[July 23, 2010] KBS Music Bank Highlights + Commentary

One of the main reasons why I'm still writing these recaps is because SHINee are back - if they weren't promoting Lucifer I'd stop writing and study. But nooooooo! Hahah. A rather "shocking" winner today and no, it wasn't SHINee. Hahah!

Video credit goes to Unknowncarrot150

G.NA - I'll Back Off So You Can Live (review)
Last week I had some doubts about whether or not she was singing live, but this week I'm sure she is - looks like last week as just a warm-up. In terms of vocals. She has the vocals and most probably the dancing mastered, but her performances lack an "aura", not sophistication, an aura. You can tell she's trying to make her eyes expressive, but it's like she can only make one expression - she doesn't really feel what she's singing. And if all she does is stand there and sing, she doesn't know how to command an audience. She's a fantastic live singer, yes, but she has to become a performer, she has to learn. With time. But I'm glad she has her vocals down.

Sistar - Push Push (review)
I was listening to that song they did for a video game sound track and I was surprised that they actually sounded decent on it - the song was simple, could be perceived as generic, but it had that little amount of "sophistication" that they desperately need. We now have recorded proof that more than one girl in SISTAR can sing - I'm happy. But the catch is, that isn't the song they're promoting and "making a name for themselves" with - it's the crappy song below. They've certainly gotten comfortable with performing the song, or at least the girl who sings has, but if the song itself sucks, the entire thing will fall apart, especially when the girls don't have the ability to make crap songs sound good. But not a lot of people do, so I wouldn't blame them.

ZE:A - Level Up
I don't even wanna bother with ZE:A anymore - it's a lost cause. Where's the song in this? I know they look like an entire unit now, but they lost the music component of it. Give me back All Day Long and I'll gladly take that.

MBLAQ - One Better Day
It's a cheesy song, first off, and they sound so nasal. But in fairness, they sound better if you compare it to their vocals on Y. Still too concerned with looking good on stage, I say, and their singing sounds so deadpan. Like, can you guys please sing with some enthusiasm?

Son Dambi - Queen
Son Dambi has never been a live singer, and I think we all have to learn to accept that. Yes, even me. She does have a certain presence on stage, and she's a good performer, but she needs foundations. If G.NA is all foundation and no performance, Son Dambi's the complete opposite. She sounds better than she did on her comeback week though.

SHINee - Up & Down + Lucifer (review)
Any first performance will be flawed in one way or another - no one's perfect - but I just gotta say, that was one heck of a comeback performance. There were a few slips here and there in terms of vocals, but as a whole that was borderline fantastic. The vocals were strong enough, but could be better, and the choreography+execution, in the eyes of someone who knows nothing about those, were very tight and well-done. SHINee have that sophistication I always look for - they know how to command an audience and carry a performance. Like I said, music is half-heard and half-felt - you cannot have music without emotion because then it would be useless. This performance was one of the few that have made my chest kind of tighten - very few groups have been able to deliver performances that do that to me, and it's a very good sign. I do hope they improve over the next few weeks though, and that Minho gets better! Him sitting there was better than him not being there at all, but I gotta say that nothing will beat Jaejoong's platforms and thrones on Rising Sun when he tore/pulled a cartilage. :D

Narsha - Bbri Ri Bba Bba
OK her outfits are getting more and more freaky by the week. I'm kinda slowly getting sick of the song as well - it's lost its bite and character. Oh well.

Super Junior - No Other
*sigh* I'll say it - I like the song. But that's mainly because everyone sounds good on it now. Leeteuk's smile still freaks me out and choreography's a bit too cheesy for my taste, but I like the song.

Miss A - Bad Girl Good Girl (WINNER)
I'm glad that at least 80% of their breathlessness has been eliminated - it's just skirt girl and pink-haired girl who need to try a bit more. But I will say that they're worthy of their win - I'm relieved that kpop knows how to spot talent. I know the song isn't the best in the world, but these wins (yesterday and today) should give JYP a wake-up call to give them better material in the near future. And by near future I mean NEAR future - like, ASAP. Apart from the breathless parts, it was a strong performance as always, and

The Single Life - 7 Inches of Fun - featuring Fuck Knights/G-Biz, Cheap Freaks, Mojomatics, Empire! Empire!/Football, etc.

