China Drum
"Can't Stop These Things" 7" vinyl
Mantra. MNT 8.
by Scott Zimmerman.
April 30, 1996.
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Listening to angst-ridden, loud, male rock and roll bands with noisy
guitars and a similar array of effects boxes to this week's MTV Buzz
Clip band is not my normal listening pleasure, and no, China Drum
hasn't much changed that, but admittedly for the basic genre, this is
a pretty good single. So enough of the stereotypes. The two songs here
definitely have a pop sensibility to them, even if occasionally the
guitars and drums together sound a bit too reminiscent of the machine
gun fire of early Metallica.* Both songs are kept short, so there's no
drifting into areas better left unexplored. Of course, you're probably
still looking for a good reason to listen to this single. Here it is:
"Wuthering Heights." It's an all new take on the classic Kate Bush
song circa 1977. Certainly not your typical cover song. So if you're
one of those Kate Bush worshippers (look out, they're all around us!),
check it out, if even for the novelty. I've read that Kate Bush hates
her early work, but perhaps she'd appreciate this new rock and roll
interpretation.
* I take that line back. It doesn't sound like that at all.
Churchbuilder
Patty Darling CD
Shelflife. Life032.
by Keith Mclachlan.
August 2, 2001.
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I often have homicidal thoughts, especially lately,
within the last month mostly. It revolves around
intricate plots of lining all of my "loud music
playing at 2am" neighbours up against a wall and
killing them slowly with long term exposure to
Churchbuilder's record 'Patty Darling'. It's not
allowed by the Geneva convention as of yet. 'Patty''s
a tribute record to the most inglorious of all things
--Sissy Bar albeit without the credibility inducing
endowment of a Snoop Dogg cover. Shelflife are
selling it hard as the perfect blend of Brittle Stars
and Devo or something like that. What it actually
sounds like is vulgar, in the anime sort, kids who
spent fifth grade learning to play the bassoon trying
to write futuristic, were this 1934, sounding pop
songs someone would potentially mistake for cute. I
know cute, this sir is not cute. It's in Mates of
State's league of dreadfulness vaguely similar gizmo
pop that seems to be what all the kids are going for
these days. Only because they seem so
enthusiastically enthralled with their nothingness the
record quickly turns to a chore, a bore, invoking the
same sort of feelings as when Harold Miner was not the
next Michael Jordan but something closer to Fennis
Dembo.
Ciao Bella
1 CD
March. Mar 032.
by Keith McLachlan.
December 28, 1997.
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Well this certainly does not sound
anything like the Lilys, although such a claim is made in nearly every
Parasol update, but hey that is ok cause this is a nice record.
I guess they are a duo and well they remind me a lot of the Pearlfishers. It is more free ranging in familiar territory, obviously they are big fans of the Monkees and Beach Boys as most of these songs are classically melodic types with lyrical themes suggesting their suspension in a permanent state of adolescence, but hey it is better than being a cranky, bitter old sod right?
I guess it sounds like classic-era Slumberland pop, it is from Oakland after all and maybe they have run into Mike Slumberland once in a while and he has let them borrow the handbook? Hey it could have happened, Oakland is not so big.
Anyways this is a pretty cool record, but the Parasol kids need to get a grip as it is nowhere near the league of 'Better Can't Make Your Life Better' but it is definitely more pleasing than not. A perfect compliment to a nice frosty drink.
Cinerama
John Peel Sessions CD
by Keith Mclachlan.
April 22, 2001.
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I am old enough to remember a period in time when you
couldn't walk twelve feet in Lake Orion, Michigan
without being quickly accosted on the main strip (right
next to Sagebrush Shorties) by someone with this
desperate plea that if you hadn't yet heard you must
now hear the Wedding Present's 'Bizarro' record.
