The Plot Against Common Sense | Future of the Left | Music Review

My initial listen to Future of the Left's The Plot Against Common Sense came after I had been directed to read Falco’s response to a recent Pitchfork review. [Read full review]

Letter of Concerns & Accolades

Dear Falco,

Jesus H Christ, these lines made me laugh for about 10 minutes. (This is what it sounded like, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA hhhaaahahahahahah hahahahHhahahaha  HAHAHAHAHAHaaaa.)

"It must indeed be tough to attempt to write from the perspective of the anti-corporate outsider when you are, apart from the mastering engineer (Sean, who did a really good job) probably (*2) the first person involved in the whole process of making and releasing the album to get paid because of its existence. Following your lead, I’m going to let that one ‘sink in’….  However, if it is truly amongst the worst songs of the year [Robocop 4 - Fuck Off Robocop] then I am a giant bat and Pitchfork a cave into which I will shit golden effigies of your face. Sorry - too much ginger beer." -Falkous

First - never be sorry for too much ginger beer. Second – I echo your fans reactions to your FOTL blog post. Many thanks to you for taking time to write an intelligent retort to Cohen's lazy ass, self-righteous review. The fuckloads (term embraced!) of sarcasm needed to fully brush a landscape befitting the corporate-critic-gone-artist-wannabe-turned-to-self-loathing-dipshittery was well played. Your letter inspired me to post my own opinion on Future of the Left’s latest endeavor, The Plot Against Common Sense.

Upon my first read of Señor Ian Cohen’s “album review” I was confused…. Had I inadvertently time travelled back to a Mclusky release? I just knew there was a Future of the Left album that needed reviewing somewhere, but somehow I couldn’t get to the cum shot because Mclusky was still in the way of The Plot Against Common Sense.  Oddly enough, Ian doesn’t seem to have read or respected even his own critic Pitchfork brethren Jason Crock [read here if you wish] who asked that the ex-Mclusky references stop when reviewing Future of the Left.  Hmmm.  Well, I’m sure Ian’s busy and didn’t get a chance to read that one.  Just as I suspect he was busy and didn’t really get a chance to actually listen to The Plot Against Common Sense before penning a review.  Again… a busy man.

Anyway, I found myself needing some clarification on many points in the Señor IanFork review, especially the corporate slickness comment.  I was confused.


Unless slick corporations now travel globally in vans and have to ask their customers if they can sleep on their couches to save money for travel and continue their product, I'm not sure how corporate even arrives in the same sentence with Future of the Left, or any independent band for that matter.

The other part of the review that confused me was how Señor IanFork could have actually listened to the album, yet still manage to craft such an uninformed "informed" opinion of the album.  Of course this leads me to the overall relevance of the review, you know, in a sum total sense. I’ve met 5-year-olds on sugar highs who displayed less disjointed thinking. I’d blame it on too much ginger beer for Señor IanFork, but his staggering lack of creativity is a dead giveaway that no mood enhancers were involved. Pity.


To top it off, the fact that Notes on Achieving Orbit was not even mentioned except as a mere joke song makes me want to slap Señor IanFork as much as when I read his ridiculous Lulu review.


I think this whole riff between Future of the Left and Pitchfork started because The Plot Against Common Sense kicked off with a track that knocked a love of tote bags Sheena Is a T-Shirt Salesman.  That got me thinking… I bet Señor IanFork owns a Ramones tote bag, and a trust fund, and tye-dye shirts, and a few polymers (hopefully connecting his DNA to the bottom of the ocean), and a cappuccino maker, and a DVD re-release of Howard The Duck, and has a signed copy of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and really truly felt connected to the Drummonds because he would have been okay with having a black kid brother despite being a rich suburban white girl, just like on Diff’rent Strokes.


Just a thought.
Many thanks,
Becky

My Later Listens Review of The Plot Against Common Sense

Holy emperor penguins, buy this album. Hang out with it.  Buy it dinner and treat it right. Use the internet to spin some happy press their way and spread the word for none too many come along that actually suffer the bullshit ranks and still put out music that matters and music we love to wait for.  History… oh….


Let’s not go the way of wanker whiners who talk about the good old days of music when it’s happening right here.  In the words of The Libertines “There were no good old days, these are the good old days.” Let’s try to keep Future of the Left around by papering the universe with FOTL music via links, emails, Facebook, Twitter, the posting at shlappity-shlappity.com, your grandma’s house – who gives a shit where… just promo them if you love them and help them sell fuckloads.


We need Future of the Left, not because they’re necessary or any other musical pontification of relativity horseshit.  We need them because they are fucking great. 


Rather than focus on the witless diatribe of a critic getting (bad) religion, let’s take a listen on the fact that there’s really no one like Future of the Left out there.
I could hang myself in the short 20 minute car trip to the store because of the “alternative art” passing as music on the radio.  You know the score.  You live in the world. It’s very depressing that opinions, art, thoughtfulness and a sense of humor can’t seem to tread water let alone thrive on the satellite waves.


Someone has to keep music honest. I cannot think of a better advocate for honesty than Future of the Left.  I can say I have been a follower of Future of the Left to the pre-dawn lands of the Mclusky era.  And no, I won’t make this commentary for the resurrection of Mclusky.  If I were Future of the Left, I’d hate that constant comparison as much as a failed marriage.  Fuck it already.  Enough said.  


The point of reference is that they’ve been around for awhile, so the idea that dicking about, mincing words as art, is not really their point. They are in music to be in it because it’s in them.  My guess is that they couldn’t get around it even if they wanted to extract it from their souls.  So here we are.


As I listen the first few times, I wish I had lyrics for this pre-release. I can’t hear everything and I know there’s so much more beyond the eye popping blistery musical numbers.  Future of the Left is a band of words, poetry, political satire (I am reminded of Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal), dark comedy, literary allusions and foreign lands that beget the first synapse, the catalyst mid-ocean that breaks shore with deafening consequences.  Falco, under any iteration, is a poet.  Much like comedians who get pigeonholed into one formula, I get the feeling Falco’s lyrical writing is dismissed as clever, without the necessary deeper substance of emotion lurking beyond the veil of burning cynicism. Do not underestimate.


During the course of writing this review, I was reminded of a previous review that said Future of the Left was not political and should be.  I disagreed totally at the time and still do.  It didn’t take too many search terms to google where the brains of that operation were headquartered. None other than the insightful genius of Ian Cohen at Pitchfork, reviewing Polymers Are Forever. The entire review kicked off with this statement, “Despite their name, Future of the Left aren't caught up in politics, but it would be nice if they were.” [Read the review here]  If prevailing opinion is anywhere close to Cohen, I’d say Future of the Left is being severely dismissed.


Future of the Left is a band that actually cares.  I am serious.  You don’t get this angry about something you don’t care about.  Music, politics, the state of independent thought, emperor [penguins], oh they’re mixed up in there … all inside a tightly wound socioeconomic ball of scathing smoldering beauty. And that beauty is aptly titled The Plot Against Common Sense.  Lapsed Catholics off Travels With Myself and Another seems to be a glimpse into the morphology of Future of the Left’s direction.  And what a fucking brilliant direction it is.

Sheena Is A T-Shirt Salesman

The kickoff. 

“Artistic artistic artistic radio, artistic license…This song is dedicated to the merchandise manufacturers who made it possible, for their hard work, talent, application and the love of tote bags." -FOTL

What else to say?


Failed Olympic Bid
It’s one thing to sing words against music, which is impressive. It’s another to fit the feelings and visions that music can conjure to become the message of the words. For example, lyrics begin,

"I’ve got a place for the American base. Right in the middle of Rotherham Steelmills [read more if you want].  Imagine the boost for the local economy.  Like anybody cares about the north of England."-FOTL

Falco’s vocals monotone, matter-of-fact mantra, while the music marching along in an assembly line industrialism. Monopolies and aftermaths musically represented to replicate the message.  “A failed Olympic bid leaves some kids so upset they can’t forget.”
This very conceptual and complicated arrangement of musical imagery enveloped with the lyrical commentary is a theme that Future of the Left carries through the entire album.

City of Exploded Children

Canons!  This song turns toward the east, salutes the rising sun over the battlefield of fallen working class.... You, me, us, all. Yes us all... us sheep, all of us.

"Underneath the city, are exploded children. Underneath the city  everything is fine. ...  [drum roll] Fallen lines on the common sheep. He is one. He is two. He is nothing to a thousand."-FOTL

Camp Cappuccino

This one is what you’ve come to expect from Future of the Left. Bass shaking rails rubberballing the walls shutterfly guitar notes, sarcastic play on words, screams, drumming on the ceiling, lighting up the sky with firefly guitar notes against the darkness. It’s all slam.

Polymers Are Forever

The thing I find running through my head all day long are songs like this one.  And it is what seems to have become the musical signature Future of the Left… musical repetition, rounds and canons lyrically or purely instrumentally.

Robocop 4 – Fuck Off Robocop

I can safely say I don’t feel sorry for Dreamworks or Touchstone pictures, which is why I laughed by the time I hit Robocop 4 – Fuck Off Robocop.  The momentum has built and we’re nearing a G-force designed to break barriers.  A release that seems to build to the truly big bang of this album Notes On Achieving Orbit.  Get ready.

A Guide To Men

A Guide to Men is my second favorite track on the entire album, running a hairline second to Notes On Achieving Orbit. I really didn’t want to get hung up on dumbasses, but I must cite once again Cohen’s introspective opinion of the musical construct of The Plot Against Common Sense.

"Little has changed musically for the always-contradictory Future of the Left. The constituent parts are primitively composed but played with vice-tight musicianship, while the blindingly bright, major-key synth riffs still come off as abrasive as anything produced by an atonal noise band. In terms of tempo and texture, The Plot hangs a little bit more loosely than the trim Travels With Myself and Another…."

Cohen = Fail

In my opinion,

it doesn’t get more tonal and compositionally deliberate than A Guide To Men. The synchronization of instrumental placement and delivery coupled with lyrical message is really quite complex.


The simple start to this song lays a keyboard foundation, blipping technology, high data, blinking lights, talking computers. I admit I thought of War Games.  Yet another musical line is cast, a simple bass round riff.  Falco speaks, “This is a song about total war.” The snare drum shoots off deliberate gun shots simultaneously, casting its own. Concurrently, the next line is thrown, more keyboards with a disturbing minor key B-horror creepiness to it.

Becky Digress: Emperor penguins might be better leaders as they seem to care more about the welfare of the group than any leader I’ve seen in my lifetime.

By the time we get to the second chorus, the musical lines cross into what feels very goosestep. I envision B/W film, Nazis, goosesteps, tanks, dictators and their beloved balconies.

"Civilized is as civilized does and civilized people walk among us, given the option.  Well they're holy emperors. Holy emperors. Holy… emperor penguins."-FOTL

Lyrics and music work artfully together and translate into scenes from an Aldous Huxley novel (or an unpublished John Stossel book – you choose!) warning the loss of our humanity in the face of a civilization that doesn’t “go gray” playing with “enemies of fantasy”.  Can you imagine a civilized orgy?  Yikes.  I’d rather go for the euthanasia, given the option (unfortunately, it will probably still be considered ‘uncivilized’).  The mechanics of the song is an infectious build that I can’t get out of my head.  A Guide To Men translates into a compelling and unsentimental journey of our developing civilization.

"This is a song about common sense, folded backwards into itself." -FOTL

Notes On Achieving Orbit

It’s not hard to remember back to the first time I heard this track released in early 2011 on official.fm. I was disappointed that it didn’t make it to the Polymers Are Forever EP, but patiently awaited the official release. The funny thing is that every time I hear Notes On Achieving Orbit, I have the same reaction.  It starts with a vibratory deep bass, giant bands of sound bouncing and tripping the air waves.  Falkous delivering swaggering lines like, “Where were you when Pele cured cancer? Did you watch on the stand or sit on your hands as the realization dawned. Of course, we don’t know if he ever really got involved with a test tube (?), the science of hearts.”


