserved, I can't say. But I'll be listening. That's for sure.
Layne Staley is also the one Grunge casualty to boast of an end even more harrowing then Kurt Cobain's suicide blast to the head. A shotgun, though gruesome, is at least quick. Layne chose the long, lonely, painful path of the hard-core drug addict. In the end, he had become so isolated that he would be dead for weeks before his 6'1, 86-pound body was finally found.
Maybe that's what Jerry Cantrell, the band's surviving principle songwriter, is referring to in "All Secrets Known," the opening track of Black Gives Way to Blue. This is Alice in Chains first album in fifteen years, and first album ever without Layne, but their former band-mate casts a long, dark shadow over the group that they have only just begun to make peace with.
The song starts with a Slash-in-a-haunted-house style riff, which swings back and forth as the vocals kick in. "Hope / A new beginning/ time/ time to start living," a life-affirming sentiment made flat and factual by the droning, weary singing. Jerry Cantrell, lead guitarist and the band's principle songwriter, has mostly taken over lead vocal duties, and his voice, though tuneful with a pack-a-day grizzled edge to it, lacks the dog-of-war power that Layne took with him to his grave. Instead Jerry sounds flatly amazed that life continues on even after "we died." There's no joy here, just perseverance in a world that won't ever be the same, and for reasons everyone knows about.
The group members have, for the most part, avoided talking too explicitly about Layne in public, but for for me it makes the most sense to think of this album as the band's attempt to say goodbye to their band-mate properly, even if posthumously. Like most posthumous goodbyes, they'll probably spend the rest of their lives trying to get it right.
Check My Brain has become a hit all over rock radio and it's easy to see why: the churning, droning guitars are classic Alice in Chains. Jerry Cantrell's singing voice may or may not be up to sharing space with a ghost, but he's a powerhouse on the guitar and probably always will be. He doesn't have the naked virtuosity of Mike McCreedy but his brand of droning, haunted, bluesy metal sounds like nothing else you'll hear.
The song's topic is Cantrell's re-location from Seattle, with it's rain and oppressive cloud of memories, to sun-bathed Los Angeles which he declares "alright" with all the enthusiasm he can muster. It looks like California is one of the last places he expected to end up, let alone be happy. You get the sense that he's not really at peace with being at peace, calling himself "a creep in the fog," but he's found healing there, for better or worse.
Last of my Kind is the first track on the album co-written by new member William DuVall, and it starts with an atmospheric, haunted ambiance before degenerating into the kind of deconstructed, post-apocalyptic noise of see-sawing, screaming guitars and slow, thundering drums. It's a one idea song and while rocking hard, I found it a bit musically underwhelming.
The lyrics are pure Alice in Chains too: a portrait of a mythical outcast, exiled and forced to scrounge for survival in a world that hopes the hardship will beat him into complacence. It's dark, it's dream-like, and it fits right into the pantheon of dystopian metaphors that Alice in Chains has always traded in.
Your Decision is the first track on the album worth actually buying it for. It's a mostly acoustic number and displays an unexpected strength for the new Alice in Chains: sentiment.
I was listening to this track on headphones in the middle of the community college computer lab and I started tearing up. In public. Some mournful cello adds portent to the situation, the acoustic guitars have an almost folk feel before the aquatic, electric solo kicks in. This is one of the first tracks were new guy William DuVall's supporting vocals are audible,
The lyric writer was, simply, powerless. He couldn't stop "you" from destroying yourself. He couldn't change the fact that, when faced with the world, you chose to die rather then deal. They needed you. You choose fear instead. It's a choice you made knowing what it meant, and it inflicted no small damage on the people around you. "You feed the fire that burned us all/when you lied."
The singer loves you and he hates you, he's washed his hands of you for the pain you've caused him, he desperately misses you. There's something bitter and angry in this song, wounded and howling, quiet and sad. Tragedies are whirlwinds, and there are no easy answers. Art might be unique in it's ability to take something so painful and make it into something so beautiful. The spell it casts lasts long after the song ends.
This live performance is noteworthy too. First because the lack of strings and the totally acoustic treatment of the song makes it sound more frank and places everything in a smaller space. William Duvall's choice to wear sunglasses onstage is an interesting one: they make him stylish but anonymous. Jerry Cantrell's face, on the other hand, says everything. He's the beating heart of this band. Maybe he always was.
Bands tend to stick together because they believe they can bring out the best in each other. If the three of them didn't still believe they have something to offer the world, as a group, then this resurrection would have never happened. Where DuVall fits in I don't know quite yet.
A Looking In View was the first taste anyone got of this album, being the framework of the atmospheric and very NSFW music video that featured, in succession: child abuse, obsession, decay, repression, dehumanization, religious fanaticism, despair and, at the end, something resembling renewal. The whole sad play is bathed in the colors of despair and isolation, and there's even a visual reference to Alice In Chains very first hit single. This video is what got me paying attention to this band's comeback. Bands that play this grim card are a dime a dozen now, but this one might just be the real thing. Another interesting note: the band themselves don't actually appear in the video, and that works too.
