The Phoenix

July 04, 2008

Faraone in Montreal, Day 4: Swinging Like Tarzan

[While the rest of the staff is busy duncecapping-and-kazooing its way through the usual July 4 activities, Phoenix rap critic Chris Faraone has left the country and is doing lots of drugs. We rejoin him at Montreal's Jazz Fest, already in progress.]

GZA's Liquid Swords: drunk, or just human?

MONTREAL -- I must have sniffed a kilometer of blow last night. Not really, but isn’t that funny? Get it – they have the metric system up here, which, from what I can tell, is the only disadvantage about Canada. Everything else is better in Montreal; you can smoke weed and drink in public, the women are way hotter, people are hella nicer, and the cops are so cool that Canadian rappers don’t even rhyme about killing them.

Since I’m not sure where to begin, I’ll move chronologically. Right after filing my dispatch yesterday I had a drink with Mitch Myers, the acclaimed author of The Boy Who Cried Freebird, a National Public Radio correspondent, and, most importantly, a part-time columnist for High Times. Meeting Mitch was not just an honor, but also a reminder as to how little I know; I understand French better than I understood his jazz talk. If I’m ever going to start actually writing about music instead of just commenting on how wasted I get all day, I’ll have to keep hanging out with guys like him.

They have a term around here for people who wear credential leashes when they’re outside of Jazz Fest: “assholes.” I don’t care though; I like rocking things around my neck, and since I can’t afford an icy rope chain, festival passes work fine. Yesterday, however, I removed it at my friend Adam’s request when we went for smoked brisket at the world famous Schwartz’s Deli.

While at first I wasn’t excited about sitting Benihana-style at Schwartz’s, we turned out to have a good crew. To my left was an old-school black gentleman who was visiting his friend and hitting all the outdoor shows; like most jazz heads I’ve met up here, he was simply elated to be around so much soul. To my right there was a cool ass DJ duo from Toronto called the Ill Kidz who I’m going to watch spin at some uber-bourgeois club tonight.

Montreal is the most authentically hip-hop city that I’ve ever been to. Walls everywhere are decked with serious graf murals; there are record stores on every other block (corporate and non-corporate); and – get this – yesterday I saw a group of twenty kids breaking on the sidewalk. Let’s face it: New York belongs to racist wealthy yuppie scumbags and tasteless hipster phonies. Boom-bap might have started there, but it’s hard to call Gotham hip-hop’s home when twits like JR Writer claim Harlem and the NYPD has a task force specifically charged with exterminating rap culture. Hip-hop can’t breathe in a lot of U.S. cities, which is why it’s only natural that it flourishes in places where people are less ignorant, more open-minded, and, to put it bluntly, less bigoted.

Nowhere was Montreal’s passion for hip-hop more evident than at last night’s RZA and GZA show at Metropolis. The spirit went way beyond the hundreds of Wu-Tang t-shirts, many of which, I should note, looked new, unlike the ratty ones from the Wu-Wear days that all my fellow lowlife Massholes break out at the annual Clan show in Worcester. People are still extremely into Wu-Tang here; most were familiar with tracks from the RZA album that dropped last week.

Not all was peachy though. Before RZA took the stage, and before GZA performed “Liquid Swords” from front to back, we had to sit through one of the most excruciating sets in the history of live music. The group, Stone Mecca, which later backed RZA more than competently, straight up sucked on its own. They call it neo-soul; I call it junk-ola. Canadians are truly sweet people; had they tried this shit at a Wu-Tang show below the border, they’d have been booed back to Los Angeles.

I wasn’t the only one disgusted; one of the soundmen told me that GZA refused to come out before the DJ re-warmed the crowd. Actually I’m lying; the soundman told the Narcysist, the MC from the legendary Montreal rap group Euphrates, and the Narcysist told me. I have to plug my boy here; watching Narcy in the club was like watching that scene in Coming To America where they’re at the St. John’s game and the two janitors recognize that Eddie Murphy is royalty: “Just some people who I met in the bathroom.” Narcy has that effect on people. And while I’m slinging Eddie references, the band I would most compare Stone Mecca to is Sexual Chocolate.

I’m not certain what the announcer said since it was in French, but all I heard was “Liquid Swords,” which, coincidentally, were the only two words that I needed to hear. After DJ Mathematics lit the flame with some Mobb Deep cuts and Big Pun and Fat Joe’s “Twinz” (you know – over Dre’s “Deep Cover” beat – the song that proves East Coast hip-hop’s superiority over West Coast flavor), GZA strolled out wearing one of his trademark neon polos.