Notes On Achieving Orbit seems a culmination of the entire album in overall message and feel. Our collective love of, and obsession with, sameness, youth/sex, icons, drudgery, violence, monopolies, sports funding over medical funding, our Orwellian herding of ourselves and assistance in our own slaughter. The sad concept that we are always rejecting ourselves, our own identity, or perhaps that we have no identity at all.  Apropos on the heels of 99 and NATO.


The chorals; go without reigns, without restraints, without need for walls.  Just let it happen.  I envision an entire amphitheatre, crowds bouncing and pounding fists to the ‘shalalalalalalala’ chorus. Let’s hope our Future of the Left has the pleasure of playing to a fuckloads ampitheatre with the entire audience strapping in for space flight.  Notes On Achieving Orbit … If you ever go, don’t forget to bring your Future of the Left for the ignition sequence.


I still get goose bumps and tears 2/3 of the way through Notes On Achieving Orbit right around, “Then any old shit is the new Nirvana. The terrible seconds turn to days and still I cannot show my face.  The blatant stars and fields (?) that call me back to where they cannot fail me. Fold the space into my hands and bow to gravity’s demands. Notes on achieving orbit.”


I’m reminded of Catcher in the Rye when nearing the end.  I hope we can find our redemption in artists, opinions and uniqueness instead of shunning it.

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry." –J.D. Salinger, Catcher In The Rye

Well, there you have it…

Another fucking slick corporate masterpiece pounded out by a heartless non-artist band fronting as an underappreciated, under-budgeted, part-time-job loving, underground band that deserves to break the scene. (They deserve to break it in two or three pieces, beat it senseless, stomp on it for good measure and then piss on it after a long drink binge).  Unfortunately Future of the Left has not reached their break and they are not fronting artists. They are a great band with actual morals, vision and sympathy for the human condition enough to be disgusted by what they see happening.
And that, my friends, is the problem which only need be explained by listening to Future of the Left’s own 12^th track, A Guide To Men.

"History is written by the man who stays acquainted with the thug who has the biggest sword." -FOTL

Sadly, musical history is no different. Clear Channel…Pitchfork…NME….
As to Ian Cohen’s reviewer obsession with Mclusky as a benchmark for Future of the Left, I leave you with a quote from the mcluskyism album's Provincial Song.

"Rock n roll’s just a ring on your finger."-mclusky

I wondered if this review would sound like a complete dick suck for Future of the Left.  Then I reconsidered as I considered the current reviews by critics.  Fuck it… It’s the 21st century and I celebrate my right to suck whoever’s dick I feel deserves it… Thank you, Future of the Left, for having the sack to produce another album.  Consider this your happy ending....

-Becky

Lulu Lou Reed & Metallica Brave the Darkness

I have approached this work in so many ways that I, admittedly, have several starts and endings.  Four months and several listens after my first acquisition of Lulu, I almost can’t remember what the first listen was like.  I saved my first listen drafts and put them against each other in this review. (Many thanks to readers for indulging me.)  

So here we go – and get a cocktail or something to tide you over.

First few listens review

Lulu. My assumption is that you could replace the word "Lulu" with "Berlin" (or "SMiLE") and it would be the same damn review that was regurgitated from 30 years ago.  I read reviews after I was through Lulu. I didn’t want to hear what anyone had to say and I knew there would be some haters, but this:

....fans of both artists responded with confusion, if not outright despair. But while this partnership may seem random, the two actually have a lot in common. Both abuse electric guitars; both like to wear black and be photographed by Anton Corbijn; both have indulged in lifestyles that threatened to become death-styles; both have a habit of alienating their fans by taking ill-advised stylistic detours and, by extension, both are considered by many to be class-A assholes.

Really? Because I assume the usual "fan" mail received by most critics reads pretty much like preceding quote (except that critics abuse pens and keyboards and independent thought).  I wonder if anyone bothered to read up on Lulu itself, as a project.  Or possibly on Expressionism...  When I first listened to Lulu's Brandenburg Gate it made me think of the movie "M" by Fritz Lang.  It was a pretty fucked up and dark movie for the time, you've probably seen it, centering on a serial killer in Germany.  I knew nothing of Lulu until I looked around a bit. I can say within the first 5 minutes Lou Reed hits about every Expressionist film out there... Yet these moron critics keep talking about Lou Reed's inability to write and sing.  Has anyone read or watched anything ... ever?

Says still another reviewer:

The guitar riffs and solos are messy and not very well thought out. There are no epic Metallica riffs in this album at all. There are no "face melting" guitar solos anywhere to be heard, and no musical merit whatsoever.... It has been said that this album is experimental, so I feel it is safe to say that this album was a failure and nothing of this sort should ever be tried again.

HAHAHAHAHA!  I actually liked reading that one.  I am so glad that the reviewer is in touch with experimental art... his assessment that "nothing of the sort should be tried again" has saved us from the disaster of nonlinear thinking.

Holy shit, the music is supposed to be unsettling because Lulu the character is unsettling.  I suppose if you tried to set angst, S&M, pain, murderous flailing, disposable souls and broken humans into caricatures, threw it all inside a back alley circus of the absurd noir, all gilded by virtue of its relation to upper crust decadence... I'd assume you'd come close to Lulu's entrance. Oh well, once a damn critic always a critic.

So here's my crack at a review while summoning the spirit of the critics:

Couldn't Lou and Metallica have made a nice PowerPoint with a few 'face melters' as the baseline track instead?  I mean, where the hell is the radio clip in this deal anyway?  How the fuck is a person supposed to listen to this heap of shit without actually having to listen to it in its entirety?  Fuck thinking about stuff -- last time I remember thinking during Metallica was when I couldn't decide between the 7-11 nachos or hot dogs and then I got a nosebleed when I swilled my Cherry Slurpee and accidentally jammed my nose into the straw while headbanging in the parking lot.  You see how well that worked out for me then, so why start now? Kind of annoying you know.... Iced Honey is the closest radio track, but it still doesn't sound anything like Metallica's junior album Ride the Lightning.And Lou Reed... I never got that guy anyway.  What's the big deal?  He can't sing and he just rants on and on like some crazed old man version of Katharine Hepburn.  I mean that's what he's done since like 1960, right?  That one album with the banana on the cover that he did -- it was okay but overrated as he's been ever since.  That album gets as much play as I do... and believe me that's not saying much.  Lulu.... just fuck it.  Don't buy it cuz it's like poetry and some bad singing and some bad background vocals by Hetfield (not sure why I am claiming that his vocals suck on this album as opposed to any other previous ones, considering the fact that he's always had the same vocals... but I digress) and the drums are okay -- but never really much of anything that you'd turn on the strobe light for, I never felt the need to air-drum once during the entire CD...and by "entire" I mean 20 seconds of each track.To top it off, there are some stringed instruments backing them... Christ didn't Metallica hear us when we told them back in the mid 90s to NEVER use an orchestral collaboration?  They did that shit once and we, the critics, told them it should be stopped...forEVER ... then the fans finally got it and riots ensued. Right Metallica... We TOLD you not to get fancy and you did...again.  So fuck your little project Lulu.  And screw you, Lou Reed.  Didn't stop you from producing high-faluting bullshit since your asshole predecessor Andy Warhol made a GD mint off of painting soup cans.  Still sucks and it always will. -- Becky

Things I know: Lou Reed is a millionaire and a rock legend.  Metallica is of the same path and I'm sure their respective bank accounts reflect this.  I am not usually so pissed off on behalf of millionaires. I say these things preceding my commentary on Lulu because (1) it actually means something to not immediately dismiss an artist merely because the art appears inaccessible; (2) the world is full of shit art that does really well in the earnings and rating department; (3) earnings and ratings as a measure of true worth are as meaningful as a politicians promises, so why consider them part of the artistic venture; (4) opinions and assholes, we've heard it before, so this asshole just wants her shot; and mainly (5) Lulu is truly worth a thoughtful review…. Not just a bash or based solely on dreaded deadlines.  Take a third, fourth, fifth listen to this album before making a judgment.  Lulu will unfurl its layers as the character it portrays.

Four months later review

Sometimes art – music, paintings, photography, films, writing – just needs an open heart. Not necessarily a bleeding heart, but a heart that is open to the idea that artistic expression sometimes exists just to kick our asses and make us uncomfortable.  On occasion religion and people we love do this too, so what’s the shock in regard to art? In the case of Lulu, love does not mimic the norm or accepted path. And, for me, that is the draw and essence of the character that is Lulu.  

Unfortunately, artistic interpretation is not an easily digested item at times… I’m not sure it is supposed to be.  It should be experienced and considered before it’s judged, not unlike people. And like people, some art is rough around the edges on a first run.  Let art happen and you might find yourself changed – just a little, just a slight.  That’s okay, that’s part of the challenge.  My rant up to now: Lulu is worthy of a few chances.   She’s not going to save the world lollipops and rain gumdrops under a standing ovation, but she might make you appreciate few well-placed cuts.

Brandenburg Gate.  What a lyrical masterpiece.  It does everything a theatrical stage entrance should: sets the scene, remarks on the characters, defines the mood, and declares a protagonist.  All against a butterfly’s acoustic guitar … Visions of a girl lazing in the moonlight of a summer eve dreaming about who she is to become, her thoughts….

I would cut my legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski in the dark of the moon. Makes me dream of Nosferatu trapped on the isle of Dr Moreau.  Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely?”  

Piecing her creation together, lilting pauses, until the heavy melodious danger of Metallica bursts into to the room. A budding sociopath? A discarded soul unable to grasp the mundane ‘normalcy’ of the rest of the world.  All this substance in less than 4 minutes.

“I’m just a small town girl, giving life a whirl.”  Oh Lulu, not for long.

The View.  “I am a chorus of the voices that gather up the magnets set before me. I attract you and repel you, a science of the heart and blood and meaning….There is no time for guilt, second-guessing based on feeling. I am the truth, the beauty that causes you to cross your sacred boundaries.”

I can’t decide whether this piece is about Lulu or generations of development/societies innate hypocrisy. Either way, it’s more than just ‘I am the table!’  I keep reading reviews that talk about Lou Reed’s lyrics and poetry as mere shock value.  That’s not the case.  This is an introduction and development of the main character… it’s who she is.  If it’s shocking then that’s Lulu… not Lou Reed.

The obsession people have with the lyrics…. I don’t know what to say except that I found them well executed, doing their job, succinctly describing Lulu’s evolution.  Lou Reed’s delivery is exceptional … the pauses and feeling required to riff along with the speeding musical interludes created by Metallica.  Not an easy thing to achieve. As usual though, I have heard people claim they could sing better than Lou.  Feel free to try.  Then again, I have also heard claims from people that they could paint pictures with their asshole that look better than VanGogh’s art.  I suspect these claimants have never tried either and, if they have, quietly slinked away knowing they were wrong.

I want to see your suicide. I want to see you give it up. Your life of reason….I want to have you doubting every meaning you’ve amassed like a fortune – throw it away.

The view? I am still a bit puzzled whose view this is, but it is definitely the beginning.  I picture windows shattering and abuses of horror breaking the people behind them, one by one, until only a few remain.  Lulu is a survivor.

