Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 49/50 - 2003/2004

49

2003/12/02, Slim's, SF

JoJo's Jacket
Grace
Dynamic calories
(Do not feed the) Oyster
Vanessa from Queens
Phantasies
Witch mountain bridge
Dark wave
Ramp of death
Baby c'mon
Animal midnight
Craw song
Church on white
Us
Jenny & the Ess-dog
Jam
Water and a seat
Post paint boy
Old Jerry

Another great 2003 show (I know, another one?, is this getting boring or what?). This has the same basic songlist as the other two shows – heavy on 'Pig lib' of course ('Sheets' seems to be the forgotten song – strange, as it seems ready enough for live performance), with a handful of first album singles tossed in and 'Dynamic calories'. No covers this time, but it does include the piano and vocal version of 'Jenny...' – John joins in discreetly on the bridge. (And the very greatest version of 'Old Jerry' ever – but more about that later.) I don't think anyone will complain when they hear the committed and inspired performances.

What does set this show apart are the three new songs: 'Grace/Mr Jolly', 'Baby C'mon' and 'Post paint boy'.

Apart from 'It kills' and a soundcheck jam of 'Mama' –we're finally reaching some new songs. This is 16 months after the recordings for 'Pig lib', don't forget.

Maybe there are tons of unrecorded shows (or recorded shows I don't know about) with all of the songs from 'Face the truth', but on the basis of what I've heard, the genesis of 'Face the truth' didn't happen on the stage the way it did for 'Pig lib'.

All of the new songs we've heard:
It kills
Mama
Nervous actors
Grace
Post paint boy
Baby c'mon

It's a start, but it doesn't really offer a clear direction for the new album. What's going on?

I don't know any of this stuff for sure, there's no Malkmus-lore to check these things – but I get the impression he was struggling at this point, in more ways than one. The songs didn't seem to come as easily as they used to (Pencil rot?). Maybe he was slowing down a bit – other things in life taking over, maybe hitting that point 'is this what I'm doing?'

He was struggling for musical direction too, I think – heading into the most protracted sessions of his career. You hear these rumours about dumping almost all of the non-album material recorded cause he was unhappy with how it turned out.

Now, these new songs played at Slim's. The two that made it onto the album – I know they're a lot of people's favorites, but not mine. They always sounded like placeholders songs to me, like 'thank god I've got a song down' (comfortably my two least favorite songs on the album).

And Stephen, stealing riffs? What would Chris Martin say?!
Just kidding, I don't give a damn about that thing. Copyright lasts way too long too, that's right Walt!

But the song that didn't make it – that's the one I want to talk about. 'Grace/Mr Jolly' is the stepping stone between 'It kills' and 'Freeze the saints' and 'Malediction' (even more than 'Nervous actors' which was sort of an appendix to 'It kills'). And besides that, it's got a beautiful melody. And yet it's not on the album. Why? I'm just guessing – maybe he felt it was too straightforward lyrically, not enough poetic dissimulation (like those other songs surrounding it). Did he develop some hesitations about this new, more vulnerable direction. It finally snuck out as a b-side a couple years later (thank God). An important song and more important, a beautiful song.

Anyway, this show was a moment of musical confidence. Musically the Jicks were on top of the world. Right at the end (in a track I just discovered on this thread) they literally burn through an epic version of 'Old Jerry'. Eight and a half minutes of musical sighing and longing – it's these kind of surprises that make delving through the Malkmus live archive so worthwhile. Everything I wrote about this song in Brussels (which I thought was the last known performance of the song) goes double for this one – which is now the final known version. It's almost like an excorcism. It's a damn pity they don't play it anymore, but after delivering this amazing version, you can see the point. 'That was amazing, let's never do that again!'

Next – soulsearching and evil synths.
50
Feb – aug 2004, Shamrock Justice Studios
Face the truth

Late 2004 emergency call to Cris Lombardi:
'You know that Malk album we promised with snappy songs, wayward guitar and messily endearing lo-fi production...'
Chris: 'Yeah!'
'A bunch of evil synthesizers broke in and ruined it...'
Chris: 'Evil synthesizers?'
'Remember those upbeat, crazy fun keyboards on the debut?'
Chris: 'Yeah'
'They came back twisted and angry.'
Chris: '… (sigh) Just put it out.'

---

You know what I really hate about music critics? When they insist on writing autobiographical articles as if their lives have any bearing on the record I'm listening to.
So let me tell you about my conflicting emotions when Ms. Goodnight to the rock'n'roll era and I had our first child.
This was in 2009, so a couple years after Face The Truth came out. I told you that I liked Pig Lib from the first, but it kept growing in my estimation. Face The Truth, I liked bits of it, but I didn't really get it. It was only from 2009 onwards that I found my way in and it's been growing on me ever since. Hence this story.
Basically, first child ? soul searching. Some heavy things on my mind:
I'm gonna teach this kid how to live. But I don't have a clue how I'm living. What's a good way to live, a good ethos? What do I want to teach this kid?
I'm struggling with all these belief systems and philosophical credes, trying to find out what it means to be a good human being, and at the same time I'm kinda disgusted with humankind. How dare we fuck up the planet, nature, other human beings so. The hypocrisy of society is overwhelming once you get into it.
But then, what am I doing? I'm kinda realizing I'm in this for the long haul. I'm not exempt. How and to what am I contributing? Is this what I'm going to do with my life? Is this it?
It was the time I quit what I was doing (I'd been hanging by a thread for a couple of years anyway), went back to school, took another road.

Face The Truth is a messy record – and since the mess is so central to what it is, it's never going to be as objectively great as the debut or Pig Lib. But the heart of it is just as straight as those other albums. To me, it's really the last time Stephen went out on a limb like that, no idea if he could pull it off, right out of his comfort zone. And I value that a lot. It's a record that's taught me a lot of things.
I'm not saying Stephen went through the same things I did, but he went through something and he put it down in the record. The first line is 'There's a villain in my head and he's giving me shocks', so I felt that kinship.

---

Now, for starters, when I started listening to this again in 2009, I found all the disgust for humankind I was feeling mirrored there. Check out these lyrical fragments:

I'm here to sing a song
a song about privilege
the spikes you put on your feet
as you were crawling and dancing
to the top of the human shitpile

Turning ugly into ease
you're naked in a towel
your pride is a swollen subset
it will never ever ever pipe down

The fallacy of selflessness, the friendship etiquette
Normal is weirder than you care to admit
fatigued by socialized

I was shot for meat
Left alone with a crow
get into watercolors and you
never saw me again
But I plan to return and with verbs I'll attack
I'll trip I'll maim I'll leave you
With no skin on your back –
Kindling for the master
Everybody's got a heart to sink

I'm the leech who can preach

And one about music, which always makes me laugh:
I went to see a 'go to gigs alone' type of band
They elucidate that all alone understand

If the lyrics aren't enough, there's some evil sounding synths on this record, while most all of the music is slurred, obscured, phasing in and out of focus.
Yeah, I was finally feeling comfortable with this record. Shades of 'It's alright ma (I'm only bleeding)' in those lyrics too.

---

More important though, the record's got a way out. (Yeah, I'm sorry, this is going to turn into a long discussion about the lyrics.) I find it in three important songs (and a 4th, 'Mr Jolly' temporarily sidelined).

