We get lots of weird stuff in our mail bins at KSCR, stuff that we wouldn't play even if pigs flew. Heck, not even if a mastodon flew, and those guys are way fatter and more extinct. Don’t get us wrong. We certainly appreciate the way artists risk ridicule and rejection to get their stuff heard. But sometimes the stench is as pungent as ammonia, and there’s just no ignoring it. Here’s the first in a collection of glimpses into a world of oddities.
As you can already tell from the powder makeup and black lipstick, Batlord's soul is as dark and desolate as a bottomless pit. Considering this, it's a bit strange seeing him lurk around KSCR as much as he does. If I was an evil lord, I'd sit in the Oval Office on a throne made of human bones, with a hundred naked virgins laying at my feet, and a hoard of flying monkeys fetching me boxes of PS3s. I certainly wouldn't spend my time behind a computer, spamming people with emails and trying to plug a third-rate album to a college station.
My initial thought was
Hey, this Kevin guy is a smart fella. He’s totally into satirizing the American condition. But Kevin isn’t joking…not even close. He really
really wants us to know that he loves America. He’s got 12 tracks of Gaye-lite R&B with Bush-ultra lyrics. He’s even dyed his hair white for that founding father look. Maybe if you look at the back of your $2 bill, you’ll see Kevin in the background, raising the roof as Jefferson signs the declaration. I’m not saying that patriotism is uncool. But a lack of musicianship and all-around bad taste (did you see the cover?) is totally uncool. A few notes…
1. It’s not cool to have the Star Spangled Banner as one of your tracks
2. It’s not cool to call on the services of a Jimmy Stewart impersonator
3. It’s not cool to have inane intro tracks
4. It’s definitely not cool for a black dude to write and sing tracks called “APD Rock (Dedicated to All Law Enforcement Officers)� and “Climb The Ladder�
5. And it’s not cool when your album is on CDbaby.com, and some soccer mom has this to say about your album: “I really like this clean fresh music, that my kids can listen to. I like the message it conveys. It makes you realize how proud we should be for our American Heros [sic]. Keep the music coming, I will be looking for more!�
Want to know what Kevin thinks about capitalism, education, racism, and America in general? Take a listen:
Kevin - "Climb the Ladder"
We get a bit suspicious when a promotional move comes off as being hokey and desperate. It tells us that the artist isn’t confident enough in his/her own material, and thinks it prudent to tie in an incentive for us to play their music. Koko Butta (that’s
butta, not butter) had their agent come to us with a Halloween-themed gift basket. We overlooked the CD that came with the offering, but gladly devoured the healthy servings of Dorritos and mini-Crunch bars. On a separate note, a mouse that had invaded the office gnawed through a bag of Lays. It, too, passed on Koko Butta’s album.
If you’ve been anxiously anticipating a release from Metric and happened to stumble upon Emily Haine's first solo album, "Knives Don't Have Your Back," you should probably pretend this album doesn't exist. Truth be told, "Knives Don't Have Your Back" is far from an extension of Metric. This does not mean in anyway that it’s not an exceptional album with great vocal and acoustic experimentation on Emily’s behalf, but this is not a Metric album. For being partly responsible for the indie-rock sensation of Metric, this musical experiment has the potential to either turn die-hard Metric fans away or appeal to them in a completely different way. Her painful stories and hidden emotions come out in this oddly appealing album, but with the omission of her band, she comes off as strangely vulnerable. She’s up on the stage with nothing but her piano.
Don’t expect boredom, I don’t see this album working out any other way than this. I guess I may be at an advantage (or perhaps a disadvantage) because I didn’t buy this album as a Metric fan. I just bought it. The thing is, with such poignant lyrics emanating through the core of every song, the absence of a band really makes these songs all the more intense and full-bodied. It’s the difference between listening to a woman spill over onto piano keys as opposed to watching her rock out with her boys. It adds a bit of vulnerability. It's personal, uncomfortably personal, and Haines is really allowing herself to be vulnerable.
Haines takes full advantage of the solo spotlight, crafting words that reveal her painful self-awareness. I found a great quote from Under the Radar: "I really don't relate to the female singer-songwriter, you're all precious and everyone has to hush while you go over the shadows of your emotions. I've always hated that." It becomes almost impossible to not be “hush� in the midst of her emotional nudity. Emily tells stories about her father's sudden death, the turmoil of life on the road, and the currently aimless fight for women’s rights-- that make Knives' come off as an extended excerpt from her long, sleepless nights.
Knives starkly puts Emily’s weakness on display. She stops being rock & roll for 45.6 minutes. I should mention the final track on the album. "Winning", she offers the album's prettiest elegy and takes on the role of comforting superior: "What's bad?/ We'll fix it/ What's wrong?/ We'll make it alright/ It's gone/ We'll find it/ Takes so long/ We've got time, all the time." The brief reprieve from grim existentialism is defensive but almost tangible; a deep, demanding struggle. But while often difficult to listen to, Knives is an entirely inclusive prescription. As a solemn meditation on modern depression, it's packed with loss but never quite loses.