The rest of this dispatch is dedicated to my Wu-Tang Wednesday people at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square. I see you. Although everyone knew that GZA was going to kick Liquid Swords in its entirety, it was still infinitely exciting when that scary little girl’s voice from the intro came on. If you had two hands, they were high up in the air forming an almighty “W.”

GZA: Liquid Swords live at Montreal Jazz Fest

Around track three GZA began forgetting some lyrics; but while word around the venue was that he was drunk, I think he was just human. This didn’t bother me at all; for one, as he told the crowd: “That’s what y’all are here for;” and for two, it made me feel less guilty about not remembering every intro, rhyme and hook. Nobody in the crowd seemed to give a shit either; instead we formed like Voltron to help our boy get through.

The only disappointment in GZA’s set was that RZA, who was presumably backstage, didn’t come out for his verse on “4th Chamber.” They ended up dropping it together two hours later at the end of RZA’s set, but I kind of wanted it in the moment. Other than that, shit was hectic; in a few weeks I get to see GZA do Liquid Swords at the much more intimate Harpers Ferry in Boston, and if Montreal was any indication …you didn’t really think I was going to set up a sentence with that cheap tabloid cliché – did you?

When you have plans to hit a Wu-Tang show, you should never have afterparty plans. They’re always going to be late, and they’re always going to dig deep into their catalogues and spit until the roof rots. For the start of his hour-and-a-half long set, RZA opened with “Long Time Coming” off his new Digi Snacks, which I recommend to anyone who’s ever dug a Wu-Tang album, which I’m imagining is you if you’re still reading this.

Marching through his new disc, RZA, with the help from a semi-redeemed Stone Mecca, crushed “Don’t Be Afraid To Call My Name.” The band’s translation of the title track, Digi Snacks, was also raw; of the new joints, the only one that blew was “Straight Off The Block,” a horrendous David Banner-produced creative fart that should be axed for the second Digi Snacks pressing.

RZA: "Don't Be Afraid To Call My Nam" live at Montreal Jazz Fest

And then RZA dipped into all the dope songs off his solo albums that American fans for the most part wouldn’t know, but that heads up here screamed along to. From “It Must Be Bobby” to “We Roll” to the heartwarming “Grits,” the bullets just came tearing through the barrel. I tried imagining the perfect way to illustrate the collective emotion that ensued when he segued into “1-800 Suicide,” “Tearz” and “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ Ta Fuck Wit,” but instead I think I’ll just jizz on my keyboard.

This show alone was worth the trip up here; I don’t have to be nostalgic about hip-hop’s heyday in Montreal – I’m walking around in it right now. Just one thing – and this goes not just for Wu-Tang, but to all black rappers with predominately white fan bases: Please don’t do call-and-response numbers that require the crowd to say “nigga.” We’re not allowed to say it in the company of black people, so it makes things extremely uncomfortable.

Being a music critic is ironic; you’re the only one who doesn’t have to pay for tickets, but you’re also the only one who gets to print your complaints. For some reason, that dynamic often makes me feel guilty about enjoying myself at work. But from now on – or at least this weekend – I’ll be living out the mantra that RZA left the crowd with to commemorate the Ol’ Dirty Bastard: “If you are not having a good time, then you are wasting your time.” Word to all of that.

by Chris Faraone | with 1 comment(s)

July 03, 2008

Outtakes: the 50 states slideshow

Having a rock archivist like David Bieber in the office means you always say yes whenever he offers to let you dig through his stuff. During the past few weeks of hunting through autographed Beach Boys albums, signed Talking Heads photos, Springsteen box sets, and invitations to join Michael Jackson's fan club, it was easy to get distracted by the awesomeness of it all. Unfortunately, some items did not make the final cut. Thus, we present to you the outtakes from the slideshow that accompanied this week's 50 Bands, 50 States feature.

Too bad the response date for Sly Stone's wedding passed 34 years ago. We were all ready to pull out our finest gold threads, yo! Also too bad that Sly and his Family Stone didn't make our final list.

The Beatles didn't make our list for obvious reasons - although we can't think of many people better associated with the city of New York than John Lennon. We couldn't resist this sorta doodled, definitely cool illustration from a 1976 copy of the Phoenix.

We admit it - we just plain old overlooked this signed Violent Femmes album. The Femmes were our pick for all-time best Wisconsin band.

More signed wackiness from the Violent Femmes. For the for realz slideshow, click here.