'It kills' is about growing as a person, it's not that easy.
Starts with questions – 'What you gonna do? I don't know my friend / But I'm open to suggestions if you'll proffer two cents'. He's looking for 'something I can hang my coat on'.
There are few passages in Stephen's lyrics as open and clear as this:
9 times out of 10, I'm not the guidance type
I've been sitting on a fence post for the brunt of my life
Now I need some help to find out what I feel
Face the truth, indeed.

But he knows why he's looking. The chorus is the key:
'It kills' – what's this 'it'? The time until you fill your heart. Until you do that you're just killing time.
'There's more to you than what you think and need' – now that's a line! How fucking hopeful and inclusive is that? I try to live by it. There's more than opinion and need.

The 2nd verse is the determination to follow through:
Where you gonna go? I don't know my friend
But I'll take this road forever or until it does end

---

So what is the road? Next stop is 'Freeze the saints'. Now of course, I'm pretty fond of most of this music, but whittling it down to a select number of masterpiece songs, so far I'll go with 'Church on white', 'Pink India', 'Witch mountain bridge', 'Old Jerry' and now this one.

Like 'Church on white' crosses over from the personal (the death of a friend) to the universal, it's the same in this song which interweaves a beautiful declaration of love with some great advice for leading a good life.

Seasons change
Nothing lasts for long
Except the earth and the mountains
So learn to sing along
and languish here

'Here' is in this life, on this earth. Change is the way of all things, learn to sing along, our natural state is to languish in this existence. 'Languish': I don't take it as meaning 'feeling miserable', more like in a state of waiting, powerless to affect our ultimate situation as being here. We just don't know if this is it, or if there's anything after, where we're going, what happens after this state, what the meaning is of this waiting state. No way of knowing.

It's not that easy. He recognizes the difficulty in his partner too:
It was long ago
that all of your willing dimensions
lost the flow
and vanished in veneer
But he wants to know if underneath she's the same as him (see, he's lost the flow too). If they are the same, then 'help me languish here' – that's basically, be with me forever, right?

Summing it all up:
You said 'Done is good' but done well is so much fucking better
Share the wealth and cauterize the tears

If you want to know, well you are so much like me
– can mean two things. If you want to know if you are like me, yes. Or: if you want to know, if you're looking for the answer, I am too.

If there's a more beautiful love song written this side of 2000, I haven't heard it.
And the guitar solo isn't half bad either.

---

At the end of the record 'Malediction' picks up the theme again. This is like a 'goodbye to my old self, I'm going on this new path' song.

So long,
goodbye to the nervous apprehension
I wouldn't want to miss ya
My heart is unable to stay so
unstable no more

This is a long term commitment, you've got to leave your old habits, and there are risks, but even if it goes wrong, it's better than not risking yourself.

Leave this house
if you do not know how
you'll learn along the way
The road to rejection is better
than no road at all

Basically:
If you wait till you're ready
You'll never make an amends

Yeah.

I think that stuff is just beautifully put. Words to live by.

---

Did anyone in the media pick up on that stuff? Did they? They're just not really interested in engaging with new things from this artist. They were all, 'the most messy he's been since 'Wowee zowee' so that's a good thing, right...'

I haven't talked about a string of fine tracks on this record – basically, up to and including track 8, this record is tops with me. And it's out there – take your pick from the no-wave Funkadelic of 'Pencil rot', tribal experiment 'I've hardly been', the realization of his folk rock ambition in the beatific 'Loud cloud crowd', 'No more shoes''s updated San Francisco '68 sound (QMS!)... 'Mama' is the sound of Malkmus writing the final installment of the trilogy 'Ode to Billie Joe' (Bobbie Gentry) – 'Clothesline saga' (Bob Dylan) – 'Mama' (and who doesn't look back on idealized childhood days in the midst of turbulent change?). And 'Kindling for the master' is...uhm...lo-fi disco? It divides opinion, I know, but I love it. It seems a bit churlish to go on about the one track on the album I don't like, but I'm in this argument now.

So, back to my autobiography. Disgust for humankind, check. Looking for a good way of living, check. Is this what I'm going to with my life?

'Post-paint boy' – I'm not the only one reading this as a half self-portrait, I hope.
This is where the record lets me down. Well, my main reason that I'm not so into the song is that the melody just doesn't speak to me that much. It doesn't seem to go anywhere. I also feel the lyric is just a little too obvious, too much stretching of one idea, while I'm used to a Malkmus lyric stacking up more ideas than I can process.

But I listen to this song and I trip over that line 'The maker of modern minor masterieces for the untrained eye'. I just don't like that line, and every time I feel that maybe Stephen's been living that line for a couple of years. You know, 'well, this is what I'm doing, I'm a musician, maybe it's not so important, but this is it'. Not that he doesn't care, in fact the attention for craft has gone up, he wants to do it right. But he's not putting it on the line, he's trusting craft over inspiration. I wouldn't hesitate to call a lot of what follows 'minor masterpieces', but there were less surprises and maybe less major masterpieces. I'd rather have the mess if the stakes are higher. Then again, such is life. And it's not that there were no surprises, just a little more spread out in time.

'Face the truth', that record is pretty essential to me.

Capsule review: Lou Reed - Coney island baby (1976)

He's just a gift to the women of this world. Also to fans of his trademark lyrical barbs ('I'm gonna punch his face in', but sung in character) dressed in melodious rock'n'roll. Coney Island Baby is nothing if not seductive, with deep roots in Reed's love of doowop. Dig a little deeper and it gets transgressive, but never uncomfortably so. A little honey etc.

Capsule review: Kenny Burrell - God bless the child (1971)

All the voodoo was never Burrell's bag. After two electric jam adventures (percussion in a trance, Fender Rhodes, strings mysterious ltd, Burrell's guitar like a snake slithering through the grass) we're back to hard bop. And at the end, some solo guitar performances. All fine indeed.

Capsule review: Boedekka - Hapi nightmares (2001)

Whatever happened to Boedekka? Despite going for the post-Beta Band shilling a little too obviously, they couldn't hide their way with a melody and a song (i.e. they wrote some good ones). Did they ever follow up?

Capsule review: Blur - The great escape (1995)

Track 1-7: the grandeur of a classic band just over the hill. If rock'n'roll's purpose is liberation for socially inept frontmen, you wonder why Blur is such a hard sell. Track 8-10: looking at the door. Track 11-15: who knows? 

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 47/48 - 2003

47
2003?
Elevate me later – Lions – Rattled by the rush

In which Mike, by sheer happenstance (a broken guitar and a request from Charlie on his 21st birthday) gets to fulfill his fantasy of playing in a cruise ship Pavement. Or is that my fantasy?

And so Stephen steps up to the microphone, Mike hits (mostly) the right piano chords (he's been practising for this!) and John (or Joanna?) does some subtle percussion.

There's a reason stuff like this never gets an official release, of course. We all know this is not really up to standard. But when you love an artist or a band, it's these kind of special treats that subjectively are right up there. I love it through all of the fumbles, missed lines and 'jazz' notes.

Makes you think about the parallels between 1995's 'no setlist' disasters (rumoured, cause the shows I've heard were pretty excellent) and 2003's relaxed approach to the setlist. In the Jicks he had a band that could really follow him wherever the moment took him (for better or worse – but in this case definitely better).