Fuck Knights/G-Biz – Split! 12” EP

Kinda cheating here adding this one to the Single Life column, but go with me.  It works well here.  First up is the Fuck Knights, about as idiotic and amateurish a band name as you’re ever gonna find.  And no surprise, the Fuck Knights play an intensely sloppy, lo-fi, fuzzed out splatter of garage punk.  Oh, were my expectation set low when I dropped the needle on this spinning licorice pizza.  Then --woah and behold!-- the Fuck Knights blew me and my pretentious judgments right out of the fucking water.  Two cuts here and there’s no delicate way to say this, so I’ll just jump right in.  “i/primitive” is a certified, bonafide, undeniable garage rock classic.  From the intensity of the primitive pounding percussive beginning, with it’s sonic disaster production, spare-muffler-part guitars, and shrieking headhunter vocals.  Dig right into that lost-surf rock guitar solo.  Latch your horse onto that primal groove and beat.  This song is an absolute blast.  Then, just when you think you got it figured out –wham –bam—the Fuck Knights blow your mind with the drum breakdown leading into a post-blues whammy riff.  The song plays out that way, guitars rolling along the Mississippi in an extended garage-blues jam.  Freaking dynamite! 

“Teenage Wasteland” recorded live on a portable cassette recorder is another retro-blast of oil stained rock and roll, complete with howling harmony vocals.  The Fuck Knights are the real deal.  Not to be missed for fans of the fuzzed, the scuzzy, and the garage-bred.

G-Biz failed to impress with the side of quasi-haze garage hip hop, shriek and roll.  Not my cup of 10-40.  I’ll just keep the Fuck Knights side on my turntable and wait for their next primitive treat to come my way.


buy here: IkonikRecords.com.

Cheap Freaks – Play Four Songs

Speaking of garage fuzz, the Cheap Freaks come along right on cue.  Coming from Dublin, the Cheap Freaks add a touch of quasi-psychedelia, a la the 13th Floor Elevators to their sonic attack.  “Caesar the deceiver” tosses some odd guitar touches into the guttural pulp mix and a hefty dose of “Hurly Burly” chops.  1984 rocks with a caveman-pounding-his-mate intensity.  “Nowhere to Go,” revs up the speed-inhalation with a nasty dose of poppers, whiskey and cheap wine. Guitars go in furious circles while the vocals chop through the fuzz.  “Something Wrong,” sounds like an outtake from some 1960’s beach movie on really bad speed and acid.  It’s all enough to give Annette Funicello hives.

Total lo-fi, garage slop noise.  It’s punky.  It’s fuzzed.  Of course it’s from Big Neck Records.  A definite hit for the like minded.  Call me one.

The Mojomatics  - Love Wild Fever b/w Heavy Dose of Sympathy

Brandishing a cleaner assault than the Cheap Freaks, Big Neck Records comes right back at cha with this charger of a 7” splatter-fest.  The Mojomatics play it hard and fast and bring some downright dirty harmonica into the mix.  Vocals are definitely a step out of the garage, can actually carry a tune and be heard here.  That’s a plus.  Mainly, this is a speed romp through pounding fields of bluesy garage beauty.  “Heavy Dose of Sympathy,” follows suit, barreling down the road the boys plowed on side A. 

A twosome, with The Mojomatics have been tearing it apart for ages. MojoMatt plays guitar, harmonica and vocals, while Davmatic destroys the drums.  It may all seem so simple, but trust me, these cats can rile up quite a ruckus.  They're a truly professional unit.  Don’t think the White Stripes, think the Standells on uppers, the Monks on crank.  Think whatever you want, then buy it.

Buy Cheap Freaks and Mojomatics here: www.bigneckrecords.com

Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely State)/Football, etc. – Split 7”


The value of a split 7” is the opportunity to check out two different bands, offering up their top cuts.  It’s like the previews before a summer blockbuster film.  A taste of what’s to come.  A hint at what you may want to track down.