Pumping Blood. The real heaviness of this work appears.  Metallica lends a great riff to the whole revealing… the birth of Lulu.  This is a true revelation of who Lulu is and how she becomes… and then becomes again.  Her growth into what she finally quite perfectly and beautifully sang in the beginning.  This is not such a stretch. At times the Lulu poetry reminds me of how some (not all) prostitutes have felt regarding love and affection and relationships, depending on how the prostitution went for them.  Pain, love, barter, unconditional, sex and love as an act of devotion, not all experience translates into happytown. Pumping Blood is reminiscent of Patti Smith’s beauty, Horses. I also had thoughts of Lou Reed’s own Berlin, Caroline Says II.  To finalize the repetition, “In the end, it was an ordinary heart. Jack, I beseech you!”  Yes, this seems to me a love story, conquering, and discovery.

Mistress Dread.  All the way speeding orgasmic.  She is completely present and that’s part of her allure. The love developing between these two is so manic and methamphetamine in its devotion it’s a scary experience for them.  It’s love – but in the case of these, blood and pain is the way to unconditional acceptance.  “You are my Goliath and I am Mistress Dread.”

Iced Honey. This appears the anthem (of sorts) of the overall work.  Love her for who she is. Speaking directly, she asks us to understand who she is and, once you do, you must accept your own fate at her hands. Otherwise, you have nothing to complain about.  This is her challenge to all who cross her path, and many have failed in their assumptions of Lulu.

If your final gasp of has the recipe wrong and instead of 'hello' you say ‘so long’. If your energy starts to leak out and people wonder what you’re all about— a heartbreaker with an unattached heart – the story of love gives them all start. And me? I’ve always been this way. Not by choice, just this way. I hit with my honey pot in a jar.[...] See if the ice will melt for you.

It’s not just a challenge, but almost a scientific experiment for Lulu.  Can you actually melt her heart despite her trying to melt her own?  The themes of hearts and ordinary ones run rampant. Oh, but how many have literally lost their lives at this challenge.

In that respect, within our anthem of Lulu, the most honest parts of her turn even darker still with Cheat On Me. A turning point of darkness within – more emotions and revelations that remind me of a person who is involved in self-evaluation, faced with inevitable revelations, unavoidable with age and experience.  You can only run so far.

Dragon.

Because waiting for you – thinking of you – is another way of dying.

Holy crap, it doesn’t get more breakdown than this.  I don’t care what kind of breakdown it is, but this is an almost lunatic raving… The parts that I believe deal with the assassination of Lulu by the infamous Jack the Ripper.  Jack has been referenced plenty throughout, but now he is finally making an appearance.

The liquid exchange of our hearts. Are we both dead now?! … Your heart on your sleeve. A red star on your sleeve. An idiot’s idiocy.

This is a venture into darkness that is so uncomfortable and frightening, it’s something you run from in dark alleys, schizophrenic rants, abusive late night fathers inside their daughters and sons, sarcastic echoes of self-loathing, massacres, genocide, masochistic failings or ‘a table you can rest your fucking feet on when you’re able’.  So to all of the “I am the table!” haters, it’s not just Hetfield ranting like a lunatic – Might all that I am the table biz been a bit of foreshadowing to what Lulu is in self-assessment and to her true partner, Jack the Ripper?  “The one who rejects you is the winner.”

Jack... the one most equipped to inflict harm, blood, and the ability to dissect a heart... may be the only one who can prove to Lulu that she has a heart by actually removing it and showing her.  Possibly Jack is her counterpart or her antagonist.  He seems necessary in that he is the only one who can provide her deliverance through blood (or love).

Dragon is almost too much to bear emotionally in lyrics and musical heaviness.

Thank someone for Junior Dad.  Like so many Lou Reed endings, the music is transformative. People morphing larger understandings of their world experience, and the journey was well ridden.  Otherwise, there is nothing to receive.  Lou Reed is asking us, the audience, to hang in there too… I don’t say this is a happy ending, but it surely seems to allow for understanding, one that permits the strange pain-filled world we’ve traversed so haplessly, to bear fruitful meaning.

Burning on my forehead, the brain that once was listening, now, shoots out its tiresome message: ‘Scalding, my dead father has the motor and he’s driving toward an island of dead soldiers.’ Sunny.  A monkey then to monkey. I will teach you meanness, fear and blindness. No social redeeming kindness or – oh – state of grace. The greatest disappointment…. Age withered him and changed him into Junior Dad.

Meeting your maker, redemption and happy reunions are relative.  In the case of Lulu it seems the man who brought her to her beginnings, Bradenburg Gate.

Don’t bother getting to Lulu by skipping tracks or lazily blowing over these pieces as backgrounds.  Live through this. But don’t expect the payoff if you can’t make the journey. If Lou and Metallica don’t take this on the road as the stage play it’s meant to be, it will be a tragedy.  Unfortunately, I feel Europe will get the best of this show, as the U.S. is frightfully averse to anything that tips the social norm, and might be written off as a loss.   I truly hope I am wrong.

Lulu is one of the most interesting things I've heard in awhile and it does well to conjure many images, extremely dark and also strangely touching.  Many kudos and much respect to Metallica for taking this musical trip.  It’s hard to keep up in timing freeform when words and emotions are the only direction makers for the overall project.  I hope this collaboration becomes an opener for other bands to make some bold choices.  I am still convinced that, like Berlin, Lulu will be revisited and recognized for the musical brilliance and artistic shamelessness it breeds.

Thank you to all who bothered to read this entire commentary.  And by now, you may be quite loaded, if you drank the whole time.  (I warned you.)