Listen to tracks at EmilyHaines.com
As revealed to me at Cdbaby.com, Yosef’s story is an epic journey through the shadows of middle-life drudgery. Yosef had lost it all in 2001. His home, his family: it all went down the drain in a flash. He doesn’t elaborate as to how he lost it all, or what “all� meant (did his wife pass away? did she dump him?), but we’re told that he succumbed to alcoholism afterwards.
One day, as he was driving down an unnamed freeway and feeling morbidly depressed, his eyes went out suddenly. It was as if someone reached into Yosef’s brain and flicked a lightswitch off. And there he was, driving down Highway 666 without the slightest notion of direction. After cruising unharmed for a miraculous three minutes, despair sank its teeth into Yosef and he called out to a higher being for salvation. And wouldn’t you know it, he inexplicably regained his eyesight and pulled into the nearest 7-11. You can interpret this in many ways. But for Yosef, it meant he needed to pull his shit together and write an album titled Magistic Soul (apparently, it also meant he had to buy a King Arthur ensemble from the Dollar Store).
I read Yosef’s story and thought it was the strangest thing because the same thing happened to me…except in reverse. My story began with Magistic Soul. I popped it into my CD player while driving through the neighborhood. Two songs in, I went blind. Somehow I managed to get home, but when I got there I found that my wife and children had left me.
Ok, I feel bad for putting the guy down like this. Yosef is actually a decent musician. He practically “[wrote] and arranged� the entire album himself, plus he’s pretty deft on classical guitar. I’m not sure where his roots are grounded but the old fashioned stuff is actually enjoyable. It’s when he starts “modernizing� himself, with porno-basslines and Phil Collins-inspired lyrics, that he becomes that wedding singer everyone feels embarrassed for.
I originally thought that End of the Week was a “best of� compilation because the songs were written over a 15 year span (as indicated on the back of the CD). But after some thinking, I realized that it just meant Pat took 15 years to write this album. Sure, there’s a whopping 21 tracks. But then again, they’re usually less than 2 minutes long and sound as if they were recorded in a bathroom with a hand-me-down guitar and a Yamaha keyboard. Plus the lyrics are sparse and repetitious. I think Fritchey fans are feeling let down, even more so than the Guns N’ Roses followers who are waiting 10 years just to find out how shitty Chinese Democracy is. And what’s with the album cover? Pat explains himself on Myspace: “i had to duck or bumped my head on the end of the week.� Sure Pat, sure.
Pat falls in love:
However, despite the dull segments in present day, the past and future stories are gorgeous to look at and Aronofksy’s impeccable sense of the power of imagery is on full display. He recreates the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition in only one scene, but the moment is so over-the-top and stunning that it carries as much weight as an entire movie devoted to the subject.
As with that one beautifully horrible moment, the rest of The Fountain carries Aronofsky’s touch for an utter lack of subtlety. The visuals are stunning because they are so audacious and, because he avoided computer graphics, realistic in a surreal sense. The scenes in outer space are wonderful in the same quiet, simple sort of way that those in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey were.
The movie’s parallel storylines are visually connected in a way that never feels forced. Unfortunately the connections in dialogue and story always feel awkward because they are repeated ad nauseum. For a movie that wants to make itself very clear thematically and in terms of character development, it is also frustrating that The Fountain becomes indecipherable in the final minutes, opting for visual beauty instead of a real conclusion.
The Fountain is a movie that manages the rare feat of looking great as well as carrying a brain in its pretty little head. How unfortunate, then, that it can never quite find the words to express itself without stuttering and mumbling. The Fountain shows the emotional end of three connected stories, Aronofsky just isn’t able to make sense of what it all means.
For more articles by John Wheeler, check out Bandwidth Magazine. Available on campus now!
Robert Pollard has been cranking out rock/pop gems for a long time now and he just doesn't seem capable of slowing down. As the principle member of Guided by Voices, Pollard wrote and recorded so many catchy 2-minute songs that standard LPs just weren't enough for him. A lot of his best tracks instead found their way onto EP's or big box sets that contained unreleased demos and outtakes. In addition to GBV's staggering output (check allmusic if you don't believe me because "prolific" is an understatement here), Pollard has been recording and releasing albums under either his own name or under a variety of one-time side projects. Since the official disbanding of guided By Voices in 2004, Uncle Bob Pollard has released two legitimate solo albums. From a Compound Eye came out January of this year and featured a double-album's worth of Pollard's musical experiments. This week marks the release of his second solo album since the end of GBV and Normal Happiness delivers the short, catchy rock n' roll songs that Guided By Voices fans have come to know and love. "Supernatural Car Lover" is one of my favorite tracks because it features the kind of catchy, bouncy guitar that just feels good. You can listen to the track 
Recidivism.org has a stream of the Trail Of Dead version: