Vol 3 No. 6 /////
July 2011
LABORER OF LOVE
The Story of St.
Louis Folksinger
Cassie Morgan
LOOKING
AHEAD
TO RED SKY
PLUS:
80 MINUTES
OF MUSIC
That Need
to Be Retired
LETTER
FROM
THE EDITOR
CONTENTS
Vol 3 No. 6 ///// July 2011
FEATURE
DOES ANYONE
want to sign my petition to make it illegal for Kevin James to make more
movies? Or at least these "creators
of Paul Blart: Mall Cop", as if that
were something to advertise in a
trailer. I've just begun on a tangent,
and I haven't even started. So let me
first apologize for our tardiness and
assure you that things will run on
schedule from now on. I'm thrilled
to present this issue, which features Mike Sueper's (our newest IF
contributor) thoughts on Omaha's
upcoming Red Sky Festival, as well
as the cover interview with St. Louis
folksinger Cassie Morgan. The photo
shoot was done by past IF contributor and friend Nate Burrell, also from
St. Louis. Also, we present IF's Capsule Review debut, with four brief
film reviews by Rob DeStefano. For
the rest of the info, I direct you to the
Table of Contents, just a few short
pages away.
Thanks for all your support, and
keep your eyes open for IF ads, as
we will be launching our first ever ad
campaign so that maybe more people will start knowing about us. Oh,
and if you're interested in helping
out with that at all, please write us at
[email protected]. Thanks so
much again for all the support, and
stay cool!
james passarelli
02
06
Tampering with the Classics:
Ryan Waring rearranges the
tracklist of the Pixies' Doolittle,
plus Mike Sueper assesses Omaha's
Red Sky Festival as it happens
REVIEWS
20
Reviews for Bon Iver,
My Morning Jacket, Thurston Moore,
The Tree of Life and more
INTERVIEW
14
IF tells the story of budding
singer-songwriter Cassie Morgan
PLAYLIST
28
80 Minutes of songs we'd like to
hang up for good
OUR STAFF
ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS
Editor-in-Chief
Copy Editing
James Passarelli
Pat Passarelli
Ainsley Thedinger
Design
Kathryn Freund
Photography
Nate Burrell
Featured Writers

We gladly welcome
any criticism or
suggestions. If you
have any ideas for
the magazine, or if
you would like to be
a part of it, please
contact us at: info@
inflatableferret.com.
Rob DeStefano
James Emerson
James Passarelli
Ray Saada
Asif Siddiqi
Mike Sueper
Ryan Waring
CONTACT US
via Email
via Interweb
GENERAL INQUIRIES
[email protected]
WEBSITE
www.inflatableferret.com
TOM KUTILEK
[email protected]
HANS LARSEN
[email protected]
JAMES PASSARELLI
[email protected]
RYAN WARING
[email protected]
04
Copyright © 2011 Inflatable Ferret
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06FEATURE
THE RED
SKY MUSIC
FESTIVAL
ON DECEMBER
15, 2010, the Metropolitan Entertainment & Convention Authority
(MECA), along with Live Nation, announced plans to stage a six day music festival to take place this Monday
through Saturday at TD Ameritrade
Park and the surrounding Qwest
Center property in Omaha, Nebraska. The news release boasted that
the inaugural Red Sky Music Festival
was to bring the top entertainment
and breakout artists to Omaha, and
was to feature artists of all genres.
Although Omaha was already
home to the modest, indie Maha Music Festival (now in its third year),
Omaha residents and music fans
were excited at the enormous potential that Red Sky held. After all,
in a December Omaha World Herald
article, MECA president Roger Dixon
stated “We’d like to follow the format
of something like Summerfest in Milwaukee.” Omaha music fans immediately surmised which acts might
be headed to the Heartland, excited
by the possibilities of an even larger
festival to bring the city further festival exposure. One radio advertisement even claimed it would make the
Heartland city “the music capital of
the world.
So how did a music festival with
such promise become such an unmitigated disaster? Why is there so
much resentment towards the organizers of a music festival that has yet
to occur? Let’s compare it to other
summer and spring music festivals.
Festivals such as Pitchfork,
Coachella, Bonnaroo, and the Newport Folk Festival give music fans a
chance to see some of the best acts
in music today while also gaining
invaluable exposure for new and rising artists. Festivals like these make
an effort to provide an enjoyable,
unique experience for reasonably
affordable prices, there are countless other music festivals saturating the market only looking to find
a niche and make a quick dollar.
A GUIDE TO RUNNING
YOUR MUSIC FESTIVAL
INTO THE GROUND
Words: Mike Sueper
07
feature
Get ready to up jump the
boogie with Kid Rock on
Wednesday July 20th.
RED SKY belongs
to
the latter category. While the aforementioned festivals are organized
by people who are passionate about
music and involved in music promotion companies (Bonnaroo: AC Entertainment, Coachella: AEG Live,
Pitchfork: Pitchfork Media, Newport:
Newport Festivals Foundation).
MECA, on the other hand, is a nonprofit organization in charge of running Qwest Center Omaha, Omaha
Civic Auditorium, and TD Ameritrade Park (the new $131 million
ballpark built to house the NCAA
College World Series, which will sit
vacant for most of the year).
While MECA has had no prob-
08
feature
lem filling the Qwest Center’s 17,000
seats (in 2005 they were ranked
eighth of one hundred in Pollstar’s
Magazine’s study of top ticket selling
arenas in the world), the brand new
baseball stadium put the pressure on
once again.
With the thought of the ballpark
sitting idle, MECA needed to be aggressive and find ways to use it. So
they explored the idea of a music festival and sent officials to Summerfest in Milwaukee (the largest music
festival in the world) and a concert at
Wrigley Field in Chicago during the
summer of 2010. While in attendance
they took notes about the logistics
of running such events and how they
were setup and the stages used. The
music festival was finally announced
to the public on Dec. 15, 2010. Problems and frustration occurred in the
following months.
January 19, 2011 Coachella Music Festival announces their initial
lineup. Fans rejoice. February 15:
Bonnaroo Music Festival announces their initial lineup. Fans rejoice.
Feb. 16: I send an email to Red Sky
inquiring when they would announce
their lineup. The following day the
response e-mail says they will announce their lineup in March. March
4, 2011 Pitchfork announces their initial lineup. Fans rejoice.
Many local music fans who were
initially excited about Red Sky are
left frustrated by MECA’s inability to
announce a lineup. They decry how
MECA is being inconsiderate to fans
that are trying to plan summer vacations and deciding whether to take
off work in late July so they can attend the music festival.
May 2 (nearly three months after
the projected announcement date):
Red Sky announces its first headlining act, 311, to mixed reactions. Two
days pass before three more acts are
announced. This process continues
for three more weeks. Fans have
become infuriated that they have
waited so long for a lineup that is
considered a disaster.
Although MECA had partnered
with Live Nation to book acts for the
festival, it is likely that began trying
to book acts too late in the process.
By the time they had announced the
existence of the festival, other festivals across the country had already
spent months booking acts. The end
result was anything but satisfying:
headliners Kid Rock, Journey, Tonic,
Better than Ezra, and the Zac Brown
Band more than make up for the few
high quality acts (Buddy Guy and
George Clinton among them).
Another aspect that festival organizers probably had not planned
on being seen as a negative was
their ticket pricing. Whereas music
festivals like Pitchfork and Bonnaroo sell day passes or a three day
pass for the whole festival at a set
price. MECA is charging $15 for a
day pass to stages B and C or $30
for a three day pass, and $60 for a six
day pass, none of which includes a
ticket for the main stage. Depending on who is headlining, you will be
expected to pay between $25-$35 for
311 and Sublime with Rome or $25$125 for Journey with Night Ranger.
The MECA public relations department has conducted
their jobs in such an inconceivable
manner that it leaves little doubt as
to why so many people view this festival as a disaster. As fans of music,
we can only hope that the organizers
of future festivals can learn from the
mistakes of MECA and the Red Sky
Music Festival so that they are not
repeated again. Great music festivals are created by those who are
passionate about music and know
Yup. 311 is headlining Red Sky's
Main Stage on Tuesday July 19th.
“ Great music
festivals are created
by those who are
passionate about
music and know
better than to
alienate their
potential patrons.”
better than to alienate their potential patrons. Profit has driven Red
Sky, and I would put my money on
its failure. Maybe after a disastrous
inaugural year, Red Sky will back
off and let its older, smaller brother
Maha grow without being stifled by
financial concerns.
IF
09
feature
10
Tampering with
the Classics
THE PIXIES'
DOOLITTLE
ring
Words: Ryan Wa
T
S
I
L
K
C
A
R
T
E
L
T
T
T
I
L
O
DO
)
9
8
'
A
(CIRC
Hey
ne
o
G
ey ven
k
n
o
M o Hea
t
aser
1. Deb
e
n
2. Tam of Mutilatio
e
3. Wav d
e
Man
4. I Ble omes Your
eC
5. Her
eaven
d
H
a
e
o
t
D
.
e
6
ey Gon
k
n
o
M
7.
ieves
r
G
.
r
8. M
Jones
y
t
i
k
c
a
9. Cr
ve You
o
L
a
L
10. La 3 Baby
un
.1
11. No e Goes My G
er
12. Th
y
13. He r
ve
14. Sil e Away
ug
15. Go
ve
o
L
a
LaL
You
THE FERRET
is prepped to embark on a new expedition.
What would this world be had Columbus
never wept as he first crossed the Rubicon?
Or if Da Vinci had never flown too close to
the sun in his pursuit of flight? Or if Galileo
never dared take his first step on the moon?
Thankfully, we won't ever have to know, because humanity refuses to be confined by its
apparent limitations and doesn't care to piss
off a couple naysayers. As humans, we at the
Inflatable Ferret can't help but embrace our
pompous urge to zealously defy the dissenters, and so we've ridden that characteristic to
a new level of arrogance we call "Tampering
With the Classics". In this infant series, we
will revise the albums those humbler might
deem "unrevisable" had they the gall like
us to make up a word. Perhaps in our wanton disregard for post-modern scripture, you
might think we have debased (you'll see what
I just did there in a second) these canons like
we have our history. To ease your outrage, just
think of these segments as the results of an
alternate universe where we actually have the
talent, originality and creativity to produce
such great recordings. Maybe in the next life.
We will commence with a less offensive revision: the Pixies' 1989 sophomore studio release, Doolittle, a verifiable alternative masterpiece and seminal impetus for a plethora
of 90s garage bands. I say "less offensive"
because I opted to retain all fifteen tracks
from the album (which I won't always feel
obliged to do). Fifteen tracks may be excessive in most cases, but not when none cracks
the four minute mark. Each song also exhibits
some semblance of pop influence and all are
decidedly self-contained, which makes the
order of the tracks less objective. That said,
I've taken my best attempt to prove otherwise.
11
feature
1
8
“ Here Comes Your Man”
2
4
“Mr.
Just get it out of the way. Cf. Pavement’s live show
treatment of “Cut Your Hair.” “Here Comes Your Man”
was the catchiest and most lighthearted song Black
Francis ever penned: a great way to open an album
without alienating listeners immediately.
Grieves
10“
Dead
And just like that, we begin to alienate. I can’t deny the
fantastic juxtaposition produced by placing these songs
back to back. Start with cheerful pop and quickly shift to
something dark and volatile.
“
3
”
Debaser
Now that Francis’ vocal chords are sufficiently strained
from “Debaser”, let’s keep the momentum going.
Lots of power in a short punch—more than worthy
of the cleanup spot.
5
“Hey”
Braggadocio straight to ballad, “Hey” is minimalist
beauty. Kim Deal’s bass line soothes and grooves
simultaneously.
7
6
“There Goes
My Gun”
More an interstitial than anything else, “There Goes my
Gun” gives a jolt after “Hey”. Its titular mantra is also a
nice intro for the next track.
“Silver”
”
The sexist subtext, present or
absent, of “Tame” makes a suitable
litmus test for a case study in
the biblical story of David and
Bathsheba on “Dead”.
”
Can’t let this one slip to the back of the album.
“Debaser” is an attention grabber and a home run,
and doesn’t everyone else liken track numbering and
baseball lineups like I do?
While I reject the idea that Deal’s a better writer than
Black (sorry, love), I can’t deny that her pen gives each
album a perfect Side A closer.
12
feature
”
And the muted chords that open “Mr. Grieves” set an
ominous tone for the latter half, an assortment of songs
that, like this track, repeatedly reference oceanic, divine
and death motifs.
“I Bleed”
“Crackity Jones
9
“Tame”
The cons of being a music lover in the digital age: I
thought Doolittle had fourteen tracks and no “Tame” for
years. When I heard it in the two-hole for the first time—
even with plenty of Pixies familiarity—it shook my teeth.
The best representation of the group’s renowned loud/
soft dynamic is the perfect chaser to “Mr. Grieves”
and a fortuitous omen for the album’s end.
11
“LaLa Love You”
“Gouge
Away”
12
1
3
“
“Dead” and “Gouge Away” are obvious
complements. So what better way to transition two
peculiar biblical stories than to let drummer David
Lovering take the mic for a parody of sappy, selfaware love songs? It makes Pixies sense.
The biblical tale of Samson and Delilah, via the
unpredictable mouthpiece sometimes named Black
Francis. That whammy bar coda of the former closing
track kicks perfectly into the first note of “No. 13 Baby”.
No. 13 Baby
Duh.
15
14“
”
Monkey Gone to Heaven
“Wave of
Mutilation
”
”
Deal’s bass line here bears an uncannily resemblance to the
outro of its predecessor. But don’t think “Monkey Gone to
Heaven” is here by default. This anthem carries the second
half and thrives as the penultimate track.
Maybe it’s just because “goodbye” is uttered in
the first stanza, but this song just feels like a nice,
surreal postscript for the album.
13
feature
14INTERVIEW
Laborer
of Love
How St. Louis Folksinger
Cassie Morgan
Destroys the Myth
of the Lazy Musician
INTERVIEW: James Passarelli // PHOTOGRAPHY: Nate Burrell
AS FAR BACK
as I can remember, I had always looked up to great nonclassical musicians for their
creativity and skill, but never
for their proclivity to strenuous labor or tiring hours. Long
hours on tour buses, I understood, were part of the job description, but the very concept
of a band was created by men
and women who found it impossible to hold a nine-to-five.
Indeed, the myth of the lazy
musician—which, for me, was
not wholly debunked until recent years—is ever present.
Biopics and news headlines of
rock’s most conspicuous personalities in the 60s and 70s
unsurprisingly incited the pigeonholing of all musicians as
lazy or self-indulgent for decades to come.
Any artwork or performance
requires a measure of self-indulgence, yes. And we all know
a guy who dedicates more than
his timeshare to revealing the
“moving” powers of his music.
As for the headlines, it is probably best not to borrow Brian
Jones or Ozzy Osbourne’s moral compasses for a camping trip.
It’s all too easy to forget
that you and I haven’t heard of
the vast majority of musicians,
that most of them don’t have a
salary. And that the majority
of them have fulltime jobs. St.
Louis folksinger Cassie Morgan
reminded me of this fact when I
talked to her a few days ago.
WHEN I asked Morgan what
she liked about her city’s music
scene, she listed a handful of bands
(Kentucky Knife Fight, The Blind
Eyes, and Sleepy Kitty among them)
that she praised for their unique
sounds, their exceptional live shows,
and, most importantly, for their
strong work ethics.
An underrated representative—
and now veteran—of her beloved
city’s music life, the twenty-nine
year old knows a thing about work
ethic herself.
Born in Bonnie, Illinois (present population: somewhere near
400), Morgan was far removed from
the creative forces that flooded the
oldies pop radio station her mother
would listen to in the car. And there
weren’t many opportunities to extend
her music tastes any further.
“I always had an interest in music, but being from such a small town,
we didn’t have a lot of resources. At
my grade school, we didn’t have music classes or anything.”
Still, between the numerous
country pop radio stations that
reached Bonnie and her parents’
modest music collection, Morgan
had an eclectic, if unconventional,
listening foundation.
“We had a record player growing up, but the only records we had
that I remember were Alabama, the
Chipmunks, and the Beatles’ Blue
Album [1967-1970]. There wasn’t a
particular taste that my parents really followed.”
Well before her own taste had
begun to develop, Morgan found she
had a penchant for music of any kind.
Without having anything to play, she
satisfied her urge the only way she
knew how: by singing at church. And
it wasn’t until she turned sixteen that
she decided to take up an instrument; since her great uncle owned a
small guitar shop nearby, it seemed
the most logical thing on which to
spend her past several years’ birthday money.
16
interview
“ I always had
an interest in
music, but being
from such a small
town, we didn’t
have a lot of
resources.”
Franz Nicolay looking
stylish and Chaplin-esque.
(Photo: Miles Kerr)
Morgan and The LONELY PINE
bandmate Beth Bombara
with the tools of the trade.
17
interview
18
interview
Her brother Chad was soon to
follow, trying his hand at the drums
and guitar himself.
“We probably pushed the limits
of our parents' sanity while sitting in
the living room playing our respective guitars over the conversation or
television in the background,” Morgan recalls fondly of her early rock
star days.
In 2000 Morgan left to attend
Greenville College, a small liberal
arts school just an hour north of Bonnie, but her studies in biology and
psychology, and a semester abroad in
Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, left little time for extracurriculars. The latter, however, caused
her to take her first ever plane ride,
and she soon realized a strong desire
to share her talent and passion with
international communities, as well as
struggling members of her own Midwestern community.
Without a solid plan after graduating, Morgan traveled ninety miles
southwest to St. Louis to live with
a friend and experience her first
months in an American city. With
no rent to pay and few responsibilities outside applying for graduate
school, she set out reading all the
books she could find and took her
music hobby to another level, devouring stacks of CDs and tiring her
fingers on the guitar.
In the birthplace of Scott Joplin’s iconic “The Entertainer,” a city
flush with roots music history, it was
inevitable that jazz and blues would
find their way into Morgan’s musical conscience. Indeed, her first love
of the genres hit quickly and forcefully. The alternately soothing and
haunting voices of Billie Holiday
and Etta James and Dave Brubeck’s
signature-shifting classics stood out
among the catalogue of historical
jazz figures with which she familiarized herself. These and other early
pioneers bolstered Morgan’s growing suspicion that songwriting was
more than a passing phase. More
importantly, though, they gave her a
greater sense of her limitations, or
lack thereof.
“I think in the beginning it came
sort of naturally. I didn’t have any
agenda in saying, ‘I’m going to write
songs.’ But the more time that I was
able to spend just sitting with the
guitar in solitude, the more natural it
felt. And I think once I developed my
own playing style, I was able to tinker
with the melodies and experiment to
find out the best keys for my voice."
“I always enjoyed singing, but
having only sung in church, all of the
songs were written in keys in which
the female vocalist sings really high.
And I always had a really hard time
with it because I don’t have a very
high voice. So it was this interesting
discovery that, while I couldn’t control my voice, I could figure out ways
to become comfortable with it.”
Morgan found a home at St. Louis University’s Graduate School of
Social Work, where she earned her
master’s in 2007 and later found a
research job. Without free weekdays
Morgan had to focus even more on
her music with what little time she
had. After hearing a few demos, Joey
Lemon, of the Chicago band Berry
(and a friend of Morgan’s) invited her
up to his studio to record a proper EP.
“I really wasn’t sure of it because
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do
with music at that time. But he was
convincing, so I went up to Chicago
by myself one January when it was
as cold as it had ever been, and we
recorded two or three songs that
weekend.”
For the first time in her life,
Morgan had “tons of instruments
to choose from to create layers”
and to embellish her stripped-down
folk. She later returned to record a
few more songs, and in 2008 she released it under her name as the Pine
So Sweet EP.
The next year, Beth Bombara, a
friend and fellow Greenville graduate, approached Morgan to start a
band together. After a little more
hesitation, Morgan met with Bombara, and the two began writing similarly sparse melodies. Morgan returned
to Lemon’s studio, this time with
a new bandmate and a new name:
Cassie Morgan and the Lonely Pine.
Their first full LP, Weathered Hands,
Weary Eyes, was recorded in just one
intense weekend session, but you
would never guess by listening. The
relaxed melodies throughout the album are cool enough to seem effortless, but too beautiful and focused
to have been lazily thrown together.
And despite the duo’s liberty with
Lemon’s resources and production
talent, the album sounds just as organic as their latest song, “Paper
Leaves,” which was captured on
a Chicago porch and features
improvised birdsongs and
fire truck sirens.
“I think it helps that
we are a duo because
that
automatically
simplifies
things,”
she says of her new
music relationship.
“But it also means
that we have to be
creative with how we
approach our songs.
And I think it makes
it more visually interesting that the sounds
we make come from
just two people, as opposed to having each
player be responsible for
just one instrument.”
Cassie Morgan and the
Lonely Pine have taken their music throughout the Midwest, though
their jobs make it difficult to travel
too far outside of St. Louis. The band
grabbed the attention of the St. Louis
Riverfront Times, which claimed, “If
folk music is to remain vital, evolving
and yet faithful to its timeless tradition, then it needs more artists like
Cassie Morgan.”
She is currently the clinical coordinator of a research project in
the Department of Family and Community Medicine at St. Louis University that seeks the best ways to
treat young adults with fetal alcohol
spectrum disorders. She sets up interventions and family therapy and
keeps records of families’ progress,
while also helping the department
write other grants. Sound like the
antithesis to the libertine, ergophobic musician stereotype? She is. The
epitome of the working musician,
Morgan finds that necessary balance
between work and music. But talking to her over the phone, I get the
sense she wouldn’t make such a fine
distinction between the two. In each
instance, she is sharing gifts with her
St. Louis community; but fortunately
for those of us in the rest of the world,
her music can reach everyone.
“ I think in the beginning
it came sort of naturally...
once I developed my
own playing style, I was
able to tinker with the
melodies and experiment
to find out the best keys
for my voice.”
IF
Morgan playing on the
streets of St. Louis.
REVIEWS ////Music
Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Bon Iver
(Jagjaguwar)
Poor Justin Vernon faces the
Sisyphean task of following up his
breathtaking 2008 label debut with
anything not sounding 2000-and-late
in the daunting shadow of For Emma,
Forever Ago. Its unrivalled intimacy,
novel falsetto, heartbreak anthems
and, of course, widely recounted ascetic origins in a Wisconsin cabin
thrust Vernon into a spotlight since
intensified by a curious EP, Bonnie
Raitt covers on Jimmy Fallon and a
collaboration with Kanye West on the
rapper’s 2010 magnum opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. But while
these extracurriculars have magnified his exposure, they more than
suggested that a highly anticipated
sophomore release might rightly
tread new sonic horizons rather
than reflect a channeling of the old
demons he invoked for his woodsy,
stripped-down folk.
Bon Iver, Bon Iver (yes, for branding purposes that make even Vernon
himself cringe, that semi-eponymous
title is indeed the album’s name)
hardly gives the debut a cold shoulder. But while For Emma, Forever
Ago’s brilliance lies in its catharsis,
Bon Iver, Bon Iver captures Vernon
in a moment of ecstatic ingestion,
emerging from his solitude, where but
the handholding of an acoustic guitar
comforted his insecurities, to be instantaneously pierced with a surfeit
of artistic confidence by the gamut
of musical influences. Bon Iver, Bon
Iver is an amplification of that transverbation; think of an adolescent St.
Theresa taking piano lessons instead
of Sunday school.
Vernon’s halcyon digest most
clearly manifests itself in a drastically more prolific repertoire. While
For Emma, Forever Ago was not nec-
20
essarily devoid of ornamentation,
its barren moments heightened its
emotional profundity; while conversely, Bon Iver, Bon Iver’s sprawling but never self-indulgent ambition highlight this release. Despite
the brevity of the stage name, Bon
Iver would feel amiss without its
bread-like stapling guitar melodies
and Vernon’s buttery smooth vocal
layering, both of which reappear
prominently. But immediately on the
opening bricolage, “Perth,” Vernon
introduces his listeners to a new set
of textures provided by a stellar supporting cast. Sessionist Greg Leisz
kicks the track off with his pedal
steel guitar shortly before drummer
Matt McCaughan adds a march-like
snare pattern to a song that feels autonomous even before the horns and
synths really arrive. Mike Lewis and
Colin Stetson’s soulful saxes accentuate a groovy “Minnesota, WI”;
soaring strings arrangements levitate a jangling guitar on “Towers”
and supple piano chops on the delicate “Was.”, which best epitomizes
the album’s elusive and idiosyncratic
percussion work by nixing it nigh altogether; and ethereal synth, the
most frequent and irregular addition,
ushers in the calm before a stormy
climax on first single “Calgary”.
That buildup makes “Calgary”
the default anthem, the closest thing
to that which balladry tracks “Skinny
Love” and “Flume” seemed to affect.
Like For Emma, Forever Ago, Vernon’s
arcane, suggestive poetry glues the
album together with lush images of
the rustic upper Midwest. But beyond
satisfying audiophiles and naturalists, Vernon’s lyrics here carve out
and occupy a physical space of their
own. “Calgary” gives a sweeping sensory analysis of a cherished rebound,
“hair, old, long along/ your neck onto
your shoulder blades…hip under
nothing/ propped up by your other
one, face ‘way from the sun.” “Holocene” drops details attached to Vernon’s memories from holidays past,
a more distinct zeitgeist than what
the rest of his remarks conjure, but a
mood setter nonetheless. Sure, Vernon had hitherto provided little narrative anyway, but Bon Iver’s verses
eschew any specificity or framework
altogether. The results are at times
frustratingly impenetrable, but never
clunky and always richly illustrated
scenes from a romantically enlightened Neo-Platonic mind.
Likewise does the album stylistically capture Vernon’s extensive musical cenogenesis. Drawing upon the
many and varied genres with which
he has experimented since releasing
his debut, Bon Iver, Bon Iver reflects
the fortification of a dizzying pastiche
rather than a collection of personal
folk recordings. The Blood Bank vocodor oversaturation that prompted
a call from Kanye makes a return,
however in subtler, more refined instances that enhance and never detract from Vernon’s masterfully manipulated vocals. Like Bon Iver, Bon
Iver’s sophisticated, unpredictable
arrangements, Vernon’s capricious
vocal timbre keeps the entirety of the
listening experience a guessing game
while paving smooth transitions between folk, R&B, jazz, country, and,
the sore thumb in any other context,
soft-rock, which dominates the latter
half of the album.
“Calgary” allays the shock with
its magnificent escalation and climax before 93 seconds of feedback
on “Lisbon, OH” act as a warning
sign for one of the most daring closing tracks in recent memory. “Beth/
Rest” screams Miami Vice or Top Gun
sex scene, yuppie boat owners clad
in LRG cardigans, Tom Selleck and
glossy champagne flute dates before a fire or on a Hamptons beach:
a niche exploited by 10CC, Christopher Cross, and Michael McDonald
and relegated exclusively to ironic
parody in the quarter century since. A
puzzling antithesis to everything For
Emma, Forever Ago meant to anyone
who heard and felt Bon Iver’s music,
but a sincere, beautiful, and brilliant
puzzler. Dubious and cheesy in every
paradigm since the yacht rock phenomenon of the 80’s, “Beth/Rest” is a
game changer for future music off the
heels of nine expansive and ponderous tracks that prove Justin Vernon
worthy of enough artistic ethos to
not only prompt an about-face critical revision of a caricatured genre or
inspire its future musical integration,
but provide a watershed moment of
vindication for a snubbed bastard of a
decade. Sound crazy? Maybe it won’t.
Bon Iver
captures
Vernon in a
moment of
ecstatic
ingestion.”
ryan waring
New Brigade
Iceage
(Matador Records)
Let’s be honest, at this time last
year if someone were to tell you that
one of Summer 2011’s most talked
about new bands would be a teenage
group of Danish punks called Iceage,
you probably would have done a spit
take. Nevertheless, here they are, tearing through the blogosphere and clogging up message boards with typical
“next big thing” prattle. The fact that
little is actually known about Iceage
has led to rumors (like the one about
them flying back to Denmark after a
Brooklyn show for their High School
graduation) that have only added to
their aura. Despite this, their debut
album, New Brigade, is an alarmingly
solid record that defies expectations
“ Bon Iver,
and rages with an urgency not often
seen in indie music today.
New Brigade races past in just over
twenty-five minutes of noisy, aggressive, volatile music that will make you
want to smash everything within grabbing distance all while head-banging.
