Top Musical Let Downs of 2009 So Far

While thinking about this “best of the first half of 2009” business, I realized that, yes, a lot of great stuff has come out already this year, but I’ve also had a few musical let downs. Just knowing some of the following records were coming out I had already mentally prepared a spot for them in my best of list, so I was particularly crushed when they didn’t even merit honorable mention… I will bitch about them now.

God Help the Girl - God Help the Girl
When I read that this Stuart Murdoch project, “features an array of female vocalists, Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy, the members of Belle and Sebastian, and a 45-piece orchestra” I pretty much peed my pants. I even forgot that I really didn’t care for Belle & Sebastian’s last record. Now, there are a couple great songs - “Perfection as a Hipster” featuring Mr. Hannon and the title song (which reminds me a lot of Lightning Love) for starters. But the bulk of the record sounds like really boring singers doing uninspired covers of songs from Tracey Ullman’s early 80’s "girl group" record You Broke My Heart in 17 Places. Really, the best thing about God Help the Girl was it made me want to dig out and reappreciate You Broke My Heart In 17 Places.

PJ Harvey & John Parish – A Woman and a Man Walked By
I have loved Ms. Harvey for just about ever. Rid Of Me is one of my favorite albums of all time, and considering the recent trend of remastering and reissuing 90’s indie rock favorites, I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed that this gets the deluxe treatment. Now, the last time these two paired up in '96 it didn’t result in a perfect record, but it was still really good. “That Was My Veil” is still one of my favorite Harvey songs. But this time around I just couldn’t get into it. I don’t know – maybe I’m still holding a grudge because of White Chalk. But A Woman and a Man... just seems hard to digest and scattered.

Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
Oh, my mid-to-late 90’s Brit Pop lovin' days… Jarvis Cocker could do no wrong and the songs “Disco 2000” and “Common People” could cure anything. Remember when he jumped onstage in '96 and drunkenly mocked Michael Jackson’s totally sanctimonious Bit Awards performance? That was awesome. But sadly the new record isn’t. I was excited to hear he was pairing up with Steve Albini for this record – it seemed like such a perfect mismatch – like Albini could be MC Skat Kat to Cocker’s Paula Abdul. But it just doesn’t seem to work that well. Cocker just comes across as a creepy old British dude who always wanted to be in a Roxy Music cover band. The last song on the album takes over eight minutes to prove the easy to verify fact that Cocker should probably not try to be Barry White. But really, when I heard Cocker sing the line, “I want to refrigerate this moment…” I knew it just wasn’t going to work out.

The Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
This really wasn’t really a highly anticipated release for me – but I loved the song they did with David Byrne for the Dark Was the Night compilation, so that put them on my radar. Then Bitte Orca came out and everybody was losing their minds over it, so I decided I had to hear it. And really, it’s not a bad record, it just doesn’t make me lose my mind or even come close. It reminds me of The Silent Years meets School Of Language and really, I’d rather just listen to The Silent Years and School Of Language.

So there you have it. Happy Independence Day America. Now get off the internet and go blow up some prepacked, colorful explosives made in China to celebrate this joyous occasion.

Wonder Twins Review: Midsummer Nights in Midtown at MOCAD

Though I had started off with great intentions and planned to check out a couple dates of the Midsummer Nights in Midtown fest this June, I only managed to make it to one of the last evenings of programming. The MOCAD hosted and Slavic Soul Party and League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots and about 550 folks turned out. D’Anne and I wrote a little something for the Metro Times about it. Go read it to honor the passing of Michael Jackson.

Also, the Eat This City “Top Whatever of the First Half of 2009” lists have been posted. I was asked to participate this year and you can see my list and the lists of tons of other people here. You will also learn that I hate sausage.

Biking through the Randy Rainbow Nation

So 4th of July week – so busy, right? You’re all gearing up for Cityfest I’m sure… But you know what’s gonna make Cityfest even more awesome? Bike Valet!! Wheelhouse Detroit will be offering free bike parking during the event. Bike Valet will be offered during event hours which are 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m Wednesday through Saturday and 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. The lot is located Cass and Grand Boulevard, as shown on the festival map (bike corral). So let’s ride bikes! Who’s with me? I am so excited that I’m italicizing left and right! Whoa.