More: 50 Bands, 50 States

by Caitlin E. Curran | with 1 comment(s)

July 03, 2008

VIDEO: Beth Orton live at the MFA

VIDEO: Beth Orton, "Someone's Daughter"

Last night marked Beth Orton's first performance on her first tour in a long, long time. And she was missed: both her early and late performances at the Museum of Fine Arts on Thursday were completely sold out, and nobody seeemd to mind that the mid-afternoon thunderstorms force the show indoors. Orton played a career-spanning set that included a Karen Dalton cover which we may try to post later. In the meantime, watch the clip above of last night's rendition of "Someone's Daughter" off her mid-90s breakthrough Trailer Park, and check out our slideshow of photos from the show by Carina Mastrocola.

by webteam | with no comments

July 03, 2008

Faraone in Montreal Day 3: More Jazz Than On Uncle Phil’s Porch

Here’s how festivals work: you get drunk on alcohol, then you get drunk on music, then around six o’clock you shower it off, then you repeat until four-in-the-morning. From what I’ve heard, that’s the routine even at Christian rock conventions. The key to covering these festivities is to party hard and work harder, and last night, my friend, I put in some work.

The artery of Jazz Fest is a mighty quad between the Hyatt (where I’m staying), the Museum of Contemporary Art, and two other brute structures that, if I were a competent reporter or thought you cared, I would have asked the names of. It’s kind of like a mid-city music carnival where you can chug beer, check shows on big or small stages, and dive into an ornate art-deco fountain if you’re so inspired.

I’m as much a foreigner on planet jazz as I am on planet Canada. As an American hip-hop critic in a foreign land, I inevitably spend the first two minutes of every conversation distancing myself from 50 Cent and George Bush. That said, every single person here has been cool to me. Jazz cats aren’t like indie rockers, who don’t want you listening to their favorite bands; the fans and artists I’ve met in Montreal are delighted to drop tips on up-and-gunning acts, secret shows, and where I can catch tight three-in-the-morning jam sessions (in my hotel bar, amazingly enough).

On the advice of a local critic from the Montreal Mirror, I chowed dinner at Pho Bak in the Vietnamese section of Chinatown. I tell you this not because it was a mighty deal and tasty too; I generally avoid writing about where I eat (as well as writing about eating all together), but my waiter had a cool look that I need to document in writing. In my friend Adam’s words: he resembled a back-up singer in an all-Asian K.D. Lang tribute band on karaoke night.

And like that I’m in a mega-venue for the hippest Jazz Fest show of the evening featuring Norwegian tweakers Datarock and Liverpool new school new wavers Ladytron. But before going further I have a brief vignette about a Stevie Wonder show that I reviewed two weeks ago. As a general rule I only write about hip-hop, but I ventured outside my specialty and fumbled badly. Who would have thought that referring to “Superstitious” as “Very Superstitious” would generate dozens of hate letters and nasty web comments? Anyway – the point is that while last week I decided to really never write outside my genre, I’m about to break that rule; so please, I beg you, don’t fucking email me about how great your favorite band is and how depraved I am. In both cases, it's likely the opposite is true.

Datarock is kind of like Devo; only instead of cool hats, they have no talent. They rotated instruments through the evening, but when I arrived one guy was on a BMX-height drum set, another was kind of singing, a third dude was playing a mini Casio on a stand that was about two feet off the ground, and one guy was doing nothing. Later on, the last guy would play what might have been an inflatable Bar Mitzvah saxophone. It is, after all, Jazz Fest. John Coltrane would be proud.

DATAROCK: Live at Montreal Jazz Fest, July 2, 2008

Insults aside, Datarock delivered a bare-chested set with some mighty electro riffs and good humor, the last of which was half-intentional and half collateral. I’m sure their diehards would disagree, but for sure my favorite part of the show was when the drummer threw his stick and completely missed it on the way down. It didn’t matter much, though, since the drum solos filling the speakers were coming from the soundboard.

Regardless of what I thought, the 2,200 screaming fanatics in the building devoured every ounce. And they weren’t just bandwagoneering and pretending the way that, say, people at Girl Talk shows pretend; they really dig this junk. Maybe it’s the production value; between the light show, LED backdrop and pounding emotion, Ladytron’s set was as explosive as any live rap show I’ve ever seen.

Ladytron: Live at Montreal Jazz Fest, July 2, 2008

After Ladytron, I capped the night at Club Soda, which, if I remember correctly, was a hot spot when I came up here ten years ago. I’m from New York where clubs change names every six months, so that’s impressive staying power. Much like at Metropolis, entering Club Soda felt like walking into a club scene from a Hollywood movie where there’s a band that’s supposed to be cool or about-to-be-cool but that you’ve never heard of playing up on stage.

The band du jour was Artist of the Year – a Canadian group of either guys or girls who rock loudly and wear sparkles. I’m not sure that I have any further opinion of them, but I will say that the second they got off stage and the DJ took reign the place cleared out. Club Soda was flat. (Had to use that one.)