--Becky

The Libertines 2nd Album Preview

The Libertines second album release Exclusive Sneak Preview CD Review 14 tracks (August 2004 release date) Pete, Carl, band brilliance

There’s something about the ability to create music that is emotional, big, hard, stripped down, not too dressed up but definitely dressed for an outing, while at the same time, enormous in delivery. To call The Libertines just a rock band, just a bunch of kids, just another sound in the new resurgence of 60s rock and 70s punk, would be equivalent to witnessing a tsunami and calling it another day the beach. The influences of many are heard within the latest Libs release, but there is a unique desperation in their music that stands apart. I would have to say the most appealing thing about all Libertines music is inside pain that manifests such beauty, as much will, there is never an indication of insincere sentimentality. No hidden agendas. Poets, artists, edge-walkers, harnessed rage, tumultuous energy infinitum. The Libertines, they can rock you into frenzy and then pull you into a Mexico sand bar sunset, lamentations of lost love or love on the verge. Then without a thought, back to the beat driven riffs, shock into the grit of naked bulb reality. Yes, you’re back, but you’re different. Anyone inclined to classify The Libertines with the phrase of just another anything need go no further than this CD for a new set of values. This latest creation is nothing short of witnessing a birth, one that will change the expectations of bands to follow. And so I take a slight departure to review not all, but most, of the tracks on The Libertines self titled second release.

The Libertines Can’t Stand Me Now
“If you wanna try, if you wanna try…there’s no worse you could do.” They start with a wonderful loss of love song; some head bobbing beats, harmonicas, vocals that send a little tingle. A voice that always makes think of the inherent heartache in sending away the very sweet thing that is so soft, yet dangerous enough in flirty innocence to be forever forgiven. 

The Libertines Don’t Be Shy
The Kinks all over the place. What a wonderful track. Playful harmonies, almost Beatles harmony on top of it, reminiscent of Rubber Soul sounds. Some raw jiggly riffs that make you want to shake your ass enough to forget that you might be shy.

The Libertines To The Man Who Would Be King
“I’ve been told if you want to make it in this game, gotta have the luck, you gotta have the look… I’d quite like to make it through the night.” Some great blues influence that is not what you’re used to hearing, but my god they pull it off and play it like it was always theirs. “I lived my dreams today. I lived it yesterday. I’ll be livin’ yours tomorrow, so don’t look at me that way.” Some great Clash screams out of nowhere, a little la-la-la-la chorus sing-along, whistles, turn tail breeze for the transitional end, leave you stool seated, the end of a smoke-filled 4am bar, freeform jazz jam sessions swirl with the dreamy smoke rings. Stoned reflection of the lonely, the wayward, the destitute romantics. Transitions like this, well, you don’t find them often. And as is obvious throughout this latest release, The Libertines have created a new signature sound.

The Libertines Music When the Lights Go Out
A beauty, and a stunning track to compliment To The Man Who Would Be King. This is the most touching song I’ve heard in a long while. A heartbreaker, that late night realization while staring at your lover sleeping quietly against indifference—the one you’ve staked your heart on is over. Enough.... The guitar weeps through the song. “Is it cruel or kind not to speak my mind and to lie to you, rather than hurt you? Well, I’ll confess of all my sins after several large gins… oh won’t you please forgive me? I no longer hear the music.”

Then onto a little bit of rocking blues again….

The Libertines Narcissist
Clapping juke joint, cheap gin and cheaper sex. Whistling solos, happy upbeat tempo, you wanna get up and dance, while the lyrics add cynicism enough to merit the title. “You’re going to be so old. You’re going to grow so old. Your skin’s so cold.”

And so we roll seamlessly into…

The Libertines The Ha-Ha Wall
Some of the best lyrics I’ve ever heard. “If you get tired of just hanging around, pick up a guitar and spin a web of sound. And then you could be stronger all day with lovers and clowns. Now I find myself hanging around. It’s been a long wall. We’re so tired and dirty, still, am I dirty enough for you?” Spectacular transitional guitar work midway pulls you through the winding clocks of waiting, watching it all blow by. More screams unleashed in a good Clash “ee-hallaaa!” You must listen to this track for the guitar transitions alone. To me, this song would be indicative of the new signature sound that will mark them unmistakably Libertines.

The Libertines Arbeit Macht Frei
All I can say here is one giant bar fight. Yeah it’s the Clash influence, but it’s The Libs too, and they’ve got broken bottles. They win…two minutes flat.

The Libertines Campaign Of Hate
Something stark, something simple, something lovely. The swinging guitar riffs, I can see bending metal, intricate stret work and transition into a bluesy chorus. End the song with a speeding tempo, “There’s a campaign of hate waiting at the school gate.” Spiral to an end in as much of a spin out as the problem it attacks.

The Libertines What Katie Did
“Shoop shoop, shoop de lang de lang.” Yep, The Libertines sing about polka dots. Be not afraid if you are on the rocking side of the Libs—this song is a wonderful mix of cabaret doo-wop, down to a little love harmonies, song chimes, a happy sun day, my love… you can almost laugh with this one, tongue in cheek lyrics as it goes on in all its wonderful jaded innocence. “Safety pins are none too strong Katie, they hold my life together, and I never say never….”

The Libertines Tomblands
Okay this guitar work is truly amazing…. It’s all over the place in fret work, fast but not showy, and damned if it doesn’t just come at your front, then as you feel it go, it’s already behind you. Put on some headphones and get ready for this one. Again just two minutes, but you’ll safely find a home.

The Libertines Road to Ruin
This starts Clash… all of a sudden I’m hearing Jack White… then I’m inside Von Bondies… now we’re visiting the Doors…. then we’re back to Clash; but it’s all visitors inside The Libertines haven. I’ve said it over and over, but this guitar work doesn’t stop in its impressive intricacy. A whistling solo—it works, one of many touches you’ll find dazzled about the entire CD, little gems you don’t expect and love for the surprise. This is such 60s rock: even some light moog style keyboards in the background that round out the song to a pipe organ gothic finish reminiscent of House of the Rising Sun. I don’t know... it seems anything is possible on this CD as I am into the 13th track. I love it and welcome all twists. This auditory trip has taught me that I will not get what I expect, except that what I will get is better than I could imagine.

Of course, let us never forget endings….

The Libertines Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads
A choice, a reconciliation of nows and thens, this is a great ending track, one too beautiful to write. Just sit back feel this song, don’t think it, and you’ll experience the whispers of actual pain. I feel like you can’t even sing this song too strongly or it would fall apart; the resigning dialog of trying to find a nook inside an ocean. “What became of the dreams we had? What became of forever? We’ll never know.”