In that regard, this split succeeds admirably at bring two up-and-coming alt-emo bands to the surface.  Following on the heels of their critically-acclaimed debut full-length, Empire! Empire! Demonstrate why their at the head of the pack of the current roster of emo-revivalists.  Emotive singing will either catch your ear or turn your stomach, but theirs no denying the craft here.  Guitars layer and bleed into each other while the rhythm section creates all sorts of syncopated havoc.  All carefully crafted, expertly put together.  Not necessarily something you’ll hum on your way to work, but at the top of the heap as far as emo goes.  Football, etc. toss their hat into the ring with their expressive ditty, “Fightin’ Phoenix.”  Plowing a similarly fertile field of chiming guitars, huge looping bass and alternating rhythmic and pounding drums, this three piece show they’re no slouches.  Guitarist/singer Lindsay Minton adds a new texture with her languid, lazy vocals.  The whole affair brims with earnestness and warmth, something often missing in the emo world.  Definitely a group to watch.

Buy here: www.cylsrecords.com
.
--Racer

SHINee - Lucifer

Been so stressed lately, as you may know from my Tweets, but I think I need to write before I explode again. So here I am, with a SHINee review.

For some reason, SHINee have always been at the back of my mind whenever someone asks me which boybands I like - I always say DBSK and some other random boyband, but almost never SHINee. Now that I think about it though, they should very well be my second favorite boyband, actually. SHINee have the talent, the songs, the experience, the stage presence and the backing from a big three talent company - they are basically everything I want in a band. But I think a big factor in my non-acknowledgement of SHINee is the fact that when you say SM, I automatically say DBSK - not SHINee or SuJu, DBSK.


However, I now have a reason to acknowledge SHINee. And that's not just because DBSK are going through some rough times. The reason? They have just saved SM's reputation. I'm dead serious. All of SM's 2010 releases have been fail or near-fail for me - SNSD's Oh! was crap, RDR was slightly better but not as good as Genie, f(x) got the epic fail that was NU ABO, and SuJu, 3 members down and no longer the biggest boyband in the world, got Bonamana. Enough said.

Now we have SHINee. And Lucifer. I'll stick with my "they've saved SM's reputation" line until I get down to the details.

I heard the album the day it came out - I was in the midst of preparing for 2 major reports that my life depended on (they both failed, but that's beside the point) and so obviously I was subject to a lot of stress. Lucifer made me smile - it's one of the main reasons why I'm still alive right now and able to write this review. The album isn't perfect, nothing ever is, but the simple fact that it made me smile while I was freaking out should mean something.

SHINee have always been SM's "young" boyband - the edgy songs, sometimes rather questionably trendy outfits and consistently tight choreography were a part of the band since the very beginning - and so I'm not surprised with this "concept", so to say. I think the first signs of change came with Juliette, with the somewhat wild hair and strange album jacket photos, and were reinforced by Ring Ding Dong with the change in sound.

They still sound like themselves though. I mean yeah sure you listen to Replay and the change is really out of this world, and even the switch from Juliette to Ring Ding Dong was a little questionable, but even RDD had elements of the SHINee sound. If one even exists.

I heard Lucifer, the song, and I was like "YES!". It reminds me a bit of Low, but it sounds like a SHINee song - I knew it was them the second it started playing. It has the catchy hook Ring Ding Dong had, but it has the melody their previous singles have always had and that's because they actually have the vocals to pull it off properly. I mean, how many guys in SuJu can actually sing, and how many are they in the group? Even if SME always turned the album into a ballad-fest, they knew SuJu couldn't pull off a more melodic and vocally-demanding song - you don't hear any clear harmonies in Bonamana, do you?

The song has a sense of urgency - they're not lazing around doing nothing for 4 minutes, they're trying to get you to buy their music, the very essence of pop. The five of them have the abilities, but they also have that sense of sophistication I'm always looking for - performing is more than singing or dancing well, it's carrying yourself well, and Lucifer shows they can do that.

Simply stated, Lucifer is brilliant.

The album actually opens with Up & Down, and I wasn't convinced with the hook but the verses have character and the entire song has a certain groove that just makes you have to tap your feet along - it was the first song to make me smile. Electric Heart was the first so-so song, it reminds me of something they could've put in SHINee's first album - the melody, production and prominent guitar lines were a big part of their sound for the first few releases.

Now, A-Yo - I'm very very pleased to know that Mel and I agree when I say it's a gorgeous song. Some lines of the verses give an Indian-y vibe, but the song has such a pretty melody to not overlook that small detail. It sounds like a SHINee song through and through - SuJu or DBSK would most probably never attempt to do this because it belongs to SHINee. The hook at the beginning just made me smile like a freak when I first heard it, under stress mind you, and it's really gorgeous.

Obsession is the first ballad-y song, but I personally wouldn't call it a total ballad. The verses are beautiful, but the chorus is a little too excessive for me - the emphasis is on Jonghyun's vocals, and I'm not a big fan. He's good, but I'm just not a fan. But I gotta say, everyone sounds great on this song. Yay!

Quasimodo's the first real ballad if we follow my definition, and I love it. Better than Obsession. It seems to me like it was originally for an Onew solo but got rejected so they made the whole band sing it - my explanation of why I'm so angry that Onew gets ballads for solo songs will have to wait. But yeah, I like the song - because Key and Jonghyun are on it. The pretty verses are enough to make me go crazy, but they just had to put some harmonies into the chorus. Plus the fact that Minho actually gets a line and sings it well! It's not really supposed to go anywhere in terms of arrangement and instruments - the vocals carry the dynamics and all the explosions. That's what a vocal group should do.

When I first heard the rap line at the beginning of Shout Out, the first thing that popped into my head was that it sounded like a 2PM song. However, the instrumental and the verses sound like something that, yet again, could've been on SHINee's earlier releases. It's basically all rap, and so I can't really give a solid critique on it because it's not really my line. However, I do like the singing parts towards the end - especially Onew's. I like Onew's voice, if you remember.

Personally, I think WOWOWOW is one of SM's plots to remind people that SHINee're still a young band - it's saccharine sweet with autotune thrown in just to make sure. It's a cute song, but not my type. Your Name comes across as rather cheesy at the beginning with the harmonies and the random birds chirping, but it reminds me of something that could've been the slower song an early 2000's pop album circa Mandy Moore. I do like the melody though, it's laid-back but well-done.

I actually kinda really like Life. You see, if you don't have that many ballads on an album I notice the pretty ones more - you don't need to barrage people with ballads for them to know you sing well. The simple piano loop and their vocals made me faint for the nth time - reminds me a bit of DBSK's You Only Love. BUUUUUUT! After the first chorus, the song explodes with a backbeat and en EFFIN'S STRING SECTION. Have I mentioned how much I love string sections? Add SHINee's vocals into the mix and you have a masterpiece. The melody's gorgeous, the arrangement's epic, and ONEW TAKES THE MIDDLE 8. What else do I have to ask for? I gotta say as well, Jonghyun killed the song - like I said, they guy's good but I only like him on certain songs.

I like the club-y vibe Ready Or Not has, and it has more of these Indian-y elements throughout. The hook does it's job, the chorus explodes, and even if a good portion of the song's rapping, they're still singing. That has become a luxury in kpop. Not with SHINee, apparently. GOOD. Love Pain reminds me of a more mature and urgent version of Romantic - the synths and the percussion line are more pronounced on this one, and their vocals have really grown since they recorded the song, so the entire song sounds very mature now. The chorus has a slight resonance, but it doesn't sound very sharp to my hear - it's the right amount of sharpness and flow-y-ness.

It's a good thing Lucifer doesn't end with a ballad - Love Still Goes On is a nice way to wrap the entire album off. It's lively and it's pretty much a reflection of SHINee - they've matured over the years, but this is pretty much how they've always sounded. The character, style and pretty much everything that they've been known for are more or less in this song.

Best Track: Lucifer or A-yo
Better Tracks: Up and Down, Quasimodo, Life, Love Pain, Love Still Goes On
Worst Track: Not a big fan of Electric Heart
The Rating: 4.8/5

The Hawkwind Triad

Most tribute albums are kind of a waste of time and money. Maybe there are a handful of worthy homages but for they’re usually disappointing and you wind up rarely playing the entire record. The Hawkwind Triad is a different story all together. Here you get 3 bands, that all have a pretty strong Hawkwind influence in the first place, paying tribute and taking liberties with material that they clearly love. The participants are US Christmas, Minsk and Harvestman.