Yet, as is the mark of any good punk
record, there’s a method to the madness. Not surprisingly, considering
their young age, there are myriad influences peeking through on New Brigade, included hardcore, noise-rock
and even a little Silent Alarm-era Bloc
Party post-punk on tracks like “You’re
Blessed.” Iceage somehow manage to
mold all of these influences together
with skill beyond their years into a
surprisingly cohesive record with a
distinct style.
From the migraine-educing bass
drum pound in “White Rune,” to the
shoegaze noise explosion of “Shadows,” New Brigade is not exactly a
happy record. The echoey vocals
(sung in almost indiscernible English)
and the treble-heavy guitars come off
as brutally cold and isolating. Iceage
exhibit a terrifying aggression and
stone-cold seriousness that doesn’t
make New Brigade immediately accessible; however, multiple listens
to tracks like “Broken Bone,” or the
equally excellent title track, reveal
well-crafted hooks that can even be
downright catchy.
New Brigade demands your attention unlike any other record released
this year. One of the most striking
things about Iceage is how they can
pull off such gritty, abrasive punk but
still not at all sound like they’re trying
to pander to any “lo-fi” trends.They instead recorded New Brigade in a proper studio, letting their natural sound
speak and thrash for itself.
bryant kitching
21
reviews
“ Moore,
Demolished
Thoughts
Thurston Moore
(Matador Records)
22
reviews
What to say about Thurston
Moore? More sonic elder than sonic
youth at this point, Moore has been
slashing away his guitar for Sonic
Youth for over thirty years now. Since
the mid-nineties, he has occasionally
stepped out of his atonal noise-pop
sensibilities to release a solo album
or two. On Demolished Thoughts, his
fourth solo album, Moore embraces
the wooden acoustic guitar (mostly
12-strings) for a suite of nine songs.
These are not, however, entirely solo
songs but fully formed musical statements. Seconds into the album, the
music already communicates a lush
interior world: acoustic guitars are
backed by violins (Samara Lubelski),
harps (Mary Lattimore), and a sympathetic and ghostly rhythm section
(Joey Waronker and Bram Inscore).
The real collaborator here, though,
is Beck, who produced the album and
adorns Moore’s minimalist tunes with
structure and depth. Sonically, the
collaboration brings to mind Beck’s
classic Sea Change—another album
that breezes along the orchestral folk
highway traveled earlier by Tim Buckley or Nick Drake. That said, there is
also the deep imprint of late period
Sonic Youth here, especially in some
of the longer pieces like the nearly
seven minute “Orchard Street” where
Moore’s guitar stylings take him
out of conventional folk territory as
strummed chords circle in repetition
into echoes of dissonance and discomfort. But where Sonic Youth would
have pulled the trigger into a morass
of splintered noise, Moore, his guitar,
the violin and the harp, take the music
into a kind of wooden stratosphere:
imagine some of the music on Murray
Street played in an empty tenement
on the lower east side without amps
and you get the picture.
Moore has never had much vocal range—he tends to cycle through
some familiar cadences and note
sequences in his singing for Sonic
Youth. But here, the voice doesn’t
seem out of place. It’s mostly hushed,
almost whispered, like he’s talking at
3 AM, afraid to wake anyone up. One
of the most beautiful tracks on the
album, “Space,” combines this nightweary voice with hypnotic, opentuned guitar chords that convey a
summer about to turn into fall, a dusk
about turn to night, a closed room
about to open up into the night sky.
The song sails past for nearly seven
minutes on this taut inbetweenness
as Moore muses: “I used to have all
the time in the world / Cruising galaxies in search of gold.”
Moore has said in interviews that
some of the words on this album are
“too personal,” but there’s nothing
here that’s specific enough to pin
down. What it does communicate is a
sense of unease, things falling apart
and failing to reach equilibrium. And
it’s undeniably romantic, not in the
sense of sentimental or mawkish but
in the way that small moments of exchange between two individuals can
take on much bigger meaning, especially upon remembering. On the final
track, “January,” he sings: “He sees
her sleeping on the grass / I think I
heard a distant splash / In July she
came to play / By January he learns to
pray / Your shoes at the door / Waves
come crashing to the floor / He sees
your swimsuit on the grass / I thought
I heard a distant laugh.” And that’s it,
summing up a whole month.
It would be a mistake to characterize this album as Sonic Youth unplugged. Here, Moore communicates
his guitar,
the violin
and the
harp, take
the music
into a kind
of wooden
stratosphere.”
an entirely different sensibility: most
Sonic Youth songs always played on
emotional distance, sometimes underpinned by a knowing ironic wink.
There’s none of that here. The music
on Demolished Thoughts is subtle,
and yeah, emotional (although never
oppressive or maudlin). Beck’s production adds just enough reverb and
depth to the guitar tones to wrap the
music in a warmth that one would never have thought possible on a Thurston Moore record. At this point his
career (he’s 52), it’s clear that Moore
still possesses an adventurous spirit.
On Demolished Thoughts, he focuses
that spirit into one of his most cohesive statements, one that explores the
interior world of lost relationships and
anxious nostalgia through the medium
of acoustic pop. It’s one of the most
satisfying albums from the Sonic
Youth family in many years.
asif siddiqi
“ Suck it and
Suck It
And See
Arctic Monkeys
(Domino)
If they graded albums solely on
their titles, then the unfortunately
named Suck it and See by Arctic
Monkeys would score pretty damn
low. Luckily, there are people like me
to dig a tad bit deeper than what’s
written on the album cover. And as
it turns out, despite its not-so sexually ambiguous title, the Monkeys’
follow-up to 2009’s Humbug is an
unexpectedly enjoyable summer record. Arctic Monkeys don’t entirely
shed the skuzzy Black Sabbathinfused sound of their last record,
but they still tone it down considerably in favor of a cleaner, more accessible sound. This is an undeniably good move for the group, who
sounded too much out of place on
their last record. Despite commendable tracks like the pretty “Cornerstone,” Humbug’s dark grittiness
did not fit with the group’s post-punk
roots. It sounded like a band playing
dress up with long hair and leather
jackets. Suck it and See manages to
take some of the better cues from
Humbug and siphon them through a
poppier sound, with mostly successful results.
Suck it and See finds a nice balance between the snarky youthfulness of the Monkeys’ landmark debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s
What I’m Not, and the brooding maturity of some of their more recent
work. At times it has proven difficult
for the Monkeys to fit into their role
as one of the worlds most popular rock groups after they achieved
their fame by singing about how
poor and unpopular they were (see:
“From The Ritz to the Rubble,” or “A
Certain Romance”). But tracks like
“The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala”
and “Reckless Serenade” perfectly
merge the old with the new. Similarly, “Black Treacle,” with its biting
glam-rock guitar hook and upbeat
disposition, helps perfect a new
direction that Arctic Monkeys had
simply toyed with on their last two
records. Much of this success has
to be credited to the impeccable
songwriting of Alex Turner. In fact,
on Suck it and See, the lead singer/
guitarist emerges as one of the
most skilled young lyricists in the
world of rock.
Don’t get me wrong—Turner has
written the occasional lyrical gem,
but on Suck it and See the words are
truly the centerpiece. Turner sings
some of the cleverest lyrics this side
of Morrissey. Personal favorites include, “I feel like the Sundance Kid
behind a synthesizer,” “That’s not a
skirt girl, that’s a sawed off shot gun
/ and I can only hope you’ve got it
aimed at me,” and “Topless models
doing semaphore wave their flags as
she walks by and get ignored.” Turner’s words make Suck it and See a
more well-rounded album than Humbug, which is at times all bark and
no substance. The only complaint is
that Turner often sounds too timid
in his actual delivery of his lyrics,
as skillfully-crafted as they may be.