As I end this CD, I’m thinking that it’s nice to hear musicians get together and just make music. A seemingly obvious goal, but many times an album can feel less like musicians making music and more about production that cleans house so well, it’s almost lonely when you get home. This CD is a seedling mix of brilliance that grows exponentially within each listen. And like any wild thing that grows, it’s always less tame than the rest for the wilderness, but it knows itself enough to allow the growth to happen. After discussing this with other members of OZ Beat, I have to agree that this album feels as though it were created and executed as if it were the last. I can only say I hope it is not. Within these sounds—so emotionally raw, lyrically poetic, unforgiving in observations, the entire album sings of forgiveness and unconditional understanding—it achieves its own transcendence. I find myself feeling that this album was necessary, and I don’t mean in the sense that people claim music to be necessary, as it is oftentimes used to define music of an era. No. I mean necessary for the sheer expression, necessary as is a heart to find the thing that kills, and also to become the thing that finally releases. Dare I even call it a concept album? The more I go through this, the more it feels like it is. I am driven to listen repeatedly for the experience it conveys.

I would surmise anyone who picks up this CD for its August 2004 release date will find it hard to simply skip tracks and pick a favorite. Pick one, pick another and realize this album doesn’t beg for the listen, it simply becomes what it was meant to be, and we are merely here to play witness. As to The Libertines, I can only reference Up The Bracket as I cherish this latest release: “But if you’ve lost your faith in love and music, the end won’t be long. Because if it’s gone for you, I too may lose it and that would be wrong…. There were no good old days. These are the good old days.” I thank you for that sentiment.

In the heat of rumored endings, let us also never forget the importance of beginnings and now. This is about the best we’ll hear in 2004, possibly years beyond, and one can only hope it will stand as the transition piece of a band that fills its own void with the music that so obviously permeates their very being as they move forward in this new direction. I would say after a few listens straight through, play the first track, Can’t Stand Me Now, and then the last track, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, right up against each other. These two songs, at least for me, encompass a complete love song to The Libertines themselves. Lending to the inherent circular motion of this album, another reason I can’t stop playing it—in its ending, it’s just beginning.

With that, I feel another listen coming on as well as a heartfelt thank you to The Libertines for allowing this simply to be.
--Becky

Scissor Sisters

Not my favorite concert of the year--Muse and TCTC still rank one and two. But, this was the best live stage performance that I have seen in a lot of years. I've been hanging on to the belief that The Butthole Surfers were the best live show around since the early 80's (and I think they were). They have been de-throned. Scissor Sisters is the hardest working band in music today. I had heard about three songs and was interested in seeing the show. I bought tickets the day they went on sale in Chicago--mostly because I knew from the tracks that I had heard that my boyfriend would love them. They had just come off two previous dates (Detroit and Cleveland) where they had only drawn 15 people. Chicago didn't sell them out but probably had a good 400 show up in support (and many who had ordered the music via UK and really knew them -- unlike me). They were so thrilled at the size of the crowd. All their current hype is UK (but they did make US network television the last two days).

So a few hours later (after the show), Scissor Sisters are my favorite new band of the year they have been around for awhile, but they broke this year). I expected the disco-influenced sounds to bore me right away. Talk about misreading this band. The music, the musicians, the stage show, the lyrics, the versatility is beyond what anyone can really expect from a band in this most modern age.

A nearly two-hour show without a single weak moment or song. Jake is everything I want in a rock star. And his counterpart (Anna?) is so fucking hot, talented, and the perfect partner for their brilliant performance in front of a band that is as complete and tight and as exciting as any band I have seen since the early Strokes days. Watching Jake and his female counterpart—in sync at every second of the show, complimenting each others perfomances from start to finish—and I have to mention again—the sex, the sex in both appeal, eroticism and intimacy between them makes the show hypnotizing. This gorgeous (truly beautiful) man and this curvy woman that takes you back to the days (1950's and 1960's) when sex appeal was hips and tits and asses—in great proportion (Marilyn, Jayne, Mamie) is perhaps retro—but in the here and now—it is goddamn groundbreaking.

Universal Records has just signed the band and the US release is scheduled for July 27. I ordered it out of UK tonight and then downloaded it (after hours of figuring this I-music crap from those nasty Mac people). Substances added to much of what they did tonight--but 4 hours after the show (substances wearing off) I just keep cranking it. The last time I had a CD on random for this long was actually vinyl, after people would be crashing at my place for about a week (early 80's) and I wanted to get them out, I put on Buzzcocks and told everyone in my space that it was the only thing I wanted to hear over and over and over. In time, the crowd did thin.

Scissor Sisters has been presented as somewhat of a novelty act. They have the glitz, the glimmer and the glam--but they will knock you out with the substance. I can name at least 40-50 1970-1980 influences that they very openly cop from. But, every moment is completely their own. I never expected to leave this show loving their music so much. I hate disco, not a big Leo Sayer fan, Elton (liked the first three albums), Sylvester (well, I worshipped him) but the whole dance/disco 1970's bored me so much that I ended up a punk rocker (after glam had run its course) owning and running a punk club--the most legendary Chicago punk club—OZ.

So Scissor Sisters are the about polar opposites to what I was listening to or playing in my club. And pretty different from anything I have listened to since the 70's (and then it was usually because I was in a club playing disco crap) Yes, to me, Scissor Sisters have all the dreaded 1970 and 80's influences and more, and they fucking own it. And they present it in a way that is everything that it should have been 30 years ago. If Scissor Sisters had founded disco--it would have been such a different trip instead of the awful 128 bpms that it became (or pretty much always was).

