To think it took this half-forgotten comeback record to make me see the beauty of the Go-Betweens. Maybe it’s the fact it was recorded at Jackpot Records in Portland (where recordings for Stephen Malkmus’s first solo record were going on at about the same time), using some of Malkmus’s instruments. Maybe it’s the backing by Janet Weiss and Sam Coomes of Quasi – finally a solid American backbeat. Whatever it is, I like the sound of this record. And so, I took the time to appreciate the songs. It’s mostly McLennan though, isn’t it? To get to know this record, start with ‘Heart and home’, one of the best songs of the year. Some of his other songs aren’t far behind, ‘The clock’, ‘Orpheus beach’, Going blind’. Forster manages to keep up on side one, even shining on ‘He lives my life’, his best song of the record. On side two he falters with the truly dire ‘Surfing magazines’ and ‘When she sang about angels’. Nice enough music, but – and I used to say songs should be written about just about anything – a review of a Patti Smith show should not be put to music. And you shouldn’t have been at the show in the first place if you knew what was good for you.
At its best: The clock, He lives my life, Heart and home, Orpheus beach, Going blind
124. Damien Jurado: Ghost of David
It’s safe to say Jurado has heard Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic albums a couple of times. But it’s too easy to paint him as the everyman acoustic troubadour. No matter how well read he is in Steinbeck, Springsteen is the product of the economic upsurge of the Sixties, and he’s got that irrepressible New Jersey work your way to success-attitude. Jurado grew up in the ‘70s rather less optimistic economic climate and is a lifelong Seattle resident – so, right… Just getting out of bed and putting on a woodchuck shirt, is an achievement. No go-get-‘em peptalk here.
What you get: razor sharp urban folk like ‘Medication’ (critics like to throw authors like Raymond Carver in their reviews, and not without reason), disembodied spectral incantations, lo-fi mood swings (a garage rocker here, a found sound experiment there) and an instrumental closer, ‘Ghost in the snow’, prettier than anything on Springsteen’s acoustic albums. Don’t expect hope, don’t expect redemption, but he’s looking for both, and he’s looking really hard.
At the end of this record, a telephone rings. Someone should pick up. He deserves it.
At its best: Medication, Tonight I will retire, December, Ghost in the snow
123. Teenage fanclub: Howdy
If Teenage fanclub didn’t exist, 30-something ‘new’ men lost in the modern world would have to invent them. Then again, I know that feeling all too well. And unless you’re caught up in some kind of ideological straightjacket about what music should mean (The future! Youth! Rebellion!), it’s clear that it’s a feeling that deserves musical translation. Nobody does it better.
I heard some negative talk about this album even from Fanclub-fans. Nonsense, it’s my second favorite of their albums, after ‘Songs from Northern Britain’.
At its best: I need direction, Happiness, The town and the city, My uptight life
122. Deltron: 3030
Madness galore from Dan the Automator and Del tha funkee homosapien. It’s a concept sci-fi hip hop album about, well, I can’t really tell but computer virus terrorist attacks, memory loss and mind upgrading all figure. It’s dystopian, that’s for sure. Opener ‘3030’ is the album in miniature, an impossibly thick, lush sound, at the same time retro-70s soul and futurist, and on the whole far more musical than the average album in the genre. There’s a heavy b-movie / pulp literature vibe to the lyrics, but really, I listen to this as the forgotten soundtrack to that Shaft meets Robocop movie that never was.
At its best: 3030, Virus, Madness, Time keeps on slipping
121. Southern culture on the skids: Liquored up and lacquered down
Southern etc. is both a party band and a cartoon of a hard living country band. Inevitably, our response to their music is colored by how we feel about party bands and cartoon bands. If ‘Double shot of my baby’s love’ by the Swingin’ Medallions is one of your favorite ‘60s records (as it is mine), you will feel right at home at the party. The cartoon factor is a harder nut to crack. There’s a venerable tradition of cartoon bands (Monkees, Archies…) but by the time of the B-52s the tradition was getting ever more coarse and harder to support. Visually and brand-wise Southern etc. takes the B-52s template even further. I would probably enjoy this record more if it came to me in a brown paper bag filled with manure, instead of this richly illustrated disgrace to my eyes. But I decided to press on, for the good of the cause, and let my ears do the judging.
I like it a lot. This is a high octane speed race through the amusement park of barroom country music. Sure, it’s a cartoon exaggeration of Southern drinking culture (title song, ‘Corn liquor’, ‘Drunk and lonesome (again)’, ‘Corn rocket’, ‘Cheap motels’…), but the songs are not parody. This is a hard hitting rock AND roll country band blazing through well-formed songs (most of ‘em I could see being done by any number of ‘real’ country stars) with all the necessary authority. Based on this, I would venture they can not only cut it live in the toughest Southern bars, but maybe Jerry Lee should give ‘em a call when he tires of superstar guests. When you get down to it, wasn’t Jerry Lee a coarse exaggeration too, and he’s fun, right? All critical considerations aside, this rocks hard, swings hard, parties hard and it’s all I need. Will I feel bad about it in the morning?
At its best: Liquored up and lacquered down, Corn liquor, Drunk and lonesome (again), Just how lonely
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