Finally: I know I told all you hate-mailers to hush up. But while I still encourage you to direct your anger and aggression toward critics who pretend to know about things they don’t know about, if you really want to slap me this would be the time to do it. Tonight I’m going to see RZA and GZA, so not only am I more excited than a kid passing his house on a bus ride to an elementary school field trip, but I’m also returning to my know zone. And in my know zone, I ain’t nothin’ to fuck wit.

by Chris Faraone | with no comments

July 02, 2008

Faraone in Montreal Day 2: There's a Jazz Fest Going On

MONTREAL -- The Greyhound ride was sweeter than expected, as I was sandwiched between two Canadian vixens the whole way up. Across the aisle was a cute manicured hippiechick who slugged a bottle of cabernet between Manchester and Burlington; behind me I had a questionably-legal teen with cans so firm that they couldn’t have sprouted more than six months ago. The latter was traveling with her grandparents, who seemed oblivious to their baby’s flirtatious, stripper-bound ways. Either that or they’ve just accepted that 16-year-olds are fair game in Quebec.

I don’t know what this says about my past and current substance abuse issues, but I was extremely nervous to go through customs -- even though I was innocent! When you take a bus across the border, you automatically have to get off and chat with inspectors, and since I resemble the president of Iran, things like this make me nervous. Luckily, there was a dude with a terrorist beard to take the heat off, as well as a guy whose push-ups outside the bus on every break led me to believe that his rap sheet is no blank slate.

I saw three above-ground pools on the way up, so while it’s pretty obvious that Canadians are for the most part stronger-willed and better-looking than Americans, some of them have less class than Rodney Dangerfield. I always look for signs like this because, well, I, too, have no class. Not only that, but I have a pretty thick New York accent that makes me feel especially unrefined when conversing with foreigners.

Like most people who took 10 years of French, I don’t speak a word of it. Not only that, but I refuse to try. To me it’s like karate lessons: you practice all these cool kicks and grapple holds, then when you get in a fight, you instinctually grab your opponent’s ears and kick him in the groin. Luckily, my friend Adam Sampler will be showing me around all weekend. He doesn’t speak French either, but he’s been living here for eight years so he knows the drill.

Quick side story: when I was growing up, the code name in my family for Jewish people was “Canadian.” Not on some Nazi shit, but when you're full-blooded guineas living on Long Island it’s impossible to abstain entirely from anti-Semitism – no matter how many close Jewish friends you have. Long story short, after hanging with my family for a day, Adam – who’s both Jewish and Canadian – asked me what my aunt had against Canadians. Needless to say, there was no talking my way out of that one.

So within minutes of landing at my boy’s apartment I’m tugging on a tampon-sized spliff and strolling on the Esplanade. As I’m sure you know, the weed is splendid up here, and neither cops nor people with small children seem to care if you toke in public. Last time I was in Montreal, you could smoke inside everywhere. But that’s not the case anymore; now the streets are flooded with people burning everything from butts and blunts to pipe tobacco.

Before I continue, let me just say right now that there will be no music news today. This dispatch covers Tuesday, and I’m not checking shows until tonight. I know you don’t care, but I figured that you might have justified using valuable work time to read this by kidding yourself that you’re learning something about jazz. If that’s the case, please return tomorrow.

Actually – if you’re interested in getting interested about jazz, pick up Downbeat magazine. It’s one of the last authentic music mags in any genre, and boy are they in full-force up here. Nice guys these jazz critics are: last night I met a dude named Chris from Los Angeles who, at least in my mind, defined what a jazz reporter should look and act like. From his skin to his shirt to his pants and shoes, Chris was black on black on black on black. He’s been to more Jazz Fests than he can count – for real – and when I asked him what he was excited to see, he might as well have run through the whole schedule. I hope I’m still that excited about music 30 years from now. Most of the aging rock critics I meet at festivals and conferences are decidedly miserable to the point that you would forget they’ve been partying on their paper’s tab for a half-century.

Before I run off, let me give a brief preview of the rest of this week. No doubt I’ll be doing some sort of ignorant list about things that are funny in Montreal (i.e., the way French people pronounce “Super Sex” – the name of the biggest tourist trap strip club up here – makes you want to say, “Uhhh – I’ll have the sex”). Music-wise, tonight I’m meandering about various random jazz shows, tomorrow I’m checking out the RZA and GZA, the latter of whom is performing his entire album “Liquid Swords,” and on Friday I’ll be checking Lee Perry, who’s jamming with the Wailers. Much more, too. Maybe I’ll even post some nude photos. Of chicks, dude – chill.