So your Wednesday through Sunday “Proud-To-Be-An-American” plans are taken care of, but real Americans will get things started tomorrow night at the Magic Stick with the Sik Sik Nation, Deastro, Black Moth Super Rainbow show. This is a show for True Patriots. How do I know? Simple – the three bands here have NOT been chosen by accident. Taking one word from each band name (with the added bonus super secret knowledge of Deastro’s real name) and what do you come up with? “Randy Rainbow Nation.” I am hoping that they’ll be handing out lapel pins with this name on it so we can boast our true Patriotism to jealous Cityfest-only attendees. Suckers.

Record Review: Deastro

The last thing you need is ANOTHER local blog fawning all over Deastro, so I took advantage of a clever loop hole. Read my review of Deastro’s Moondagger at the totally not local site, Tiny Mix Tapes.

Record Review: Sonic Youth

Today’s brand new Metro Times has my review of the new Sonic Youth record The Eternal. It took a little time to grow on me, but I’m really liking it. Ever since 1992’s Dirty I’ve been waiting for a Sonic Youth record to come close to changing my whole world the way that record did. I’ve liked most of their input since, but I’ve yet to repeat that socked-in-the-gut feeling. Then again I was fourteen when Dirty was released, so it probably has as much to do with right-album-right-time as the record’s actual greatness. I always loved the cover of Dirty – I even had it on a t-shirt that I wore pretty much all the time. Also, according to my mom, the cover’s odd stuffed orange creature looks like a “crocheted uterus.” I think that uterus-as-craft-project is most likely outside the realm of most people’s thinking, but she’s a labor and delivery nurse and taught Lamaze Classes way back in the day. Growing up, we had a lot of pregnancy-related props around the house. I remember playing with both poster-sized pictures of fetuses in different stages of development and a pelvis bone model that we used to use for Barbie carriage rides. My mom didn’t actually own a crocheted uterus though – I think it was something she saw in one of her child birth technique teaching catalogs. So somebody, somewhere thought that was a great idea for a teaching aid.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Sonic Youth on Monday – I’ve only ever seen them once before and it was at Lollapalooza at Pine Knob and I just remember the sound being terrible. I had a dream recently that I was at the Sonic Youth show and Kim Gordon was visibly pregnant and flashing her vagina at the audience. I was alarmed, but then realized it was a pretend vagina she was flashing. So then I was like, “Okay, yeah – that’s fine. Of course she’s flashing a pretend vagina, like who doesn’t do that?” It was not a crocheted vagina though, as far as I could tell.

Music Writing: The Prime Ministers

Oh, the plans I had – but a stupid flu bug knocked me on my ass and I missed all the good stuff this past weekend. The only thing I managed to get to was the MI Music & Merch swap which was really great – like a church rummage sale, but at a bar and no used granny pants on the two-for-a-dollar table. Though there WERE New Grenada bikini underwear. I’m not making that up. I picked up some fun stuff for cheap from my favorite local labels- none of my purchases being undergarments of any kind. Then I basically went home and collapsed in sickness and had a sad over feeling too crummy to go to the Prime Ministers record release show. Though, based exclusively on the strength of my daring expose in the Metro Times, I hear they had a great turn out. You should for real check out their new record Compromiser – it’s one of my favorite of the year so far, and it's currently available for free download.

Bonus prize - A great public apology letter from a Bob Mould fan

Wonder Twins Review: “Rock Stars’ Cars & Guitars” at The Henry Ford

The Metro Times that hits the streets (and internet) this very day has the latest Wonder Twins column. This week, we take you into the crazy world of excess and shameless display that is the motoring habits and instrumentation choices of famous makers of music. I figured this exhibit (running now through Sept 7) would be interesting, but I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and was overly impressed with the Henry Ford. Henry Ford was a visionary – a crazy, racist visionary – but the museum that shares his name deserves your support and patronage. As do all the cultural institutions of metro-Detroit this summer… Unlike Cobo Hall, they really are precious jewels.