I don't know why, but this ends up with a weird band discussion about homemade pot cultivating (in a closet) and rumours of auto-asphyxiation. Thank God I don't practice Freudian analysis or they'd really be in trouble.
48
2003/12/02?
Nervous actors

The missing piece of the 'Face the truth' puzzle? The date on this recording may be a mistake. There's a whole set from that day (up next) and this performance is definitely not from the same tape. But this is Stephen and the Jicks sometime late 2003, formulating more steps toward the difficult third album.

The song 'Nervous actors' would all but disappear after this unique recording, but traces of it lingered, ghosts in the background making up a whisper of a very hard time getting to 'Face the truth'. The lyrics are on the album, but whispered in the coda to 'It kills', buried under solos and guitar noise. The song would turn up one last time after the album's release, at a solo acoustic KCRW session where Stephen lets 'It kills' (again) trail off into an extemporization of the song, by that time no more than half remembered.

And yet here it is - not in the best sound, but listenable enough, not in any kind of definite arrangement yet, but with all the Jicks pitching in and trying to get it to work. It's a minor miracle and it does work, but only just. This is, like 'It kills', ambitious, uncomfortable territory. In the drone like sections, the singsong melody, the very fragile mood, the many twists and turns of the arrangement, the philosophical enquiries of the lyric, you can hear how covers like 'Fisherman's song' and the unknown song from the 14th of april (note 39) lead straight into 'Face the truth'. It didn't fall out of the sky as if by magic. This is awkward (the harmonies) and treacherous stuff. It's hard to say if 'Nervous actors' could've survived into a full fledged Jicks track. There's more than something there, but in the end it was a stepping stone for the breakthrough that would - after much searching - lead to that great, but also awkward and treacherous third album.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 45/46 - 2003

45
2003/05/23, The Milwaukee show

1. “Summer Babe”
2. “In the Mouth a Desert”
3. “Zurich is Stained”
4. “Here”
5. “Two States”
6. “Frontwards”
7. “Shoot The Singer”
8. “Elevate Me Later”
9. “Gold Soundz”
10. “Range Life”
11. “We Dance”
12. “Rattled By The Rush”
13. “Brinx Job”
14. “AT & T”
15. “Stereo”
16. “Starlings Of The Slipstream”
17. “Fin”
18. “Spit on a Stranger”
19. “The Hexx”
Encore:
20. “Phantasies”
21. “Jenny And The Ess-Dogg”
22. “Water and A Seat”
23. “Dark Wave”
24. “Us”

Just for completeness sake, I'm adding the famed Milwaukee Show, where the Jicks played songs from all of Stephen's albums in chronological order. Should've really done some Lakespeed at the start, though, right? Back in the days before the reunion this was like the holy grail.

I can imagine it must've been amazing to have been there.
On the other band, I've only ever heard one recording of the show, and it was just about possible to make out the setlist, but that was about it. Not a pleasant listening experience. So, it's not in my collection anymore.

Still something of a holy grail then.
If there's a good (or even medium well done) recording of this, let me know.
46
2003?
Need your love (Status quo)
Yellow/here (Coldplay/Pavement)
Will you dare (Replacements)

A trio of covers – I've no idea when or where they come from. They show the Jicks getting looser and looser in their approach to covers. Most of these sound like they've been rehearsed at least half a time. But they do show these guys' (and girl's) encyclopedic knowledge of music lore. I don't know why but my gut places them sometime around 2003, so here we go.

Of the three, I have a soft spot for 'Need your love' – dumb riff rock fun. I had no idea this was a Status Quo song until just a couple of days ago when Stephen named 'Ma Kelly's...' as one of his underrated favorite records in the recent issue of Mojo. It's so repetitive it passes from braindead straight into zombie goodness. One of my first concerts was Status Quo in the mid-80s (with my dad). They'll always be alright with me, even if they suspiciously didn't play this song then. Better than 'In the army now' though. I must search out that record.

The 'Yellow'/'Here' mash-up sounds as bad as you expect. And besides, I don't recognize half of the 'Yellow' sections as actually belonging to the Coldplay song. Not that I know the song particularly well, and I'm not about to start now. This performance is just to prove the point that the songs are quite similar, and, as Stephen recounts, he wanted to do it cause he saw an interview with Chris Martin where he claimed not to be aware of Pavement. (actually that would explain a lot!). Stephen: 'I used to say the same thing when I was stealing songs.' John: 'You've gone straight now.' Stephen: 'Luckily I never had a hit.'

'Will you dare' – more 80s underground rock from the Jicks' golden age of youth (just kidding). They rehearsed it so well they have to hum to tricky bridge section! Absolutely pointless, but I suppose it's fun if you like the original. It's not really part of my background, but I hang on to it nevertheless.

360 records from the year 2000: 270 - 261

270. Cristina Branco: Post-scriptum

Blues is the fado of America.
Well, that’s as far as this review’s likely to get. I hit the wall of my own perception. Yes, I do like the first and last songs on this album, they sound to me like they have something different, something that approaches my own field of experience. The rest is a wall of what could be great music, that I have no feeling for, no map to even start appreciating it. It exists, but outside of my personal field of aesthetics. Oh, I’ll sit reverently still as it’s playing, hoping to get thrown a bone, thankful for every occurrence of a little guitar motif that I can place. It’s like that sometimes. My loss, quite certainly.

At its best: Ai vida, Ausente

269. Keith Caputo: Died laughing

For a short time, I figured this was a Ween-esque parody on tortured rockers. Sadly it’s not. The music is very accomplished in a corporate post-grunge heavy ballad rock style, produced with some panache. I quite like it in a Perry Farrell way. But the lyrics are so bad it’s just impossible to tune them out. Granted you’re bound to come out of a vocalist slot for Life of Agony somewhat traumatized, but this takes psychiatrist couch rock (such a 90s genre) to previously unexpected depths of awfulness. The first few songs manage to be at least a little subtle about it, just a couple of stray terrible lines: ‘it’s warm inside a crucifix’ (‘Razzberry mockery’) or the chorus of ‘Selfish’, ‘I’m selfish with myself’. In the second third of the record there’s no escaping. ‘Home’ has a repeated chorus line ‘I recommend a psychotherapist to clean up your brain’ sung in a dramatic way as banks of violin rise from the depths. What to think of the faux-jazzy lounge groove of ‘Cobain (Rainbow deadhead)’ with its incessant refrain ‘Cobain was murdered by you’. Is this some elaborate code that I’m not in on? Maybe the chorus of the next ballad (‘Neurotic’) takes the biscuit though:
Syringe me
Syringe me
Syringe me with addiction

The final third loses all sense. Meaningless doggerel starts flying from all directions: ‘Standing naked in front of me / Won’t you sex my soul’ (‘Dew drop magic’), ‘If you don’t believe in heaven / It won’t believe in you (chorus from the same song), ‘Do you have to cry / Were you pulling Christ?’ (‘Upsy daisy’), ‘Your life is a crime / Frogman I’m dying / Arrogant hard-on borrow your own goat / Your life is a crime’ (also ‘Upsy daisy’), ‘I died last year of a heroin overdose / In memory to my sweet mom, she was strawberry blonde (‘Brandy Duval’), ‘Sometimes light behaves like a monkey / Sometimes light behaves like a torch / Fashion faith is entirely striking / Ode to Kate Moss’ (‘Brandy Duval’ again).

And somewhere in there, ‘Home’ again, is the worst lyric I’ve ever encountered in a love song. This guy wouldn’t recognize poetry if it hit him in the face with a brick. Ladies and gentlemen:
‘I’m swallowing stars and shitting out love’
Shame, cause some of the tunes are pretty good.