by Chris Faraone | with no comments

July 02, 2008

The Concept Band: A Boston Tradition

Ah, it's summer, the time when school is out and Boston's rocker-aged population puts down their books and starts dreaming up hypothetical bands with crazy gimmicks that will take Boston (or at least PA's Lounge) by storm. Having trouble coming up with a High Concept project that will, maybe, perhaps, join the vaunted ranks of The Bentmen, The Upper Crust, Kaiju Big Battel, and a million other Boston Idearock pioneers? Here's a few to get started:

EASTER ISLAND
- band members all wear 3-foot styrofoam Easter Island heads on their heads, and ever song is a heavy metal testament to the power of Easter Island
- hand out those hawaiian flower necklace thingys
- acquire opening slot on Slipknot tour

MNML
- 10-member band all play songs that consist of single notes repeated forever with no build or anything
- all posters, album covers, websites, etc are all black with any text in courier font as small as possible

BOOK CLUB
- every song is an Iron Maiden-esque Cliff Notes adaptation of a book into power metal
- new song every week, play song live, discuss themes afterwards in musical rounds
- first song: "A Separate Peace"
- first gig: Newton Mobile Book Fair

THEME PARK LAND
- put together 4 or 5 bands, and instead of them playing, say, the Mid East Up one after another like a bunch of trad rock dudes, they all set up in different corners of the club, with sound partitions, and play at once
- each band's repetoire is themed around, say, ADVENTURE, or PIRATING, or FOREIGN LANDS. admission to the show gets you a map
- oh, audience has to wait in long lines
- "You must be x inches tall to enter"

TRDNGSPCZ
- skinny dudez press play on their laptops and then in fast-motion remodel the stages of boston's most famous local bar band dives
- first gig: TT's

THE BOSTON OIRISHES
- band comprised of paper-mache replicas of america's favorite irish stereotypes, fronted by the lucky charms guy
- at mid-set audience gets to spray band and everyone else with beer**
- set-closing singalong to the song they do in the middle of "Titanic", you know the scene

**not real beer

On second thought, don't steal my ideas, kid!

by Daniel Brockman | with no comments

July 01, 2008

Mp3 of the Week: Clouds

DOWNLOAD: Clouds, "Motion of the Ocean" (mp3)

This ain’t your ordinary stoner metal. Yeah, the guitars on We Are Above You (Hydra Head) — the new second album from Cave In guitarist Adam McGrath’s Clouds — mostly exist in sludgy Sunn-amp ear-rumbling down-tuned depths, but seven of the album’s 11 songs whiz by in under three minutes, fast enough to blow the bong resin off your brain. In “Motion of the Ocean,” the band cram a couple of Motörhead-style up-tempo anvil-heavy-riff verses next to blink-and-they’re-gone shuffle-beat anti-choruses, two separate whacked-out guitar solos, a balls-out half-time breakdown, and a feedback outro in a mere two minutes and 21 seconds. We got tired just typing that. You can grab the track above and catch the band live when they wrap up a big cross-country tour with Boris and Torche July 11 downstairs at the Middle East.

by Will Spitz | with no comments

July 01, 2008

Playlist: Mike Fiore of Faces on Film

Mike Fiore of Faces on Film: “The Five Songs That Would Be Way Better If Roy Orbison Had Sung Them”

1_Arcade Fire, “Crown of Love”
2_Clinic, “Distortions”
3_The Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize??”
4_Lou Reed, “Perfect Day”
5_Low, “Dinosaur Act"

Faces on Film play upstairs at the Middle East Wednesday, July 9. Download their ludicrously good new album, The Troubles here.

by Will Spitz | with no comments

July 01, 2008

Tuesday Ticket Alert: Eddie Vedder solo in Boston [UPDATED!]

UPDATE 07/02/08: Vedder's PR folks just announced full details of his summer tour, which launches with TWO Boston gigs at the Opera House . . . and tickets are $75 a head?! PLUS SERVICE CHARGE? Insanity. Scroll down for the full tour dates, right below the video.

~~Nothing goes on sale on 4th of July weekend. But here's a sneak peak at next week's big-ticket item:~~

Eddie Vedder and Liam Finn
August 1 and 2 at the Opera House, Boston
Tickets on sale July 11, 2008, at 1 pm
Tickets $75
Available at Opera House Box Office or ticketmaster.com
A special, limited ticket pre-sale for current active members of Pearl Jam's Ten Club will be offered at www.pearljam.com.

And here's a sneak peak: Eddie surprising the crowd by sauntering on stage early -- before Ted Leo -- at the ~~Tweeter~~ Comcast Center (sponsored by the Marines!) over the weekend, for a solo rendition of Hunters & Collectors' "Throw Your Arms Around Me."