Of the 3 bands, US Christmas probably play the songs closest to the originals and tap into the Space Ritual high energy levels that Hawkwind performed at. Take away all the tripped out space effects and Hawkwind always had a ass kicking rock and roll soul, especially during the era Lemmy was in the band. “Master Of The Universe” opens the record in high spirits. The riff is huge and they faithfully recreate all of Dik Mik’s bizarre “audio generator” blips and squiggles. “Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)” and the 11 minute “You Shouldn’t Do That” are great examples of why Lemmy always said that Hawkwind may have looked like hippies but weren’t all peace and love. If the astronaut boogie of “Orgone Accumulator” doesn’t you get you doing the zombie dance, turn in your space suit immediately and return to the mundane earth.

Minsk attack “7x 7” with a lot of intensity and vigor. This is probably what it actually sounds like as your breaking through the sound barrier. Things get pretty trippy on the 12 minute “Assault & Battery/The Golden Void,” 2 songs from the 1975 album Warrior on the Edge of Time. “Assault & Battery” is delivered slow and hard with lots of intense vocals. “The Golden Void” takes you on a pretty wild ride with some slower parts to balance out the space frenzy. The mainly acoustic “Children Of The Sun” somehow manages to mix in equal parts Jethro Tull and Swans into the original Hawkwind song.

Of the 3 bands, my favorite songs are from Harvestman, a side project of Neurosis members Steve Von Till and Jason Roeder. Von Till’s tortured vocals work really well with the material, especially on “D Rider.” “Down Through The Night” has even more sound effects the original. “Magnu” is an 8 minute stomper that fans of Can as well as Accept’s “Princess of the Dawn” can rock to together. Lemmy’s “The Watcher” is given a bleak, creepy overhaul that will make you feel paranoid even if you’re not stoned.

Old time fans of Hawkwind should really like this and it also serves as a great introduction to a band that’s often misunderstood. Play this one loud for sure.


--Woody

Buy here: Hawkwind Triad

http://www.allthatisheavy.com/info.asp?item_num=ATH-7179

Oscar D’Leon - Sonero del Mundo

I can’t dance.

I mean my hips feel it, my body feels it, my head nods to it, but my feet are large bricks.  There are times, however, that even my concrete boots move with grace, usually to good salsa music and nobody does latin salsa better than Oscar D’Leon.

Oscar D'León was born in Caracas, Venezuela on July 11, 1943.  When he was young he worked by day as an auto mechanic and by night played bass for local “conjuntos” - small Cuban folk bands consisting of guitar, bass and percussion that sang folk songs.  On stage D’Leon would sing and dance with a double bass.  He went on to form a number of orchestral bands and gained a reputation as a great improviser.  His first great successes occurred in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s recording with his band, La Salsa Mayor, a merengue standard "Juanita Morell."  In 1978 he founded a second band called “La Critica” that played Cuban rhumba music and he would alternate singing for both bands.  In the 1980’s he became a well-known Caribbean music singer, but it was during the 1970’s that D’Leon earned the Spanish nickname  “el Sonero del Mundo” - the Son Singer of the World.  In 2003 D'León suffered 3 heart attacks, one while performing on stage, and two at the hosptial, due to high cholesterol.  He continued to perform and record through 2009 but, on Dec 20, 2009, he suffered yet another heart attack. Fortunately at the time of this writing, D’Leon is still with us.

In 1996, D’Leon release his namesake album  el Sonero del Mundo.  I took two years of high school Spanish and grew up in Southern California.  Frankly, all that means is I know how to ask in fractured Mexican Spanish  for another beer and directions to the bathroom. Yet, that noncomprehending is one of the great pleasures of latin salsa music - I may have no idea what the songs are about ( I’m sure the songs run the gambit of human emotion, interaction and experience) and, due to my illiteracy, I may never know. But, somehow, it doesn’t matter.  Salsa music moves the soul as well as the sole whatever the vocalist may be singing. To my feet el Sonero del Mundo’s “el Sonero del Mundo” is one of the finest salsa albums of all time.