At its best: Razzberry mockery, Just be
At its worst: Cobain (Rainbow deadhead) is inexcusable, but token ballad to addiction ‘Neurotic’ hits me on an even deeper level of gut awfulness

268. Dwight Yoakam: Tomorrow’s sounds today

It just doesn’t add up to me. Reading about this record, I see a lot about how it’s everything Real Country (the obviously not-real country Nashville patriotic rock of the ‘90s and ‘00s) is not. And everything about it, from the title to the Buck Owens duets, to the vocal harmonies, to the fiddle playing and the pedal steel, the stomping country beat, seems to show Real Country what they’re doing wrong. Well, okay… but there’s more to life than showing Real Country what they’re doing wrong. 

So what’s giving it me? Is it giving me a feel for the classic country themes (heartbreak and honkytonks to name but two)? Not really – it touches those themes, but none of it hits home hard, none of it seems really more than a written-to-order theme tune. Is it giving me a feel for something new, some theme that hasn’t been expanded on in country yet? Definitely not. I get this sense that it’s too much of nothing, a really slick record trying to position itself as raw, simply because the competition is even more slick? And on a side note: what the fuck is that cover of Cheap Trick’s ‘I want you to want me’ doing here instead of ending up on the cutting room floor? Either be raw, or be slick unapologetically, but somewhere stuck in the middle with only denial for a friend… It doesn’t work for me, but I get the feeling Dwight might just write a song about it. And I’ll probably feel that one’s just a little too superficial as well.

At its best: Time spent missing you, A world of blue
At its worst: I want you to want me

267. Common: Like water for chocolate

No matter how many seriously great collaborators he manages to snare (?uestlove, d’Angelo, J Dilla…), fact is Common is a really dull artist – his subject matter is often annoying, his rapping without hooks. And the ‘Pimp’ skit – woman praises Common for his feminist stance, while Common keeps his ho’s in check – is really unforgivable – it’s just not funny. Shame about the collaborators who can’t raise this up above average but boring.

At its best: The light

266. Primal scream: XTRMNTR

Listening to Bobby Gillespie sing is like making love to a beautiful woman marinated in wild honey and exotic spices. Well, if you don’t buy that, here’s another one:
Some believe that making a painful mockery of yourself is at the heart of rock ’n’ roll, but that doesn’t mean every painful mockery is rock ’n’ roll. Primal Scream aim for an insurrectionist noise. MC5 meets Sun Ra meets Suicide. It’s not. It doesn’t even make me get up and protest horrible music. I just turn it down when asked by my girlfriend (who is a beautiful woman though not marinated, so I do whatever she says, even when she’s got a point like now).

At its best: Keep your dreams, IF you can get past opening line ‘I believe that syphilis can burn itself away’. Heart-breaking stuff.
Passable: Kill all hippies, Exterminator (damn those lyrics again though, all this talk about civil disobedience makes me want to wait for the green light before I cross the street), Blood money (finally, an instrumental)
Bad: Accelerator, Swastika eyes (both versions), Insect royalty, Mbv arkestra (layers of sound can’t hide that nothing happens in these 7 minutes), Shoot speed/Kill light
At its worst: Pills – I have to applaud such total lameness. Absolutely one of the worst songs I’ve heard from 2000, and I’ve heard a bunch. Objectively bad.

Edit: It’s been a few months since I wrote this, and on subsequent listens, while the overall awfulness hasn’t lifted, I’ve developed a strange, ‘Plan 9 from outer space’ like fascination for ‘Pills’.

265. Tom McRae: Tom McRae

Definitely not without rewards for attentive listeners. Nevertheless this singer songwriter may have released his debut a little prematurely. It’s all a bit underdeveloped and adolescent. And well, just his luck that I got a thing about adolescent singer songwriters. They make my skin crawl.

At its best: Second law, Draw from the stars, Untitled
At its worst: Bloodless

264. John Scofield: Bump

Jazz guitar, a little bit of soul/r&b in there, a little bit of stunt guitar. But…no, it doesn’t register.

At its best: Fez

263. Uri Caine: Goldberg variations

If there’s one record (or a double) that escapes classification, it’s this one. A bewildering set of variations (72 in total) based on Bach’s work. It ranges from straight (beautiful) renditions to the weirdest sounds. The premise seems to be to introduce Bach to all of the music that has come into being since he worked. So you get the Rachmaninov variation, the Verdi piano duet variation, but also New Orleans jazz, gospel, soul (anyone for the ‘Dig it variation’ ?– basically Caine singing ‘dig it’ to the tune of the variation), bossa nova, klezmer, minimalist variations, drum&bass variations… And then there are the really nutty ones: ‘The Dr Jekyll and mr Hyde variation’, ‘the stuttering variation’… Some really bad ideas.
There are certainly 30 minutes of outstanding beauty in there, but I just can’t get a handle on it. The whole thing sinks under its own weight. Of course it deals in caricatures, but the overacted singing on nearly all of the sung tracks (the gospel singing particularly excruciating) is a dealbreaker. It’s a no.

Edit: Let me try it with an abridged track list, like the one underneath. Better, but…no.

At its best: Disc one – 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18, 22, 28, 35, 39. Disc two – 3, 8, 10, 14, 15, 19, 21, 24, 30, 32, 33.
262. De la soul: Art official intelligence: Mosaic thump

Those De la soul guys are back. But it’s a disappointing return. You get the feeling it was time for another record, ‘How many have we made?’ you hear them think, and so they headed for the studio and stuck it out, had some friends over, got on with it and without too much hassle, here’s the new record. It’s not all bad, the first half is quite entertaining, but that real De La Soul touch doesn’t appear all that often. These are just some entertaining, could be anyone jams, and a bunch of skits of course. Occasionally it lifts itself out of the mire (see the high points below) but that happens all too rarely. And in between you have to sit through some boring tough guy workouts like ‘I.C.Y’all’, which fits De La Soul like a boxing glove fits a ballet dancer. In the second half of the record it gets pretty boring, the last third (which is still 6 songs – not having much to say doesn’t stop them from saying it a lot) is downright embarrassing: ‘Squat!’ is one of the worst Beastie Boys-tracks I’ve heard, and the Beastie Boys were never good at quality control. ‘With me’ is a lame slow jam. ‘Copa (Cabanga)’ is uninspired club/tropical junk. But worst of all is the last track ‘U don’t wanna B.D.S.’ which is quite literally a mess of people shouting over one another – one of the worst of the year. It could have been so much more.

At its best: Oooh, Thru ya city
At its worst: IC Y’all, Declaration, Squat!, U don’t wanna B.D.S.

261. Wyman, Bill – Rhythm kings: Groovin’

Where’s Jools?

At its best: Tomorrow night, Rhythm kings, Yesterdays

360 records from the year 2000: 360-271 round-up

First round-up aka my first positive post!
If I've put a hatchet in your favourite records these last few days, here’s your first chance to return the favour.
For all the records we've covered there are exactly four songs that I want to keep. It may not seem like much, but you see, we’re slowly getting to the good stuff.
There’s no point in getting together a longer list of semi-ok songs. This is it for me. I will stand up for these songs.

1. Sinead O’Connor: Jealous

What a song and what a performance. Her record may have been more miss than hit, but this track hits me with full force. Just that line ‘You say I treat you so badly, I can’t be forgiven’. If no one’s ever said that to me, it’s just cause they didn’t have a way with words.