(E. Vedder video courtesy Dave Pecoraro.)

Eddie Vedder Solo Tour Dates, according to LiveNation:

Date City Venue Ticket Price*

8/1/08 Boston Opera House $75

8/2/08 Boston Opera House $75

8/4/08 New York United Palace Theater $75

8/5/08 New York United Palace Theater $75

8/7/08 Newark New Jersey Performing Arts Center $75

8/9/08 Montreal, QC Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier/Place $75

8/12/08 Toronto, ON Massey Hall $75

8/13/08 Toronto, ON Massey Hall $75

8/16/08 Washington, DC Warner Theatre $75

8/17/08 Washington, DC Warner Theatre $75

8/19/08 Milwaukee The Riverside Theater $75

8/21/08 Chicago Auditorium Theatre $75

8/22/08 Chicago Auditorium Theatre $75

by Carly Carioli | with 1 comment(s)

July 01, 2008

Faraone in Montreal, Day One: Excuse My French

I tell people that I “used to go to Montreal all the time,” but the truth is that I’ve only been there twice. I guess I’m just a tremendous bullshit artist. Either that and/or I lived so hard on those short trips that I felt like a frequent flyer.

My first adventure was freshman year in college, when, along with four friends, I was stopped by the border patrol. My buddy Reed thought it would be a sweet idea to wear a football helmet to the customs drive-thru, and the Canadians – having no doubt that we were wicked stoned, I'm sure – pulled us over. I hid an eighth of weed in my crack that day, and after two hours of feeling like I had a concrete dump in my pants, I realized I would have been toast if they'd introduced a dog into the equation. Luckily, they didn’t -- and we were free to roll about and frolic.

On my second trip to Montreal, two years later, I ran into no such border problems. However, I did come face to face with a treacherous blizzard that added a death-defying dynamic as well as about five extra hours to the trip from upstate New York. As is probably the case with most voyages to Montreal, the slog was made worthwhile when we got to watch a stripper light her crotch on fire and extinguish it with my friend’s hat.

Oh yeah – the reason I’m telling you this: today I’m taking a bus up to Montreal, where I’ve been tapped to cover Jazz Fest (or Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, as they say). Have no fear, though: I’m not pretending to be some jazz aficionado. I like jazz as much as the next person who can’t really tell you why they do or don’t like jazz but pretends to understand it because (a) you’re supposed to, and (b) doing otherwise displays an ignorance to the fact that much of hip-hop was directly inspired by and/or jacked from jazz musicians.

My ignorance in this case is nearly acceptable, though, as there will be plenty of music that I do actually get. Montreal Jazz Fest is to jazz what South by Southwest is to indie rock: it used to be all about it, but these days there’s plenty for a hip-hop head to chew on. Sure, since I’ll be bugged on mushrooms for most of my stay, I’ll spend hours marinating at outdoor jazz shows. But for the most part I’ll be checking whatever hip-hop angled or crazy eclectic shit that I can find. Well, that and strip clubs.

Hopefully by the time you read this I’ll be in Montreal, though you can never be too sure. If ever there was a sign of how superficially pious and even downright masochistic American and Canadian societies truly are, it’s how guards on both sides of the border are loath to hear that you went abroad to party. For some reason, "Going to ogle salami nipples and drink Molson Export" doesn’t always qualify as an acceptable reason for travel. Fortunately, I suspect I'll have no problems this time: I'm a credentialled "reporter"! I may come back a degenerate first and journalist second, but so far my priorities are still in order. So far.

by Chris Faraone | with 1 comment(s)

June 30, 2008

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Not Coming To Boston

Bad Seeds: "Lazarus" live at the Plug Awards

It's bad enough for Cave completists that he's about to put out a hardcover mini-book detailing the making of the song Dig, Lazarus, Dig! (Speaking of which: we can only hope this will start a trend of artists putting out their own 33 1/3-style books -- why not go right to the source on these things?) Now, if we want to see their first North American tour in five years, we've also got to book hotels in Canada? Fuckers.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds North American Tour Dates:

09-16 San Diego, CA - 4th & B
09-17 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl
09-20 San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre
09-22 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
09-23 Seattle, WA - Showbox SoDo
09-26 Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
09-29 Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre
10-01 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus
10-02 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis
10-04 New York, NY - WaMu Theater at MSG
10-05 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club

by Carly Carioli | with 4 comment(s)

June 27, 2008

"Can't Be Bought, Can't Be Sought": Maiden, Priest, Sabbath, and Walt Disney: Metal In Middle Age

Watching Iron Maiden last week, I was struck by something that might seem like an odd thought: “Wow, people seem to *really* love Iron Maiden!” This might seem like kind of a duh, but when you consider how thoroughly this audience knew every word and every lick of these songs, and when you consider that Iron Maiden shirt-wearing had saturated a good 80% of the audience market, you begin to get a grip on the sheer adulation this band gets from its audience.