Some songs like the title track and
the fantastic closer, “That’s Where
Your Wrong,” may leave some longing for Turner’s cocky sneer from
past songs like “Fake Tales of San
Francisco.” Even when his band
pounds loudly behind him, Turner
still croons calmly, almost as if he’s
scared of being heard.
Arctic Monkeys are a band that
I keep expecting to hear fail. They
seem all but destined to fall by the
wayside on top of all the other over-
See manages
to take some
of the better cues from
Humbug and
siphon them
through
a poppier
sound,
with mostly
successful
results.”
hyped, under-talented British bands
of the mid-2000’s. Yet they always
seem to deliver, many times in a way
we didn’t expect. In fact, rather than
slowing down, Arctic Monkeys seem
to be hitting their mid-career stride
with Suck it and See. One can only
hope that they pick a better title next
time around.
bryant kitching
23
reviews
“ It has
Circuital
My Morning Jacket
(ATO Records)
24
reviews
It’s fitting that My Morning
Jacket’s latest release from ATO
Records should be named Circuital.
They haven’t necessarily come fullcircle so to speak—they’ve been on a
steady upward trajectory since their
1999 debut The Tennessee Fire (Darla)
and their acclaimed 2003 major label
step-up It Still Moves (ATO)—as
much as taken a moment to assess
where their sound ha gone over the
last decade.
It has never been a simple feat to
pin down a Jacket record to any one
genre. They arrived in a rush of warm,
bright, country-rock glory like a dust
bowl cyclone touching down in a mic’d
grain silo, and across five albums
they’ve thrown out lines in damn near
every direction they can reach from
Louisville—indie, classic soul, folk,
psychedelic rock, bluegrass, a dash
of Muppetry—and reeled something
back into the mix. Jim James, whose
vocals are arguably the strongest feature of the band, is always ready to
let us know how much Roy Orbison,
Marvin Gaye, Dr. Teeth, or Prince he’s
listening to at any given time. Last
October, Jacket played five shows
at Terminal 5 in New York, storming
through a full album each night, and
busting out covers of Elton John,
Sly Stone, Lionel Richie and Funkadelic in the encores. Jacket’s current lineup has existed since 2004, so
going back through their catalogue
from the beginning seems to have
given them a fresh perspective on
how they’ve evolved and where their
influences are. If Circuital’s opener,
“Victory Dance,” is any indication,
they haven’t wasted the opportunity
for reflection.
Fans need not be told that the
only way to experience My Morning
Jacket is in concert. The studio albums always seem to fall just short
of their genuinely epic live performances, especially James’ vocals,
which explode and soar onstage with
an energy nearly impossible to capture in a studio and without eighty
thousand people along for a four-hour
ride. The best reaction one can really
have to one of their records is: “This
would sound amazing live!” That said,
the production of Circuital, helmed
by James and The Decemberists collaborator Tucker Martine, pleasingly
balances some of the indie-influence
arrangements of Evil Urges with the
more driving, rootsier sounds of their
earlier material, and makes now a
better time than ever to catch them
when they hit your town. Some of
the most memorable cuts straddle
as many genre lines as ever: synths,
banjos, pedal steel, and metal guitar
converge on “You Wanna Freak Out,”
and James brings back his Suzuki
Omnichord to set soul rocker “The
Day Is Coming” to an electronic
texture. “Holdin’ On To Black Metal”—which sounds nothing like its
title—comes across more like a Stax
groove conceived for music festival
sing-alongs. James shows his singersongwriter cred on “Wonderful (The
Way I Feel),” a front porch ballad
worthy of The Band.
The breadth of My Morning
Jacket’s styles culminates on Circuital. If there is anything genuinely
circuital about it, it’s that this record
ties off one chapter for the band just
as it opens the next with a mature yet
fresh Jacket ready for more.
ray saada
never been
a simple
feat to pin
down a
Jacket
record to
any one
genre.”
Nothing
Is Wrong
Dawes
(ATO Records)
Listen to Nothing is Wrong for
the first time on an airplane if at all
possible. One to or from LA would
be ideal, but any flight will suffice. A
window seat view from atop a bed of
cumulous clouds makes a delightful
visual backdrop. Besides, Dawes’
new album is a travel record—but
that’s only secondary. First and foremost, it’s a love record. The former
theme makes itself evident in the
album’s first words: “These days
my friends don’t seem to know me
without my suitcase in my hand/
And when I’m standing still, I seem
to disappear.” Then, immediately
following, the latter: “But maybe
that’s how I found you/Maybe that’s
exactly what I want/Maybe meeting
you so far away from home is what
makes it all so clear.” It’s that kind of
straightforwardness that made the
band’s first album so satisfying, but
Dawes have more to offer than a lack
of pretense.
Their latest effort is rife with
simile and second person, sometimes even to the extent that Taylor
Goldsmith, the band’s primary songwriter, comes off as an amateur (especially puzzling is the line, “As I’ve
learned, time is a language, and it’s
the best way to explain how I feel” –
huh?). But the rest of the time, skillful lyrical and musical composition
makes us forget that the band’s four
members haven’t lived a collective
century. A soulful organ sometimes
takes the piano’s place, and scattered instrumental solos (like the
off-rhythm piano breakdown in “If I
Wanted Someone”) sound as organic as the charming lyrics. Even when
Dawes do fall flat, it’s okay because
of how unassuming they seem. Unassuming, but never timid.
“If I Wanted Someone” begins
with a badass guitar riff, Dawes’ answer to the stunning intro of “Mary
Jane’s Last Dance.” Then enter the
cool, rhythmic piano and modest
bass, and later, the song’s unforgettable chorus: “If I wanted someone
to clean me up, I’d find myself a
maid/If I wanted someone to spend
my money, I wouldn’t need to get
paid/If I wanted someone to understand me, I’d have so much more
to say/I want you to make the days
move easy.” As with any song lines,
my transcription gives shamefully
little insight into its lyric value, but
trust me when I tell you it’s worthy of
a rock legend.
Strong lyrics remain throughout
the record, but an especially memorable line is on “Million Dollar Bill,”
in which Goldsmith plots to stay
with his lost love through various
vicarious means. “When it hits me
that she’s gone,” he sings, “I think I’ll
run for president, get my face put on
the million dollar bill. So when these
rich men that she wants show her
ways they can’t take care of her, I’ll
find a way to be there with her still.”
The slow love ballad is the album’s
best example of Goldsmith’s humble
lyrical creativity.
Perhaps the greatest song is the
cool “So Well,” from whose chorus
the album gets its title. It features
scattered piano, acoustic guitar,
lackadaisical drums, and, most notably, the band’s brilliant vocal harmonies—all in homage to a woman
named Marie (she’s the one who
does it “so well”). And though the
first half of the album claims its two
best songs, the climax doesn’t come
until the seven spot, “Fire Away.”The
six-minute epic plays with all the
conciseness of a radio edit, beginning with Goldsmith singing words
of encouragement. But when Goldsmith’s younger brother Griffin (also
the band’s drummer) steps in with a
solo of his own, you’re liable to get
goose bumps. The two proceed to
echo each other in the best brother-brother combination west of the
National, and a scintillating guitar
solo wraps things up. As thrilling as
it is to listen to the song, I can only
imagine what the recording session
was like.