Carlos Santana cut his teeth on latin jazz and you can hear why.  Salsa is infectious big band street music. Great salsa dancers mesmerize and amaze.  It is sexual, fast-paced, joyous.  When performed by a great musician it creates a community.  Indigenous peoples had music and it bordered on the religious.  The music was based on beat.  Drums and percussion, flutes and horns - a communal dance to the beat.  Salsa music takes that aboriginal aesthetic and refines it and envelopes it in fluid motion and grace.  While D’Leon sings “Mirala Como Se Menea” (”Mirala How It Shakes” (thank you Google Translate)) you shake too.  When I hear “Volver a Verte” (”To See You Again” (again thank you Google Translate)) I want to attempt those intricate salsa steps that I know I have no chance of ever doing.

Ultimately, today’s column is a tribute to salsa master Oscar D’Leon.  I hope he reads this because I have something to say to him - Gracias. Usted me han movido y el mundo.

- Old School

Buy here: Sonero del Mundo

Running Kind - The Girl For All The World

This is shit kicker music. Country western, beer-drinkin’, cowboy-boot clankin’ music. Pull on those Tony Lamas and dust off those Lee Jeans. You’ll be hittin' the honky-tonks, cryin’ in your beer, hee-hawin’ with your horse, and all the time there will be guitars, bass, drums, mandolins, piano, dobro, pedal steel, even a trombone, a-playin’ to entertain you.

You see, these boys can really get down. Leslie can sing a touch or two - so can George, Matt, Neil and Frank. You’ll be two-steppin’, a-waltzin’, box steppin’ and country swingin’.  You will also be wantin’  to listen. So get yourself a cold one.

Matt and Leslie Bosson sang together in the Mt. Greylock Regional High School choir. Later on  they married and came up with this here band, Running Kind, named after an old Merle Haggard tune.  They got George Alexander to break out his Telecaster, Mitsuru “Neil” Fukusawa to bang on the drums and pick a bit of mandolin, Frank San Filippo to thump the stand-up bass and play an electric Fender, and Kevin Smith to tickle the ivories. Darlin' Jim D'Damery adds a bit of dobro to Running Kind’s song “Don’t That Make No Sense” and John Groover McDuffie, from Rita Coolidge’s band, dropped in and played pedal steel on the songs “Two Roads,” “A Okay,” “Seemed Like A Good Idea,” “I Still Love You (Like I Loved You Before),”  “Return of the Grievous Angel,”  and on “Don’t Cry No Tears.”

Here in the US of A country music outsells metal, rap, latin, jazz, new age, classical, Christian and soundtrack music.  It has a long domestic history - it is a true American art form. Generally, it consists of silly lyrics, story-telling and “woe is me” love songs.  The twang-tinged musicianship can be awe-inspiring like a Doc Watson guitar pickin’ instrumental or a Flatt and Scruggs duet.  All these ingredients are combined on Running Kind’s album - The Girl For All The World.

Throughout this collection Running Kind taps into the various sub-genres of country.  The song “Life To Go,” is a George Jones classic about a jailed woman doing a life sentence that tells her tale of woe and remorse.  It is a ballad played in a style reminiscent of Marty Robbins’ hit song “The Chair.”  The album’s title song “The Girl For All The World”  is a story, unusual for country in that it could be interpreted as a lesbian love song, delivered in a mournful style akin to an Emmylou Harris slow ballad.

The next track, “Two Roads,” is the only song on the album written jointly by Matt and Leslie. Acoustic, electric and slide guitars, drums, keyboards and vocals all come together to form an excellent two-steppin’, twangy fandango about separation and reunion.  It is followed by “A Okay” a warm, honky-tonk, love song featuring some stellar slide guitar work.  Leslie’s voice on the track called to mind the vocal style of the late Nicolette Larson.

A bluegrass lilt permeates “Don’t That Make No Sense,” a song about life and how it changes us.  The music, not the words, harken to Mungo Jerry’s 1970’s hit “In The Summertime.”  Running Kind follows “Don’t That Make No Sense” with “Seemed Like A Good Idea,” a comedic ballad, complete with trombone, that is in the tongue in cheek style of Buck Owens.  In fact, it reminded me of Buck’s classic “Pfft, She Was Gone.”