2. Ravi Coltrane: Social drones

From my review:
“Opener ‘Social drones’ is a nice exception, containing both a beautiful and wonderfully arranged theme and some effective soloing, reflecting the players’ individual perspectives. I can recommend it.”
A memorable jazz composition and performance.

3. Armand Van Helden: Full moon (feat. Common)

Makes me snap like elastic. I don’t know what to say about this caveman-like crude one-dimensional track, except the groove hits me just right (yes, I know it’s borrowed).

4. Mazarin: Chasing the girl

Awkward indierock can yield its unexpected rewards, and here’s one of mine. I dig the solo starting about 1’30 into it the most, but the whole swarm (swirl?) of guitars is honey to my ears.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 43/44 - 2003

43
2003/05/18, Lee's place, Toronto, Ontario

Dynamic calories
Us
Discretion grove
Dark wave
Craw song
Church on white
Ramp of death
Witch mountain bridge
Phantasies
Animal midnight
Water and a seat
Vanessa from Queens
The hook
(Do not feed the) Oyster
Jenny & the Ess-dog
100 years from now
1% of 1

I have a feeling I've been saying this a lot, but here goes – this is totally one of my five or so favorite Jicks concert recordings (up there with 2001 Sydney, 2005 Crystal ballroom and january 2007 Portland).

It's not a show where special, unique things happen, there are no remarkable feats or tales. Just great playing, a band with the urge to be THERE. Stephen plays amazing guitar throughout, no sign of sloppiness at all. Great band chemistry, everybody's in a great mood, John's is firing off wisecracks every which way. And the sound is nice and direct, lots of guitar in your face.

The translation of 'Pig lib' to the stage is all complete at this point. Gone are the clean, uncluttered lines of the record, in favour of ragga-like psychedelic guitar solos, crunching riffs and absolute controlled chaos.

Not that the first half of the set disappoints, it most certainly does not – they fire off a series of compact performances to start off the show, one after another, hardly without a break (except to veer into 'Sunday bloody Sunday' for just 5 seconds and declare tomorrow 'sex orgy day' – 'it's a holiday and a rebel song').

'Us' offers what sound like stoner rock imitations during the solos (Steve's a great fan, right?, and they played with Dead Meadow some of the shows in 2003). The performance of 'Dark wave' is almost metalic, so crunchingly loud.

Not that the first half disappoints, but at one point, right after finishing 'Vanessa from Queens' (some great guitar solos), John spots a couple of people leaving and says 'Yeah, If I were you, I wouldn't hesitate, the rest of the set is gonna just go downhill, just head off'.

That's when it really starts.

They ditch 'Sheets' (shame) to burst into my favorite all-time version of 'The hook'. Unrehearsed, Stephen's pretty adamant he's not going to remember the lyrics (he gets away with some fumbles which always put a smile on my face), but 'cause someone requested it. Everything about it is perfect, the rhythm, the bass, John talking to Stephen while he's singing throughout the song, the one note guitar solo (John: 'Don't wear it out!'). It's never been this loose and so tight.

'Oyster' is the mad, heavy trip it always promised it could be. 'Jenny & the Ess-dog' is piano and vocal. Just Mike and Steve. I mean, the first few times you hear this, it sounds like lounge comedy. But when it hits you, it's lounge comedy with heart. A spot on cover of '100 years from now' (Byrds version) sung by John.

They even do a version of 'In da club' by 50 Cent!

And finally, one of the best jammed out versions of '1% of 1' ever. Sounds like it's going to fall apart every other note, but it just keeps going. Steve's singing these wordless imitations of his guitar lines, like he's diving off a cliff or something, totally unselfconscious, lost in the moment.

Like I said, not that the first half disappoints, but not much in life beats that.
And all because some folks left early!

44
2003/05/18, Lee's place, Toronto, Ontario
1% of 1 jam

When I got this track it was dated 2005/05/18, two years later than its actual date. Right until I was writing these notes, I thought it was from the 'Face the truth' tour. Here's what I initially wrote:

This is an edit of an epic performance of '1% of one', pared down to 6 minutes of pure guitar improvisation. No need to go through two verses and choruses, just cut straight into the action. I don't know where I got this fragment from or who performed this edit, but whoever did it was acting on inspiration.

It's probably my fave performance of the Jicks cutting loose – heavy repetitive bassline, Stephen just flying off while Mike is busy shredding in the background tying together in these crazy guitar knots, John is talking to Stephen the whole time, commenting on every guitar move with drum responses. It's telepathy. (It probably falls apart completely right after the end fade of this edit.)

In that way, it's a precursor to the 'Real Emotional Trash' years. You see that sometimes in artists. They set out to master a particular idiom seemingly unaware that right at the start of their search they're already spontaneously achieving higher peaks (or at least as high) than they will subsequently consciously master. They want to control the thing they sometimes achieve without knowing exactly how they're doing it.

– – –

But careful listening (and re-listening) has led me to the conclusion that it's from the '1% of 1' performance at Lee's place in 2003 (the same '1 %' from the last note). A myth, then, but still, a crazy edit of an amazing jam. My favorite '1% of 1'.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 41/42 - 2003

41
2003/05/11, ?
Fisherman's song

Cover of an obscure, religious (the internet calls it 'Jesus music') folkrock song by a mid-'70s UK band called Aslan (never doubt that Stephen has a bigger record collection than me and, probably, you - this is from Aslan's 1977 Second Helpings album).

The assured playing and the faultless (lyrically at least) harmony singing (Stephen and John?) of a long lyric indicate the Jicks lived with this song for a while. This is not some random spur of the moment impulse. But I've never heard another recording. Then again, this one radiates such fragile charm, there's no need for second takes. Only the guitar solo is a little hesitant, but the playing and singing is otherwise beautiful.

Stephen's immersion in all this obscure '70s psychedelic and folkmusic would seep through in the grooves of 'Face the truth', that's for sure.

42
2003/05/17, Montréal Cafe campus
Witch mountain bridge
100 years from now

Two more examples of the well drilled 2003 Jicks touring machine. 'Witch mountain bridge' is its usual majestic self. '100 years from now' some light relief, with John on vocals. They'd play another version the next day, recorded with better sound.

Nothing especially noteworthy, but what a band - would be performance highlights for any other group. Here it's just business as usual.

Capsule review: Michael Hurley e.a. - Have moicy! (1976)

Zany, absurd, sentimental, mostly untutored, sometimes frustrating, but also hilarious, nigh on irresistible. Hurley's assortment of gleeful folk deconstructions shows up punk's pretentions as early as 1976. Anybody could do this all along. Well, why didn't they?

Capsule review: Gary Burton quintet - In concert (1968)

Too twiddly, didn't understand.

Capsule review: Bat for lashes - Fur and gold (2006)

There's a gothic undercurrent which suggests Natasha Khan's idea of a great band is the Bad Seeds, but we've all been young once. She paints herself the ugly duckling awaiting transformation. In the real world that's unlikely. In this magic pixie dreamworld, who knows? It could happen. Great repetitive, percussive piano (and other keys) playing too.

Capsule review: Foo fighters - Foo fighters (1995)

In my young and innocent days I thought 'For all the cows' was jazz. Now I realise it's the kind of minor quirk Dave Grohl spent the rest of his career trying to avoid. (20150929)

Capsule review: Bob Dylan - Bootleg series Vol 11: The basement tapes. (1967-68, 2014 released)

Got the COMPLETE version cause I wanted to hang with Heylin and Marcus. Then I got the condensed version to actually listen to. Some of the best ever. Lost time is not found again.