Most thrilling of all is that the
band has channeled—to some
extent, at least—the musings of
the venerable Warren Zevon. And
though his wit, pop melodies, and
melting pedal-steel will most likely
never be matched, Zevon’s spirit
certainly runs through Nothing is
Wrong. Goldsmith’s heartfelt lyrics over quick-paced pop melodies
and wistful harmonica call to mind
the Werewolf of London at his most
upbeat. But nowhere is his influence
more evident than in the album’s last
song, “A Little Bit of Everything,”
with its deliberate carnival piano,
pedal-steel, and march-like drums.
Do I want more people to know
about this band? I wouldn’t have written the review if I didn’t. But it’s refreshing to know that, as with Zevon,
Dawes’ words and music aren’t written for the sake of increased exposure. Now, for goodness’ sake, let’s
get them some anyway.
james passarelli
25
reviews
REVIEWS ////Movies
Submarine
Super 8
Terrence Malick
Richard Ayoade
J.J. Abrams
(Cottonwood Pictures)
(Warp Films)
(Paramount)
The Tree of Life
Time was when reaching for the
stars was considered a good thing.
Now you might as well take up a
wine habit and start collecting vinyl records, because there’s a good
chance “pretentious” will be thrown
your way. Just ask Terrence Malick,
the latest recipient of the Palme
d’Or: his cosmic reach is greater and
more literal than ever in The Tree of
Life. It’s not for nothing that the film’s
special effects supervisor, Douglas
Trumbull, also worked on 2001: A
Space Odyssey. At one point, Malick
pulls back from the central family of
the story to consider the beginning
of the universe and of life on Earth
in a startling montage of interstellar movements of energy, asteroid
impacts, and cellular development,
set to the soaring, tremulous Lacrimosafrom Zbigniew Preisner’s Requiem.
This sequence might be a bellwether for one’s reaction to TToL: is it
a heartfelt examination of the essential wonder of the universe, or is it an
attempt to pass off exploding stars
and pretty arias as insight? If Malick’s movies aren’t your cup of tea,
then you probably won’t be any more
pleased with his latest effort, which
evinces his trademark style aplenty.
There are the whispered voiceovers
from multiple characters, who ask
questions of an unknown addressee
in an idiomatic way; classical pieces
from composers contemporary and
canonical (among whom the film’s
composer, Alexandre Desplat, admirably holds his own); and gorgeous
shots, courtesy of the masterful cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki
using natural light. If, however, you
find Malick to have a sensitive and
unique eye and voice—an eye for
26
life’s subtle shifts between beauty,
sadness, and ecstasy, and a voice for
our existential wonderings—then it
should stand as a shining addition to
the filmmaker’s corpus.
TToL occupies most of its time
with a Texan family in the mid-century. A mother and a father (Jessica
Chastain and Brad Pitt) embody two
approaches to life: those of grace
and of nature. Under these competing influences, their three boys play
and grow in the sun-dappled streets
of suburbia, which act as both Eden
and the place of worldly learning.
Correctly or not, one might find
traces of a utopian admiration for
the Melanesians in The Thin Red Line
and for pre-colonial America in The
New World; but here, Malick cannot
be accused of a naïve or nostalgic
romanticizing, as innocence and experience mingle and collide in subtle
and brilliant ways. Light ramblings
through a meadow and kick-the-can
are followed by torturing a frog. That
this part of the movie is not strongly
directed by an overarching plot—almost like a long montage, or scenes
from a life—ensures that this mingling is not lifelessly causal: the villain did this to the protagonist, so
now he ties a frog to a rocket, etc. It
is organic, rather, and reflective of a
worldview that sees force and love,
giving and taking, as inextricable
parts of us. “If you really look carefully at natural light,” Lubezki told
Kodak, “you realize how complex it
is, and how it’s constantly shifting.”
He could just as well be describing
the multifarious weltanschauung of
TToL. Nature and grace ebb and flow
and mix.
Hip-deep in this tide pool is
Jack, the focus of the movie, who in
adolescence is played by the superb
Hunter McCracken. Malick continues
to demonstrate his talent for pairing image and music, particularly
in a joyous sequence set to Bedlich
Smetana’s rhapsodic Vltava, one on
par with the Vorspiel scene in The
New World, so acutely is the exuberance of the characters and the moment felt. Whatever one’s philosophical reservations about Malick, his
technical adroitness is undeniable.
Indeed, even with those reservations,
can he be called “pretentious”? Pretentiousness is the adoption of an
attitude; it implies a falseness or
insincerity. Terrence Malick’s movies are so feeling and unique that it
seems impossible that he is anything
but genuine and sincere. The Tree of
Life is a beautiful outpouring of that
sincerity.
james emerson
British director Richard Ayoade takes familiar adolescent
anxieties and reconstructs them
with heart and deliberation. Submarine is the product of his vision—a coming of age story that
pivots around fifteen year old Oliver Tate’s despairing quest to lose
his virginity and save his parent’s
marriage. Despite Tate’s precocious nature, he is fundamentally
immature and unversed in life’s
obstacles—perfectly acted by
Craig Roberts. This impotence is
translated with the help of superb
cinematography and its recurrent
images of desolate oceans and
waterfront. With this tight direction, the film creates an organic
empathy that is complimented by
the script’s consistent quips and
dark humor. The comedy plays
throughout but never detracts
from the story’s sensibility. To add
to Submarine’s proficiency, Alex
Turner of the Arctic Monkeys contributes several original songs.
UK, you win again.
The chemistry of a younger
Spielberg concoction is obvious,
but J.J. Abrams makes it his own,
delivering a visually stunning and
impassioned adventure that affirms him as a king of modern
blockbusters. In the summer of
1979, a group of young high schoolers—who spend their time toying
with Super 8mm film and worshiping Romero—witness a train derailment that unleashes an alien
creature into their small town. The
interplay between the children is
reminiscent of The Goonies; the
X-Men:
First Class
Midnight
in Paris
Matthew Vaughn
Woody Allen
(20th Century Fox)
(Mediapro)
Refreshing in all the right
ways, X-Men: First Class should
remind Marvel Studios that there
is more than just the facades
of heroes and villains. Director
Matthew Vaughn’s origin story
is set in an alternate 1960’s when
the Cuban Missile Crisis was an
eminent threat to global security,
causing mutants to choose sides
depending on his or her perception of society. Michael Fassbender as Magneto steals the
show—and owns it completely—
with a character arc that is both
emotionally resonant and wildly
entertaining; it ties nicely into
his friendship and subsequent
enmity with his moral adversary,
Charles Xavier, who is acted with
intelligence and naiveté thanks
to James McAvoy. The story occasionally loses its momentum
from flat—often puzzling—dialogue and an overwhelming
amount of plotlines, but in the
end its weaknesses succumb
to its strengths and wealth of
pleasing cameos; the result is
both a rewarding comic adaptation and a universally accessible
action narrative.