A lot was made of how no one liked their last tour, where they played their new album in its entirety. Although there was groaning from metal hipsters and ironists, though, at the show last year from my seats all I could sense was that everyone else around me had really done their homework: everyone there seemed to know every word and air-guitar riff from the new album. As an aside, at an Iron Maiden show a few years ago, I witnessed a sight that I will definitely take to my grave: in front of me for most of the show were two teenage boys air-guitaring along to every moment; and in the middle of one song, I swear I witnessed one of the boys correct the other one’s air-guitaring, as in “No, it doesn’t go like this, it goes like this.” Genius.

Anyway, my theory on Maiden is that they took the molten confusion of 60’s and 70’s rock culture and made a Disneyland attraction/ride out of it, with a degree of opera-derived camp that wasn’t far off from the then-ongoing Ice Capades craze and presaged the 90’s and 00’s Broadway musical trend. They also aren’t far off from the intents of the original Disneyland: pillage folklore and myth and create a technically masterful piece out of each one. The same way that a kid in the 70’s probably knew of Snow White and Pinocchio through the Disney animated films, a metal fan in the 80’s probably was more aware of “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”, “The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner”, and Winston Churchill’s infamous “We shall go on to the end” speech from Iron Maiden’s records than from their sources.

Maiden of course come from a pre-Internet world where knowledge of arcane tales was cool, and it was ultimately the same world where Dungeons & Dragons could flourish unironically. It's hard to remember a time where Area 51 and Roswell was not common knowledge, and instead of wikipedia'ing "Alexander The Great" you might have to go to a library and look something up in an encyclopedia, which is pretty much what it sounds like they did when writing said tune.

Metal and indeed rock in general has always plundered history and culture for source material, but in some ways the brazen way in which Maiden appropriated/pillaged was just in line with the burgeoning culture of “metal” from its origins on. We all know about Zep’s swipes from Lord of the Rings (not to mention Rush’s subsequent swipes from the same) and the way that Sabbath’s very name is from the 1963 Boris Karloff/Mario Bava horror flick (imagine how pretentious metal would have become if the Sabs had named themselves after the film’s original Italian title, I tre volti della paura) – but it’s arguable that neither of these bands had their sights set on the cohesive branding that a band like Maiden would later put together. Although the Sabs did pull the hat trick of same-song-name/band-name/album-name on their debut (which Maiden would of course pull themselves), Satanism and black masses was surprisingly not necessarily an ongoing lyrical preoccupation for the band, and in the end they are essential celebrated for being a great rock/metal band.

If the genesis theory of metal begins with the holy trinity of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and (always in third) Deep Purple, then it’s pretty understood that the second coming involves the Beatles/Stones dialectic of Maiden and Priest. And while Judas Priest were arguably campier, more flamboyant, and more aggressively “metal”, Iron Maiden have always stood for ideals that will forever define what metal is for generations of kids: large themes, grand scales, and straight-up fantasy.

You see, the rock crit line has always been that metal is part of a long line of androgynous sashayers drawing from such disparate sources as David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Mick Jagger, etc: and indeed, you could pick a few points on the graph and show a straight line from, say, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to Freddie Mercury to Ian Anderson’s cod-piece to Rob Halford to pretty much any emo-metaller nowadays—however, this emphasis on androgyny only works if you think that metallers are all about creating confusion and exploring society’s grey areas and dark themes, which works fine until you attempt to fit Iron Maiden in the equation, and then it all falls to shit. Why? Because Maiden are the wholesome and unconfused literalists in a sea of metal fatigue and ephemeral metaphor-peddlers.

Black Sabbath’s most enduring hit is a song called “Paranoid”. It was famously written quickly, lyrics and music, and as such it doesn’t entirely make a whole lot of sense. The word “paranoid” is never used in the song, and indeed it could have probably been called any number of other names and worked just as well. It isn’t a meditation on the concept of paranoia or anything, it’s a confused and emotional tune of heartbreak and emotional numbness; it’s lead guitar break is so fuzzed-out and jarring that it has always sounded, to me, like when you are trying to talk in a dream and can’t quite make the words out. Ultimately, the underlying theme of the majority of Black Sabbath tunes is “frustration”.