Strange this since Lake Orion (where living is a
vacation) is filled with likely the highest per capita
number of Dave Matthews' fans on earth. Anyhow after
much harangueing I decided to finally concede to their
wishes and instistence and immediately i knew
'disappointment' was not the right word, utter crap is
likely more precise, Bizarro was a guy who had somehow
once forgotten you are supposed to shave the outside
of your throat and not the inside surrounded by 483
mph guitars and allegedly passionate lyrics though I
can't often find the passion in sandblasting. I
suppose that I was not in the right state of mind to
hear that just then so I cast the cassette from my car
onto Interstate 75. So, after my staid delivery of
that little anecdote, you can just imagine the ease
with which I was able to ignore the Wedding Present
derived band Cinerama up until just very recently, a
walk in the park to be certain. But then life has a
way of tricking you cause when I finally did hear
Cinerama in the car on a long cross country trip back
to Lake Orion (ironic) they seemed to be just about the
most perfect pop band ever. The alleged passion of
the past was very real, the throat/voice had been
transplanted with a honey smooth earnest delivery and
the songs were just spectacular and then they were
mostly b-sides! So, after digesting that and each of
the other Cinerama releases I was justly looking
forward to 'The Peel Sessions' just released, and
despite the person who introduced Cinerama to me being
mildly disappointed in the idea that this record is
filled with 'second rate versions of the great songs
on the records' I find it lovely and heartfelt and
boyishly charming. All of the songs may be about
sex (pehaps some are about Amelia Fletcher?) but as is
the case with Hefner they are hardly raunchy and
taken, at least for me, as a declaration of freedom
from the shackles of twee-pop that the music might
suggest. They do a pretty straight cover of the
Turtles 'Elinore' and there is one other previously
unreleased number but mostly a nice selection of the
hits minus their studio sheen. Strangely, too,
Gedge's speaking voice is almost identical to his
singing voice which means he sings with an accent, I
have never been able to discern a person's nationality
by their singing voice and I always attributed that to
my openmindedness of judging a person's character
instead of by their accent but maybe it is just some
sort of auditory defect.
Allen Clapp
Available Light CD
by Keith Mclachlan.
February 17, 2002.
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Watching the Olympics and having witnessed live on
television the alleged 'debacle' of the pairs
competition (let's be honest the Russians had one slip
but otherwise skated flawlessly and the Canadians
looked like they were in a jazzersize competition
skating a risk-free program and certainly were no
match for the Russkies grace and beauty) I couldn't
help but wonder if things wouldn't be a bit more
interesting, overall, if they ditched the classical
themes. I am not courting the idea that they need
abandon concepts like grace of poetic fluidity but
what if one of the pairs performed with Allen Clapp as
their soundtrack? What if the crowd knew all the
words and sang along the rising chorus egging the
skaters on to truly Olympian heights of majesty. The
purists would howl just as they did when Elvis
Stojko (sic) was doing his kung-fu routines on ice but
maybe the average beer-swilling schmo would feel a
little more in tune with such 'artistry'. Unlikely
dreams sure and so Allen is the new Elton John then,
if not the new Stravinsky, most of these songs are
piano based, mid-tempo with some archaic sounding
synthesizer mulch padding out the songs. Al plays
pretty well every note here, the one exception being the
pioneering triangle and chimes work on the reprise of
'Whenever We're Together'. Al ranks up with Kevin
Barnes when it comes to earnest performers who seem to
lack inhibition and possess such incredible
earnestness and devotion to their fantastical views of
the pop landscape. Most of the songs here are to do
with themes related to cosmology or basic astronomy
really, likely they are metaphorically linked to
Allen's faith but the only faith you need to attach to
is his potent hold onto pop endearment and I hope
Skippymudgeon pays him cause he certainly deserves a
reward.
the Clean
Getaway CD
Merge. MRG186.
by Keith Mclachlan.
August 18, 2001.
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There always seemed to be a horde of would-be trial
lawyers willing to line up to prosecute Pavement for
being Fall clones when in fact their claimant was
ill-chosen, they should have, truth be told, been
working for the musical incorporation known as the
Clean. Pavement even admit as much claiming that
'Slay Tracks' is as much an homage to
Kilgour/Kilgour/Scott as it is anything else. And
here on just the fourth official full length of their
20 odd year career (there have been a few compilations
as well) there is an almost nostalgic feel to a lot of
the songs. On the last two records the mythical
guitar of David Kilogur was set-aside and the brightly
coloured tones of keyboards infused the songs with a
melancholy, yes, but still buoyant sense of
outwardness. Here the guitar is back, granted nothing
approaches the otherworldly dissonance of say 'Getting
Older' where one guitar sounds like eleven but most of
the tracks are truly guitar led, scattered and muted
mumble alongs. And the Pavement similarity is
absolutely obvious which may turn out to be a bad
thing after all, because this record lacks the
considerable charms of the first three. It sounds
slack, and it does make me wonder if maybe the boys
are holding back their best ideas for their solo
projects? Granted the last D. Kilgour record was a
sham though I anxiously await his next early next year
but what I mean is that perhaps they only bring the
ideas they couldn't get to work on their own into the
group setting. I've no idea how their writing works
but I can imagine that surely someone like Phil
Collins rarely brought his most bankable riffs to
Genesis and it is easy to believe that Isobel Belle
and Seabastian keeps her niceties to herself for while
even her solo records are slight her B&S
contributions fill us all only with dread so then
might I also believe the same ethic works with the
Clean. 'Getaway' then is mostly filler, half-baked
ideas and only a few inspired moments of glee. It
does seem terribly serious in spots, not something I
am all to keen to receive on a Clean record. It's glub
even. But it is still a Clean record and there have
been far too few of them to go around and so we should
rejoice, if perhaps only in whispers.