The album slows down for “I Still Love You (Like I Loved You Before)” a “somebody done done somebody wrong” song.  The lyrics are typical country western fare over music that echos the song “Anna (Go With Him),” written by the great Arthur Alexander, but, probably better known from the hit cover version by The Beatles on their 1963 album Please, Please Me.   After “I Still Love You (Like I Loved You Before)”  the band plays “Old Girl,” a blockbuster of a country/folk/rock/alternative crossover tune that has more of a relationship to an Outlaws or Marshall Tucker Band song than it does to traditional country western.  This one could play, and become a hit, on country, rock, alternative and folk radio stations.

The last two songs on the album are covers. Gram Parson’s “Return of the Grievous Angel” is about as country a country ballad as you can get.  Running Kind gives it an even greater yee-haw treatment, and a slightly more upbeat tempo, than Gram Parsons did on his album Grievous Angel.  The song is about coming back to one’s love after time on the road.  The album culminates with a cover of Neil Young’s “Don’t Cry No Tears”  a short ballad about lost love.  It is played in a more polished manner and in a traditional country style rather than in the folk-rock style of Neil Young & Crazy Horse on their album Zuma.

Any old cowpoke worth their boots will tell you that there are two types of shit-kicker music - good and bad.  Partner, this is the good shit.

- Old School

It Crawled from the Basement – The Green Monkey Records Anthology

Music history is littered with eccentrics.  Personalities just --or way-- left of center.  Visionaries who doggedly pursue their own sound or vision despite the mountainous odds against them.  Despite an overwhelming lack of public acceptance.  Often times despite any reasonable sense of financial reward. 

And thank God for them!  Often it’s in these way-right-hemisphere thinking individuals that real creativity is borne.  Whether or not it’s appreciated in their lifetime is another matter.

I may have been too late for the first lifetime of Green Monkey Records, but damn it, I’ll wave that monkey flag high and proud now that they’ve resurfaced.

Calling their music post-punk/pre-grunge Seattle, Green Monkey Records was an indy’s indy.  Sprouting from the most humble, inauspicious of beginnings to release scattered handmade cassettes, a toss off of 7” vinyl, some albums and finally some CD’s.  Running from 1983 to 1991, Green Monkey (named after a stuffed animal that label-boss Tom Dyer found in the attic of his grandmother’s house) put out 44 releases of remarkable, sub-basement, glorious pop, punk, psych-folk, and the downright weird. 

The most remarkable thing about Green Monkey Records was that either by pure chance or immaculately calculated vision, the quality of music they put out was way above the bar from what you’d expect from their pieced-together, learn-as-we-go-along, record-everything-in-my-basement beginnings.  What could’ve turned into a “novelty” label manufacturing tracks exclusively for the Dr. Demento Show instead became one of the great homes of pre-Sub Pop indy rock.  I’m sure a great deal of luck went into creating the dynamite catalog of Green Monkey releases, but just as much credit has to go to label-boss Tom Dyer, who clearly has a diamond ear for a quality pop band.

It Crawled from the Basement is the brand new Green Monkey Records anthology.  Having let the label lay dormant but for a few licensing deals, Dyer had recently become rejuvenated, revitalized, re-energized, and the Green Monkey is swinging again.

As any anthology from an underground indy label would be, not all the songs on It Crawled from the Basement will click with every listener.  Nor should they.  That’d defeat the purpose of Green Monkey which was to explore the wide range of the indy scene developing in Seattle in the post-punk years.   Some good, some not so good, all unique and very original.

Putting this disc on for the first time, I was all ready to dismiss it.  I’m not a fan of quirk rock.  Never found the Dr. Demento Show all that interesting, and I like solid chops in my pop, not weird noises and sounds coming from human orifices.  Imagine my surprise when I found myself not only going back time and time again to the 2-disc anthology, but suddenly finding myself on ebay bidding outrageous $$$ to buy up any Green Monkey vinyl I could find.  I was hooked.  Through some insidious, devious act of mental subterfuge, I’d become a Green Monkey furry beast!  (As I wrote this, I just found and bought two Mad Mad Nomad 7" singles off ebay.)

Too many songs (47 of em) on this anthology to go through them all in this review but the highlights are such standouts they have to be mentioned.