This is no longer true by the time you get to Maiden and Priest. Priest worked hard at being self-consciously “metal”, with lyrics and imagery that attempt to unite its teen fanbase in a leather-clad army of teen rebels. Priest’s mascot is a creature called The Metallion: never mentioned in song but adorning the cover of “Defenders of the Faith” as an art deco demon, he is part of the overall attempt by Priest to create metal myths with intimidating creatures meant to represent the power of their teen following. Songs like “United” especially lay bare the band’s naked thirst for fomenting teen rebellion.

Priest’s main weapon of coercion is sexual predation: if you didn’t know Halford was gay during Priest’s heyday, you would at least have known, by a cursory perusal of their tuneage, that the guy was as sexually aggressive as Freddie Mercury before him. It’s just a fine line between the aggressive camp of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” and Priest’s PMRC-targeted tune “Eat Me Alive”. “I’m going to force you at gunpoint!”

It’s clear that Halford, closeted at the time, was trying to test the bounds of what he could get away with without giving the game away, and his hypersexuality in the band lent them their individuality and force. The opposite is true of Maiden: their tunes are completely devoid of any sexual content at all (unless you count a song about Jack The Ripper as sexual). Instead, Iron Maiden systematically work through coherent themes, and attempt to turn those themes into exciting showpieces. This approach worked to limited means with first singer Paul Di’Anno on their first two albums; although Di’Anno had a powerful presence that worked within the milieu of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal that Maiden ostensibly came out of, his limited range meant that he could never take the songs to the stratospheric heights of Maiden’s 70’s heroes, bands with banshee shriekers like Zep, Deep Purple, UFO, Uriah Heep, etc.

(As an aside, I’d like to offer a quick defense of the rock band Uriah Heep. Sometimes people don’t realize that in order for the rock behemoths of today to exist, many others had to fall by the wayside to make the current ascendancy possible. This is especially true for a band like Heep, whose supernatural lyrical preoccupations, impossibly tight arrangements, blazing fretwork, extended themes, and glass-shattering approach to vocal histrionics not only laid a straight-up blueprint for Iron Maiden, but for metal itself. Laugh all you want, but the Heep delivered.)

Anyway, once Maiden had Dickinson, they finally had everything in place to take "satanic" metal mainstream: compare “Number of the Beast”, from Dickinson’s first LP with the band, to, say, the self-titled Sabbath tune, and you can see Maiden’s genius: whilst Sab’s tune is a dirgey testament to self-flagellation and eternal damnation, with a lone tri-note theme encapsulating seven centuries of banned music into a singular ode to one man’s shame and torment, Maiden’s tune is pure voyeurism: the protagonist witnesses the sights and sounds of a black mass. “6! 6! 6! / The number of the beast! / Sacrifice is going on tonight!”

In song after song, Maiden created self-contained worlds that act as adaptations of themes. "Flight of Icarus", "The Prisoner" (after the 60's British TV show), "Transylvania", "Quest For Fire", "To Tame A Land" (a ditty about Frank Herbert's Dune), "The Phantom Of The Opera", etc are straight-forward stories being told, with no real metaphor or hidden meaning at all. "Number Of The Beast" isn't an investigation of evil, or a metaphor for the modern day's banality of cruelty, or any of those things: it is a straightforward account of a black mass.

This is unusual for the world of the pop song, where everything is buried within symbolism and hidden meanings; but it is not unusual for the world of musicals and opera, which is really aesthetically where Maiden are coming from. From where I was sitting last week, Maiden's pagaentry of themes and settings is like nothing so much as when one enters the hallowed halls of Disneyland, and sees this:

Rock, and metal in particular, is about harnessing the power of rock, and presenting that power in as big a way as possible. In a post-Disney world, where spectacle, imagery, symbolism stripped of context, and the history of the world and its mythology can be reshaped and represented at will, is there really anyone better at harnessing this power than Iron Maiden? It doesn't seem like it. Bands before Maiden attempted to harness this kind of power of imagery, but they all tended to get lost amidst their own personalities and emotions: whether it was Jim Morrission attempting confusing crowd manipulation, or Led Zeppelin sending conflicting messages of power, authority and fey sensuality, rock titans pre-Maiden tended to miss the untapped market of straight-forward arena-filling adaptation-rock. Think of "Run To The Hills" as similar to Disney's "Pocahantas": it presents the European/Native American interface from both sides equally (only the Maiden song has a lot more bloodshed and a lot fewer cute animals).

If you go outside of the US/UK rock market, you will start noticing that the only visible indication that rock culture exists at all are the constant flurry of Maiden t-shirts. Like the ending of Spinal Tap, smart money for post-baby boomer rockers is on exporting to the world at large, something that Maiden has always done exceedingly well. Last week's show was introduced with a video of Maiden piloting a jet to what appeared to be Rio for a series of mammoth concerts that made the Mansfield gig look like a weeknight at the Abbey by comparison.