The song itself is like a dirge: the tempo is torturously slow, like a migrane throb, but everything piled on that kick-drum beat comes on like a hurricane: the bass-line is breakneck, the guitars drone and shriek, the vocals snarl. It's a long song, over seven minutes long, ending in a fade-out. It's a fairly accurate barometer of whether or not you'll like this new Alice in Chains: if you got through the whole thing, then you'll get through the whole album. It's also the second song on the album to end in a fade out. Apparently new AIC is more interested in how things start these days then how they end.
When The Sun Rose Again is where things slow down for me. Well they slow down for everyone, it's a very slow piece with acoustic guitars and shakers easily audible, and though this combination is usually a recipe for sadness, this song is more pensive and vaguely ominous then sad, and the lyrics are the album's most ambiguous yet. "Were you burned away/ When the sun rose again?" could be a reference to the resurrection of the band, or a retelling of The Snowman so that doesn't narrow it down. "Pray / squeal when you're caught/ cry/ it's not my fault," which, though straight-forward enough in it's imagery, could refer to any number of things. "Time to trade in never-befores / Selling out for the score" could be nitpicked to death. We're in dense metaphor country here, but at least we're out of fade-out country. The next songs flow flawlessly, one into the other, letting the landscape build: a feature they didn't even have to make a big deal about in the promos, (cough)Timbaland!(/cough)
Acid Bubble starts out sounding like A Looking In View's little, more sensitive brother with it's buzz-sawing guitars, the murderously slow pace, but the relentlessly dark tone suddenly takes a more mysterious turn when the chorus starts soaring. "I am the child that lives and cries in the corner." Since this is AIC we're talking about, they soar on broken wings close to the ground, but they are on wing nevertheless. This is as anthemic as post-Layne Alice in Chains is gonna get, I suspect. It even contains a Green-Day-Style plot-twist when the style shifts to a menacing march that sounds like an army advancing, then retreating, then taking the hill for good over the songs six minutes.
Lesson Learned reminds me of "Last of my Kind" in that it's another sloggy rock number that is shorter then "A Looking In View" and doesn't have "Acid Bubble's" militant plot-twist. However, it does have a nice tremolo-heavy solo.
It could be interpreted as being about that rock-bottom moment when you learn that the end is not the end. "Nowhere to buy in, most of us hiding, others are shining" is another nice positive thought wrapped in so much world-weary drear that you'd ALMOST think the singer was being sarcastic if the tone wasn't so frank. This is a quality Jerry Cantrell's voice has that Layne's never did. Layne was a beast of the underworld, and he never went near sentiment without the armor of angry resignation. Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall can voice the occasional positive thought without sounding sappy or insincere. "In your darkest hour you strike gold."
Take Her Out is yet another sloggy, droning rock number. Make no mistake: this album is not a triumphant return for one of the 90s most evocative rock groups. The musical choices themselves are redundant enough to make this a promising start at best. Yes, the sludgey metal IS Alice in Chains, but Cantrell himself is usually more then willing to dabble in other styles. I hope they just need to get their nerve back.
All the same, I'm probably not alone in suspecting that "Her" in the title is Alice herself (i.e, his band) and this song is as close to an answer to those who question his right to resurrect the group as we are probably going to get.
If I'm sure of one thing, it's that Jerry Cantrell wants to be in this music thing for the long-haul. His millions haven't robbed him of the fire in his belly. He's also realized that he's always going to be "Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains," expected to play those songs. Well, he wrote those songs.
"I feel time is dragging on/ Aren't you getting tired of me?" he asks. Who is he asking? Himself? The fans who keep showing up to his shows? The band-mates who where quick to answer his homing beacon? The people waiting for him to decide whether to claim AiC for himself or split from it entirely? All of them?
"Want to take her out again." At least he knows he wants to do what he's doing. It's everything else that's uncertain.
Private Hell is slow, with a mournful tone the electric guitar solo gently weeps, the arpeggio riff the song seems written around is beautiful, strong, and very sad. It'd be too easy to say this one is about the self-imposed suffering that you-know-who locked himself into. He's not the only one in the world who ever died this way. Choosing to stay in the cell you made for yourself, opting out of love, joy, and eventually life itself, nevertheless the song doesn't have much of "Your Decision's" droning bitterness. This song is a cry of mourning.
Black Gives Way to Blue. If you need one reason to get this album, it's this song. The song is a sensitive arrangement of acoustic guitars, a slow tempo, delicate, rushing cymbals, and one crying electric guitar that made me think of Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight:" slow, beautiful, and as full of love as a guitar can be. I even heard a xylophone in there somewhere. The band really pulled out all the stops for this song.
By the way, according to the liner notes, the piano was played by Elton John. Elton John + Alice in Chains = Owch my brain. However, if it sounds dorky in concept, it's not at all dorky in practice. This is the only piano I can find anywhere on the album and it gives this track a graceful solemnity.
Every time they've performed it live, it's the last song they play, and they've played it "for Layne." And maybe this is the best way to handle Layne, his legacy, and their own grief. After all the blessing, damning, begging, loving, cursing, and crying is over, this is the best thing you can do for the ghost you see everywhere.
You tell him you'll never forget him.
You tell him you love him.
Then you let him rest.
If this is the start of a new stage of Alice in Chains, or just the farewell the band deserved, I can't say. But I'll be listening. That's for sure.
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