There is not another band today doing what this band does. Since disco and techno took over every queer club's musical focus--there has been a real lack of innovative bands seeking to get gay bar play. SS are going for it. Scissor Sisters may, at last, get queers to return to the indie scene where they have fucking always belonged. New music, in terms of the US, still gets broken in the queer clubs. What a shame because gay clubs were once the trendsetters giving us Bowie, T. Rex, Jobriath, Wayne County, etc (and it was the only place to hear it). Unfortunately, they quickly buckled under to the Gloria Gaynor and any bitch with a syth and doing the beats per minute--only to turn it in to techno and live there for the last eternity. Queer club music has been basically stagnant since 1976--they can change the name--techno, bass and drums, etc--but Christ, it is just more shitty disco crap.

Scissor Sisters is going to force gay dance bars to reconsider some of their music. The crowd tonight was overwhelmingly hetero--but this bands target is obvious--people wanting to dance their ass off, enjoy some of the best retro, original music that is a soundtrack of some of our lives (even if we didn't really like the soundtrack the first time around).

This band is about some substances, tons of sex, recreating Warholian street people living and surviving in NYC. And doing it with fucking style. The trannies, the hos, the gender benders, the back seat blow jobs, the pretty boys, the country boys getting off the Greyhound, the totality of lower east side Manhattan in 1974 (and hopefully, a solid piece of that still exists there).

Instead of presenting it like Andy (Paul Morrissey did in Trash), Scissor Sisters present it like a big budget Broadway production. The show itself is so spectacular that I can't wait to see them in the bigger rooms, with a budget and creating a magical fantasyland for everybody (as they have done so well in their videos).

I'll shut up now. I fell in love with this band so unexpectedly. The music is fucking overpowering. Jake's voice is as brilliant to me as Jobriath, T. Roth, Marc Bolan. He can dance like a diva and break your heart with a song. The sexiest man I have seen on stage in so long—probably since T. Roth, Marc Bolin and Jobriath. Gay or straight, man or woman—try getting your eyes off this beautiful, talented, and totally-committed-to-entertaining-in-any-way-possible-on-stage, individual. And when the senses are overwhelmed—watch his female counterpart who is every bit as awesome. You can download the CD now for $9.99 through their web site which takes you to I-music (some horrible Mac crap with tons of sign ups and no part of anything making any sense.) But worth it—I needed the music now—and I did figure it all out in about 2 hours. Once I knew how to get it, it downloaded in about 10 minutes and burned really nice.

MAIN POINT: Chicago was the third stop on the Us tour--they have a lot of dates coming up. To miss this band at this stage in their development while they are working hard for their rep would really be a loss. This IS the tour that you want to see this band--because the next one is going to be hi-tech, flashy, and much larger rooms. This is seeing a band as they prepare to conquer. It is the warm-up for what will be all over MTV and in arenas--if there is any justice in the industry. Yeah, I hate MTV and all that shite but I want this band to conquer the tried, boring and true corporate controlled video channels. Seeing this band anywhere will pull people away from the belief that what is out there is obvious. If they see this band—maybe they will start to wonder and do a little work about finding other bands they like—instead of waiting for it to flow through Clear Channels. Scissor Sisters has the potential (like none out there right now) to reintroduce a stagnant music crowd to the value, diversity and the fucking reality--if you want good music, go fucking find it. Because the gay bar down the street has no interest in playing anything but what is popular--and that simply goes for the straight pubs too.

The band is taking the time to really relate to the crowds and they are amazingly generous in a comfortable shared conversation that never detracts from the stage show. This kind of band-audience intimacy happens so rarely, and really requires a club of certain size. These kids are giving of themselves in every way you could ask an artist to give. They will be known as the hardest working band in the biz, because from what I saw tonight, there is not a band that comes close for delivering the spectacle. This is the most fun show I have seen in years—but the substance of what they do will at times bring you to tears. Fun serious gay straight disco Sylvester Elton Bee Gees (as they may have imagined themselves) Broadway, sad songs occasionally (but always with the warning, "now, don't get too sad") and Jake going from falsetto to the wide eyed innocent with a voice of power and deepness and commitment and so quickly being able to bring you up to a whole new intensity. This band has the potential to slam down the doors of all types of clubs that keep feeding us crap music. Maybe the Strokes opened the door, but this band could really change the dynamic. JUST DON'T MISS THIS BAND. I guarantee it will rank among your best shows of the year.
--Dem

Magnus CD review in The Big Takeover

Magnus Sleepwalker
(on Nefarious Records)

One goes through a thoroughly depressing pile of 46 CDs by unknown artists utterly bereft of advanced talent and imagination, calling "Next!," hoping against hope there might be one like this hidden there. Wherefore art though, Cinderella trying to get noticed behind her wretched stepmom/sisters? But at last, here she is, not too late for the ball!

What they remind of is early 1990s (i.e. comeback) Comsat Angels, with some Adam and Eve Catherine Wheel too. It's that marvelous swirling guitar edge, bonded to hard pop tunes that slowly but forcefully unfold and then implode, the pensive touches (love the trumpets and bits of piano, like on "Drinking With Baron," and the feeding back cello on "Awake"), the clear and clear-eyed singing, the long languid passages that give way to building storms, and riffs that catch you from first play. Excellent!

This Chicago group won't fall in line with prevailing indie rock elements, putting up a false intensity. They just let the delighting, surprising turns in their tightly-written and executed music speak volumes. I can't remember the last time I heard such inventive guitar passages from an American band that doesn't ape Neil Young, yet seems like they might have heard Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets or Radiohead's Ok Computer along the way, and understood the dynamic trichotomies of beauty, brain, and aggression inherent in both. I know next to nothing about Stephen and David Wade, George Patrick, or Scott Schaafsma (and Simon Hunt) other than that they had a 2002 debut EP I really need to get. But after playing their LP so much, I might write them a fan letter (and see if the slipper fits).

With music of this striking power right under our noses, the rest of America rock and its overwhelming mediocrity just lost its excuse.
--Jack Rabid

links:
http://www.magnusmusic.net
http://www.nefariousrecords.com