Capsule review: Grateful dead - Steal your face (1974, 1976 released)

Veers schizophrenically between aimless covers (cowboy songs and rock'n'roll songs made to sound like cowboy songs) and spectral self-written ballads (even 'Casey Jones' is a ballad on this live take). Thankfully, the ballads go on for longer than the covers, but it's still a puzzler. 'Stella blue' and 'Ship of fools' highlights.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 39/40 - 2003

39
2003/04/14, ?
Unknown song

'Peaches and cream / strawberries cherries / apricots / all of mine to share / with you'. Those are all the words I can make out on this unknown song. Cover or original? - I'm leaning toward the first, even though I've certainly never heard it anywhere else. They stumble into it. Mike is looking for the notes. Everyone is negotiating the vocal melodies - there's a tricky question and response rhythm to the vocal line. But they've got spirit, and pretty soon it coalesces into one of those one time only hidden gems. Nice guitar too.

Musically, it doesn't sound unlike the songs Stephen was/would soon be writing for 'Face the truth'. Great riff that circles round and round, catchy but there's a little something off about it, that sounds incorrect at first. They change chords at the wrong beat, right? Then before it's over, that's your favorite thing about it. Couldn't it be? There's a very small possibility, and that's enough to have me excited.

'We didn't plan that. It was all so planned upto this point,' says Stephen at the end.

40
2003/05/09, Ashville NC, Orange Peel
Old Jerry

Of all the 'Old Jerry''s this is the least, simply because of the recording quality. Distant, muffled.
The performance is driven and energetic, on the verge of something. At around the 6 minute mark you can feel the band on the cusp of a jammed breakthrough. They hesitate, but no. It doesn't happen. The song ends in an unfocused blur. Almost.

360 records from the year 2000: 280 - 271

280. Delta 72: 000

Particularly unconvincing genre exercise in ‘turn of the 70s’ rock’n’roll.

At its best: Sun the secret prince

279. Braxton, Anthony: Four compositions (GTM) 2000

2000 came and went and no jetpacks appeared. It’s no wonder that the most important evolution in ‘00s music proved to be in music that sounds like something dropping down a flight of stairs. Sure, the line was an easy cliché in earlier music criticism to deride/praise almost any kind of chaotic passage in a performance. But it was in the ‘00s that artists with an almost scientific zeal explored the many dimensions of sounding like something dropping down some kind of stairs. The factor ‘stairs’ alone is a multi-dimensional parameter that reflects our consumerist society of choices: straight stairs, straight stairs with intermediate landing, quarter landing stairs, half landing stairs, single winder stairs, double winder stairs, arched stairs, spiral stairs, compact stairs, interior stairs and exterior stairs, helical stairs, alternating tread stairs… All these types of stairs come in different materials, as important as the wood inside a Gibson Les Paul: brick stairs, concrete stairs, glass stairs, marble stairs, metal stairs, pavement stairs, carpeted stairs, stone stairs, tiled stairs, wooden stairs, alabaster stairs… And that’s before we get into the different sub-parameters like treads, risers, nosing, bullnoses, stringer boards, winders and trims. And of course the wholly differentiated sub-genre of railing systems. ‘Merzbow at the Penrose stairs’ is the ‘Floyd at Pompeii’ of the ‘00s. I believe by 2010 musicians were just getting into the paradigm shift of actually dropping stairs down a flight of stairs.

Well, either that or this sounds like Sylvester chasing Tweetybird around her cage for 70 minutes. But in a pleasant sort of way.

278. Calexico: Hot rail

Burns and Convertino’s reputation as the Americana Sly & Robbie is well deserved. They’ve been in the engine room for a lot of great records. But not their own under the Calexico-banner. Calexico’s always struck me as the emperor’s new clothes in reverse: the can stitch a great coat, but they’ve got nothing to hang it on. The sumptuous arrangements (mariachi horns, strings, xylophones, keyboards, Shadows-style lead guitar…) do nothing to make up for the lack of songs and personality. Disappointing.

At its best: Mid-town (a whirlwind of out of control drumming, backwards keyboards, dust clouds of discordant guitar notes – but still, no song to hang it all on)

277. Saint low: Saint low

A record out of time. They talk about music standing still since … (well, since when? ’78, ’86, ’95?), but hearing a record so stuck in the early ‘90s (more specifically, turn of the ‘90s American college rock, remember American Music Club?) amidst what’s left of 2000, gives the lie to that. The record just doesn’t belong, and not in a good, uncorrupted by those wicked modern and click track recordings-way. Not that it’s bad at what it does, but with its earnest singing and words, the all too basic chord shapes, the strings-meets-college rock template (remember the acoustic songs on ‘In Utero’ and how they spawned a dreaded mini-genre of alternative-rock ballads in the mid-90s?), it’s a sad record without a home. Yes, it’s more subtle than the picture I’ve just painted, but in the end that’s what it comes down to – bad memories of other acts they should have heeded.
Well, that and, two high points aside, the songs just aren’t there – that lemon had been squeezed dry already.

At its best: On the outside, Walk on by

276. Peaches: The teaches of Peaches

First impression: early 80’s Prince transposed to 2000, sly, fun, irresistible. But listen more and it turns out to be a cynical ride, and really, the tunes are kinda monotone.

At its best: Fuck the pain away

275. New pornographers: Mass romantic

I just can’t stand these guys with their smarmy, empty music. It’s really good modern alternative power pop indie, but it’s pointless. It’s just dead air, you know. I couldn’t find a human emotion in there with a magnifying glass and a paint gun. I was listening to this and reading Lester Bangs’ Lou Reed hatchet job ‘Let us now praise famous death dwarves’ at the same time once, and out of the whole constellation I couldn’t make up my mind who was most full of crap, Bangs or the New Pornographers. Reed seemed like the only decent guy in the bunch.
Other than that, great record.

At its best: Letter from an occupant

274. Ravi Coltrane: From the round box

Ravi is the son of John and Alice. With all that talent on both sides of his family tree, I was expecting to be bored with good intentions.
That’s a little unfair, but still. There’s a John Coltrane vibe on this. Not necessarily Ravi’s playing, which is more rounded and smooth than that of his father. But in the compositions and group context, there’s something questing, which reminds me a little of ‘Meditations’ maybe. (Nothing as far out as that and certainly not as some of his mother’s records though.) But besides setting the scene, it doesn’t mine great depths. It all sounds very in control and deliberate, but nothing memorable or unexpected. Like advanced schoolwork. I have to mention how beautifully recorded the music is. But it’s missing that personal touch maybe?
Opener ‘Social drones’ is a nice exception, containing both a beautiful and wonderfully arranged theme and some effective soloing, reflecting the players’ individual perspectives. I can recommend it.

At its best: Social drones

273. Mazarin: Watch it happen

Inconsequential indie pop fluff. Nice single ‘Chasing the girl’, but that’s as far as it goes.

At its best: Chasing the girl

272. Oranger: The quiet vibration land

Indierockers managed or record labeled by Spiral Stairs. Nice try and all, but this band is never going to be the future.

271. Cinematic orchestra: Remixes 1998-2000

If you ever feel in need of a really good talk about microphone placement, contact these guys. It’s a shame it doesn’t get any deeper than forty-five minutes of rad intro’s though.