Al Bloch delivers a powerful, stripped down, fuzz guitar-and-organ, garage pop lament to teenage angst, “Hangin Around,”  that is so catchy it’s been outlawed in several countries, then rumbles back with a rollicking, post-sixties ode to unrequited love, “Falling Star.”    Mr. Epp & the Calculations, featuring a pre-Mudhoney Mark Arm, turn in a teenage slacker anthem “Out of Control” that rivals early Suicidal Tendencies in it’s punk-fueled, hate-my-life-and-parents rebellion.  So sloppy, the song seems to succeed in spite of itself. 

Hating novelty songs, I’m not supposed to like Me Three’s “Alien Breakfast,” nearly as much as I do, but the damn song is as addictive as a sugar high.  Liquid Generation’s “I Love U,” is a catchy-as-fuck garage rock bender.  The Walkabouts turn out a sumptuous male-female harmony psychedelic pop song to rival anything by the Go-Betweens.   Capping Day crank out a retro-garage punk stomper with “Mona Lisa,” with more balls than half the Pretenders catalog, and the Bombardiers let loose a bomb bay full of detonating garage/punk that could lay waste to a small city. 

The Queen Annes crank out a trio of freaking great cuts including the harmonica-led burner “You’ve Got Me Running.”  If that song doesn’t get you going, you better hook up your right atrium to some jumper cables.  The Glass Penguins lay down some inspired, gentle psych-pop of the sort The Windbreakers created, including the rather bizarre “Shadow of a Fish,” and the infinitely-gorgeous “She Moves Me.”   And some one-off cuts by Mad Mad Nomad, Jon Strongbow, The Fastbacks, Keith Livingston, and the label’s main-madman, Tom Dyer keep the variety coming.

But I’m being intentionally sly here, cause the highlights of this 2-disc set are clearly wrapped up with four bands.   I’ve learned that Green Monkey Records will forever be associated with the Green Pajamas, and for good reason.  Possessing a voice that’d make Alex Chilton shiver, Jeff Kelly can create a pop-psych ditty as effortlessly as I trip over a 1-inch curb.  And the track that Green Pajamas’ fans clamor for is “Kim the Waitress,” presented here in all it’s instantly-infused-into-your-consciousness glory.  I don’t even have words to describe the craft here, but with its incessant bass line, sitar flourishes, constant toe-tapping beat, and lyrics written in homage to a real-life waitress at Mr. Ed’s Restaurant in West Seattle, “Kim the Waitress,” may just be one of the most incredible pop songs you’ve never heard.   But there’s so much more to the Green Pajamas than one song.  Each of the 5 songs here hits its mark.

The next undeniable band here is Life, which steals the imagination with their two cuts, “If it Works (Don’t Fix it)” and “If I Had You (For Natalie)” which both chime with a burning post-The Alarm passion of jangling guitars, soaring vocals, and never-ending hooks.  The Hitmen, blow any cobwebs off the disc with their two slices of post-punk inspired, bass-massive rock.  “I Love Your Poems of Love” bridles with an edgy-post Echo and the Bunnymen nervousness, while “Thrasher’s Corner,” simply destroys, like some cranked up, pissed off post-punk, metal, reggae, hybrid.

Finally, a special nod needs to be tipped towards Tom Dyer’s own band, The Icons who strip the paint off every bumper in the garage with their charging purist-blast of “Write Back to Me.”   Dyer has just re-released the Icons classic retro-rock masterpiece, Masters of Disaster, on CD and I got that baby here in my hot little hands.  So expect a review of that one soon.

I’ve left tons of good music out of this review like The Elements, Slam Suzanne, and Danger Bunny, but there’s just too much here to talk about.  If you’re a fan of indy pop music—good honest, ballsy, delicate, garage-y, punky, folky, mildly trippy pop music—do yourself a favor and pick up this anthology.  It will be nearly impossible for you not to find several tracks that you’ll just wonder how you lived this long without.  This isn’t a CD set to be played, it’s one to be savored, immersed in, bathed in.

It really is that good.

Now I gotta go find me a green stuffed monkey.



--Racer

Buy here: It Crawled From the Basement: The Green Monkey Records Anthology

http://www.greenmonkeyrecords.com/