Woody Allen’s latest endeavor boasts a whimsical direction
and a greater efficiency, making it
one of his most captivating films
in recent years. Unlike the fragmented stories in You Will Meet
a Tall Dark Stranger, where the
whole doesn’t equal the sum of
its parts, Midnight in Paris follows
one protagonist, played in fluent
Allen fashion by Owen Wilson.
The film follows Wilson’s character during his vacation to Paris,
which is spent by day alongside
his ignorant wife (Rachel McAdams) and by night among art-
dialogue is hilarious, the characters are well cast, and they deliver
exceptional performances—most
notably newcomer Joel Courtney
as the lead and Elle Fanning as
his muse. At times the “monster
story” takes the backseat, limiting
the creature from reaching the full
potential of its intrigue, but this is
acceptable since Abrams as the
writer/director puts his young cast
in the foreground—surrounded by
impeccable effects—and allows
the emotions of growing youth to
play out.
ists and liberated thinkers of the
1920’s: Fitzgerald, Hemmingway,
Stein, et all. The story’s characters and themes are straightforward—almost excessively at
times—but they are utilized well
in this time traveling, nostalgic
comedy that has some enchanting resemblances to the Twighlight Zone’s “Willoughby.” The
conundrum of Miniver Cheevy
is at the film’s core, and Allen’s
sophisticated direction provides
a more than satisfying response,
decorated with abundant humor
and the Parisian setting.
rob destefano
27
reviews
80 SONGS
MINUTES
OF
05 10 15
That Need
to be Retired
Please note: this playlist is not titled "Songs We Hate and Wish Would Wither Away
and Die Horrible Deaths, Etc." We do not necessarily hate these songs. Now, if we
had access to a time machine that could only be operated twice, would we go back
in time and kidnap some of these artists' parents and then go farther back in time
again to feed them to dinosaurs? No, because we could clone a dinosaur in the
present and thus reserve both trips for kidnapping and making meals from two sets
of parents of certain artists on this list.That, we would certainly prioritize above deeds
8 4:10
like squelching the Inquisition, preserving the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or tossing Adam
and Eve a couple of oranges. For a good majority of this list, however, these songs' popularity
seem to have paralleled careers like that of Brett Favre. As tremendous as its prime may
have been, it is time to hang it all up and stop sending dick pics. Without further ado, 80
minutes of songs that need to be retired:
1 4:30
3 3:42
BILLY JOEL – “Piano Man”
No particular song should ever
become so synonymous with the
entirely unspecific “bar experience”
that it might trivialize a second night
out. But “Piano Man” has become
such a tavern cliché that every time
I hear it my stomach churns like the
froth atop a pint of beer while all
the socials drunkenly sway arm-onshoulder in the pub I’ve thankfully
never haunted.
CEE LO GREEN – “Fuck You”
Sure, it hasn’t even been a full year.
And yes, I dug the crap out of it last
summer, too. But as anyone familiar
with Novelty 101 should know, that
shit wears off. “Forget You” didn’t
sound so contrived the first few
million listens but my is it cringeworthy now.
2 3:20
28
NEIL DIAMOND – “Sweet Caroline”
Look, I realize that (1.) the Red Sox
started playing “Sweet Caroline”
long before “Fever Pitch”, (2.) that
Jimmy Fallon has done a lot of great
atonement for music on his talk show
since and (3.) that Neil Diamond was
always more than a cult figure. That
said, as a young, impressionable boy
obsessed with Saving Silverman,
watching the scene to which I’m
obviously referring felt like finding
out your parents gave your beloved
dog away to the guy who lives in a
fenceless house next to the highway.
4 8:32
DON MCLEAN – “American Pie”
A long, long time ago, I can still
remember how those two hammered
bros drunkenly stumbled onto the
karaoke stage and began to belch
out a song three times longer and
four times more requested than
anything else in the catalog five
times as poorly as Don McLean.
5 7:01
BONNIE TYLER –
“Total Eclipse of the Heart”
Not only are all the same contributing
factors incriminating “American
Pie” present here, but the frat party
on stage feels the need to channel
the godawful Dan Band and drop
gratuitous “f-bombs” cuz that’s
what’s badass and “Old School”
is hands down the single greatest
achievement in filmmaking and shit.
JOURNEY – “Don't Stop Believin'”
Sure, this isn’t the first song on this
list eulogized on Glee. Nor will it
be the last. Nor is it the track most
egregiously euthanized by Glee. Nor
did Glee even put the first nail in its
coffin. But damn, am I sick of Glee
and this song.
9 3:19
DROWNING POOL – “Bodies”
A song with enough synthetic
adrenaline to make Jose Canseco’s
raisins look like polished bowling
balls. Surely, there are other
songs to get you jacked up for your
underground MMA fight, JV football
game, woodshop final or whatever
other possible explanation you could
supply.
HOT CHELLE RAE – “Tonight Tonight”
Perhaps a significant portion of our
readership may be unfamiliar with
this choice. Fortunately for those to
whom this applies, we went ahead
and retired it so you won’t ever
have to subject yourself to three
plus minutes of the signature piece
of evidence posterity will cite when
they wish to succinctly exemplify
the epitome of everything wrong
with this world.
7 3:52
10 6:18
6 3:23
HOOBASTANK – “The Reason”
You know that scene in Being John
Malkovich when John Malkovich
jumps into his own head and
experiences a world where everyone
is John Malkovich and can only speak
the word “Malkovich?” That’s kind of
the memory I have of the summer of
2004, when every radio station made
listening any song not called “The
Reason” impossible.
CARL DOUGLAS – “Kung Fu Fighting”
And thus, several thousand campy
fight montages from slapstickheavy comedies were born before
their scripts were even twinkles in
their screenwriters’ eyes. There’s
a reason I watch my movie trailers
on mute and with subtitles the first
time through.
11 4:05
14 4:24
ASHER ROTH – “I Love College”
What an age we live in when the
success stories of passionate, honest artists lie in the hands of an
unbiased, democratic sea of social
media users rather than the moneygrubbing corporate music industry
machine—OH MY GOD they want
to listen to THAT douchebag? Fuck
it, bring the execs back! The people
aren’t ready!
DEF LEPPARD –
“Pour Some Sugar on Me”
There’s something poetic and
suave about the old idiom, “Lay
some sugar on me.” As for Def
Leppard’s rephrasing, I can’t help
but picture a couple of baby boomers
rediscovering their youthful vigor by
literally interpreting the titular lyric,
and that is not a pleasant image.
12 3:13
DROPKICK MURPHYS –
“I'm Shipping Up to Boston”
Maybe if Boston sports teams didn’t
win as many championships as they
did in the last decade, we all wouldn’t
be subjected to listening to the
default anthem for every one of those
painfully long playoff runs for those
of us not fond of Beantown athletics.
PHANTOM PLANET – “California”
If there were one part of The OC
particularly more insufferable than
any other segment of a consistently
awful series, it had to be the title
sequence.There’s no better motivator
to get off my ass and exercise outside
than hearing that opening piano riff.
13
4:20
GREEN DAY –
“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
Like “The Reason,” “BoBD” is
thankfully just a memory to many. But
it received enough radio play in 2005
alone to make up for Green Day’s
future centuries of irrelevance. It also
marks the first and last time I ever
preferred an Oasis mashup to the
original.
15 2:34
james passarelli
ryan waring
29
playlist