At its best: Moving cities

Capsule review: Bob Dylan - Hard rain (1976)

He may not have been converted yet, but he's singing the gospel of divorce. Builds to savage side two. Don't cross this man. A howl.

Capsule review: Captain beefheart - Bat chain puller (1976, 2012 released)

With five tracks re-recorded for Shiny Beast, three for Doc at the Radar Station and two for Ice Cream for Crow, this doesn't have the impact it would have if released as intended. More like a nice and bluesy rehearsal for the real thing. The manic energy of the re-recordings (and their respective albums) is noticeably toned down. But that just means it has its own mood. Good to have it out in the public domain, or at least upon payment of a hefty contribution to the Zappa estate.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 37/38 - 2003

37
2003/03/31 Barcelona & 2003/04/13 Brussels
2 early versions of 'It kills'

Two more 'in progress' versions of 'It kills'.

'It kills' is a difficult song for everyone involved: the band, Stephen himself, they're just starting to get a handle on it. It's a difficult song for the audience too.

Just a quick digression: I don't think all of Stephen's songs have lyrics that are primarily meaningful. Some of them are just wordplay, or chaotic poetry (which I love), or howls (I like what Stephen once said about 'Wowee zowee' – that one of its defining characteristics is that a lot of the songs have vocals but not really lyrics as such). It's just that music critics (them again) seem to have decided that's all he does, and he's never written a song with a meaningful lyric. So you get this one-sided view that's repeated in reviews ad nauseam – the king of puns and weird rhymes. And Stephen doesn't talk about that stuff at all in his interviews. It's a little weird to write down my interpretation of songs that I think have coherent and meaningful lyrics with well-thought out arguments. It feels like engaging in flights of imagination, like I'm making it up, desperately reading something between the lines. But I think they're wrong, I'm not making it up, I'm just reading some very straightforward lyrics and engaging with them. And I think Stephen puts time and effort into those lyrics to get them to say exactly what he means.

'It kills' is a heavy song, in its finished form. It talks about growth, growing as a human being, and about the pain of growth, casting off ancient layers of skin, leaving behind the person you were to enter a new phase. It talkes about the difficulty, about hesitation and uncertainty.

In the Barcelona version Stephen's tackling the eventual theme in some half-finished lyrics ('What you gonna do?... Where you gonna go?' is in place, as is the word 'kill' in the chorus – 'she kills', 'they kill'). But in this early draft it talks more about societal exploitation (2nd verse) and I think, about the love/death interface (1st verse – 'she kills').

The Brussels version has dummy lyrics again (strange as it seems) about 'Frank Lloyd Wright' and a girl with 'false hair' and a chorus of 'my little sister knows her ABC'.
Musically they're straightening it out. Interestingly enough, the one part where I feel the studio version falters is the bridge (both lyrically and arrangement). On these early versions (especially Barcelona) Mike plays some very low piano notes, which suggest another direction for the bridge, that's the way I think it should have gone.


38
2003/04/13, Brussels
Old Jerry

By now you know how much I dig this tune – but I'm about to jump into wild psychological conjecture to convince you this is one of the most important songs in Stephen's book.

Side-note: I told you of my 2001 Jicks concert trauma. If not for that, I would 've probably been at this Brussels concert. I only know one other song they played, but just the thought that they played 'Old Jerry' so wonderfully and so near my home... and I decided not to see 'em again! It's enough to reduce a buddhist lumberjact to tears (so you can imagine what it does to me!).

Skip back to note 27 for my general impressions of this song. I mention unfullfilled longing, open-ended desire, the kind of subconscious emotional reflexes a lot of Pavement songs are build on. It's an adolescent feeling, when you're looking for a place in the world.

How much songs from 'Face the truth' onward emit that emotion? I don't know any.
I mean, let's not dwell too much on biography (I ain't A.J. Weberman), but Stephen was settling down, taking on the responsibilities of adulthood and family. Found a place in the world. As people do.
And the tone of his meaningful lyrics reflects that change. There's a whole new discourse on 'Face the truth' and beyond (a great one, which has given me as much guidance and recognition as the Pavement songs).

So, it's the end of an era.
Actually, he plays it like the era's already passed. I may not have gotten it if I'd been there in the audience. The song's taken at a brisk pace, moving along breezily almost, not dwelling on the lost feeling, almost valedictorian.
It took me a few listens but then I got it, he plays it like he's remembering the feeling, rather than feeling the feeling.

That's what I think, anyway. Every time he played the song during the 2003 concerts he got closer to that final farewell. And just wait till we get to the final and definitive version.

Capsule review: Abba - Arrival (1976)

Of course Arrival is a bubble of unreal sugarcoated fantasy. It's a record that has me believing I can dance, I can jive. It's my bubble and I'll cry if I want to ('My love, my life'). That too.

Capsule review: Kate Wolf & the Wildwood Flower - Back roads (1976)

Any record with a songtitle 'Sitting on the porch' and another 'Riding in the country' is bound to be downhome and probably flawed. So it is here. But the downhome is convincing and the best of these unartful songs, sung in Wolf's unartful timbre, hit right in the heart. I count at least five. Consider the flaws forgiven.

Capsule review: Bob Seger & the Silver bullet band - Night moves (1976)

It's amazing how deeply I can enjoy the obvious Bruce Springsteen tropes, as long as they're played by anyone other than Bruce Springsteen. Seger sings 'Rock and roll never forgets' and he believes it. On the next song he opens up a can of Van Morrison, and he believes that too. No bandana'd guitarist or saxophone 'Big Man' to detract. '70s earthy American rock so classic it's almost brainless.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 35/36 - 2003

35
2003/03/21, Crystal ballroom, Portland, OR
Sin taxi / Ramp of death / Phantasies

Another chance to hear the 2003 version of 'Sin taxi' with added 'Ramp of death' and 'Phantasies'.

Solid versions of all these tracks, definitely on the level I've come to expect of the Jicks in 2003. Pretty damn good.

I can't report anything exceptional or noteworthy per se about these performances. I'm just happy there's a 2nd performance of 2003's 'Sin taxi' to compare (this one's a little less full on rock, but the arrangements is pretty much the same). And you know, if I could get into that time machine to a musical event of my choosing... I'd probably see the NRBQ with Steve Ferguson in 1970 or Prince around 'Dirty mind', but 2003 Jicks would be pretty high on my list. I'd get some action out of that time machine.

After 'Ramp of death', Stephen makes a crack about John Mayer-syndrome, white guys with acoustic guitars. Oh Steve, sometimes you just don't know your own strengths.


2003/03/21, Crystal ballroom, Portland
Old Jerry

There are 6 known recorded versions of 'Old Jerry'. We've encountered an early version played during the april 2002 South American tour (note 27) and the studio version (note 31). The other 4 versions are all live takes from the 2003 Pig Lib tours. He would burn through all of the song's potential in 2003, reaching ever more intense peaks (you'll see). And indeed, after 2003 it seems the songs was put in storage indefinitely. I've heard rumours of a 2014 freak sighting, but no recording or confirmation.

Here, from the start of the tour, a beautiful subdued version, leaning heavily on the electric piano and with some elegiac guitar skronk additions. An early morning version, with a feeling almost like innocence.

36
2003/04/07, unknown location

Rattled by the rush (instr)
Soundcheck jam
Summer babe
In between days

Unreleasable, unique little moments I always listen to with a smile on my face, however unformed they may be. The first three tracks are from the soundcheck (don't know where this show is taking place), and offer a view 'behind the scenes' (so to speak – I suppose we don't have to expect a Jicks reality show anytime soon, thank God). Turns out when no one's listening they like to riff on old Pavement songs too!

The 'Rattled by the rush' instrumental is just a tantalizing fragment. They spend about half of its 40 seconds negotiating whether they're playing the verse or the chorus. The bass just doesn't find the right notes. And yet, it's delicious. Maybe it's just the Proustian rush of it.

'Soundcheck jam' – for some of us two words that will always gladden our hearts! There aren't many recordings of the Jicks just jamming, and that's a shame. This rare instance shows them pretty good at getting a mood down right away. Starts with a bassline, John is on it with a simple beat immediately, Stephen plays some atmospheric guitar flourishes and mumbles some half-vocals (but really right for the feeling of the moment) and halfway trough Mike enters on piano. That guy can't half play, right?

This is what I usually tag the Basement Tape 'Summer babe' (on account of Stephen's craggy Dylan-as-old-man vocal) or the 'slack motherfucker' version. It's a pastiche of something, and god knows what put 'em up to it, but it's got a lot of charm.
Shout-out request: if anyone has a recording of this that doesn't skip, I would be so thankful!

'In between days' (yes, the Cure) is from the concert itself. 'Lot of guitar in your face,' says Stephen, dismissing it. John thinks it's awesome. He's right. Uhm Stephen, a lot of that guitar in my face is exactly what I'm looking for.

Fun.

Unknown soundcheck
Mama(jam)

From an unidentified other 2003 soundcheck comes this embryonic 'Mama' jam. The guitar riff and the chorus chords are written – the rest not so much, ad-libbed vocals on a different melody line, bass and drums are searching.

It kinda corrects my assumption that 'Face the truth' was a basement creation by Stephen in isolation. Going into it the Jicks were there (see also the early version of 'It kills' on the Emo's show from march 2003). Somewhere along the line the mad scientist monomanical artist took over (aka Stephen's inner Todd Rundgren).

Not good in any traditional sense, but fascinating. I'd rather hear this than watch that Godard movie about the Rolling Stones stumbling towards 'Sympathy for the devil'.

360 records from the year 2000: 290 - 281

290. Toru Takemitsu: I hear the water dreaming

It’s a great soundworld, but someone forgot to turn on the light.

289. Los lobos: Run away with you

A bootleg of a December 1999 show. I quite like Los Lobos, but they were very right not to release live stuff like this – an unremarkable set of amped up Mexican r&b played too fast and blustering blues guitar solos.

At its best: Angel dance, This time

288. Thievery corporation: The mirror conspiracy

What’s wrong with the tail end of trip hop in 2000 is that it’s all so impersonal, more like a creation of etiquette circles than of artists. All the fancy middle eastern flavors and bossa nova influences are just window dressing on a stale slate.

At its best: So com voce

287. Ten Benson: Hiss

Sub-ZZ Top garage rock. Could’ve been entertaining, but oh, they forgot the songs.

At its best: I don’t buy it

286. Januaries: Januaries

A bid for post-modern Blondie?

At its best: Love has flown, a great pop song in the midst of overly self-aware retro’kitsch’.

285. Six by seven: The closer you get

Shoegazer throwback, in the heavy rocking 2000 vein (rather than the ethereal revival these days). A couple of good tracks, but overall, a little too light.

Edit: Forget about those good tracks – on closer inspection I couldn’t find ‘em anymore.

At its best: 100 and something Foxhall road

284. Mojave 3: Excuses for travellers

Today's special is British indie slowcore
We sell so much of this people wonder what we put in it
We're going to tell you right now
Give me about a half a teacup - of Neil Young acoustic guitar strum
Now I need a pound of preciously literate lyrics about writing letters from the frontlines of love
Now give me four tablespoons of boiling overblown arrangements without rhyme or reason
This is going to taste all right
Now just a little pinch of painfully white gospel backing vocals
Place on the burner
And bring to a simmer
That's it, that's it, don’t let it boil
Let it simmer
Let it simmer
Now simmer
Simmer some more

At its best: She broke you so softly, Prayer for the paranoid

283. U2: Million dollar hotel OST

‘Million dollar hotel’ was a Bono vanity movie project that went nowhere. The soundtrack has vanity written all over it. A high quality cast of players, of course, but in service of what? A couple of nice enough U2-by-numbers, ‘Falling at your feet’ and ‘The first time’. A number of drifting vague compositions that exploit mood for all their worth but end up sounding like the middle of nowhere (one has Bono crooning ‘weightless…stateless…’ for a long time, another begins with a movie dialogue ‘It was just when I jumped that I realized life is perfect. It’s filled with magic, beauty, opportunity…and television’). At that point it hits me that Bono may be semi-talented, he’s not half as talented as he wishes he was. After that it’s further downhill with Milla Jovovich purring and screeching through ‘Satellite of love’ like a real movie star acting like a singer, and a Spanish cover of ‘Anarchy in the UK’.

At its best: Falling at your feet, The first time
At its worst: Milla Jovovich does awful things to the last minute of ‘Satellite of love’.

282. Jill Scott: Who is Jill Scott?

It’s my belief more people than you think go to psychologists not to have better relations, but to have relations – but more about that later.

We’re quick to point out impoverished musicianship in rock, but it’s just the same in black music. This record’s self-aggrandizing intro finds Jill explicating her inspirations (I mean, really, why tell us on your own record? I’m listening to it already - I can hear it):‘listening to jazz’, while the whole set up of the ‘Jilltro’ is to make us buy into the notion of Jill Scott as a jazz poet, orating her sharp thoughts and declamations in an underground club. Don’t believe it, jazz has been narrowed down to a couple of electric piano thrills, the jazz poet is reciting Carly Simon. 

I don’t know many records so completely obsessed with the artist’s vision of him/herself as a lover (except for one song about the familiar underground jazz poet staple ‘are we watching tv, or is the tv watching us’, titled… ‘Watching me’). All of this is about relations, and with relations she means sex, and boy, sex changes her life all the time. It’s so intense and meaningful and sexy. I have a normal relationship and I don’t need to hear about this stuff. This record might just as easily be called ‘The 18 orgasms that changed my life’ or even ’18 orgasms that changed my life’ (cause who knows how many outtakes there are). But don’t expect to hear anything about the orgasms, right, just about how her life was changed – cause that’s what you should be interested in, you pervert, her life!

One thing Jill has in common with Carly and other early 70s soft singer-songwriters, is a complete immersion in contemporary psychology gobbledygook. So you get heavy breathing and whispering in some guys ear to release his inner warrior and stuff like that (it’s on there, I’m not looking up the song title, I’ve suffered enough – Edit: oh alright, it’s ‘Show me’). Another track (edit: ‘Honey molasses’, just so you know) contains an answer machine message from Jill: ‘Hey… last night was… (heavy breathing again)…it was (god, this woman is getting off on just remembering her orgasms)…look, just don’t…be scared’. Run, brother, run and never set foot in an underground jazz poetry club again! I understand, we all want to eat strawberries after sex once, but you can’t trust anyone who buys ‘em wholesale.

At its best: ‘Do you remember’, I guess

281. Tangerine dream: The seven letters from Tibet

Pretty, but I won’t miss it. Wallpaper.