Overheard conversation...

...waiting to get into an artist talk. Three girls, in designer clothes and designed faces, sat discussing their upcoming dilution of responsibility upon some poor unsuspecting bloke. For this story we'll call them the Three Stupid Boyfriends. Two parts intrigued me enough to write them for later.

"My bridesmaid is the most odd shaped one. I said that if the dress looks decent on you, it will look good on everyone. Some are flat chested and others are pear shaped but she is the oddest by far."

"I told my boyfriend that if I started to look like [my step sister] he was allowed to beat me."

Juju B Solomon - s/t

I've been listening to this record for a few months now. I finally got a copy for WUAG, and this is the review I wrote for the station. First part is my entire history with Juju B, the second part is his past, and the third is a review for the station that is designed to get all those blahcore lovers to play this album.


History of Juju and Myself

I first heard of Juju B when I was at WREK radio in Atlanta. Having a rotation show, I always played what no one else would. I fell in love with "On the Lam" immediately. He had a show for later in the month, so my friend and I gathered courage and went. Courage isn't usually needed for going to shows, except this venue was called "The Banana Hammock." After a weird halal meal of goat bones in chile oil with a side of onions, we spent the better part of an hour driving through a neighborhood looking for the address, but what we found was a nondescript house in a nondescript neighborhood. More courage was needed than we thought. Outside, a scrawny kid was struggling with his equipment. I brought in the amp. Inside was a bizarre dozen of musicians, dropped awkwardly throughout a traditional open air parlor/kitchen area. Three bands later, we were still seated in the parlor, on an earth toned overstuffed love seat, which was only separated from the stage/living room by a mirror and faux African end table. Besides the owners of the house, we were the only ones left. We watched as the scrawny kid quietly plugged in, adjusted the mic, and began to sing about cock blocking with no introduction. It was a religious experience. His delivery was shy, reserved. He never moved more than what was needed to make the notes and his eyes were constantly focused inches above the ground. He thanked us after every song. From then on, I've vowed to get his music out into the ether however possible. He wasn't going to do it himself, and neither was his label.


History of Juju B

Juju B Solomon is actually Benjamin Solomon. A self professed hippie, he moved to India awhile back and attempted to write a novel. Instead, he worked in a textile factory, where he was told to increase production. With pigtails and a purple aura, he constantly had problems communicating with the workers. He never fit in - religiously, culturally, any -ly. He was a dog in a bright red dress. A freak alone. A friend then gave him a Givson guitar. Not Gibson, Givson - the Indian "version" of a Gibson. After cutting his hair and growing out his finger nails, he wandered around Delhi writing these narratives and moping. He came back to the States, came to Atlanta, and is now completely ignored by the critics and fans alike.


The Review

Many of you might be repulsed by the fact that this album has a guy and a guitar and not much more. But don't! Genuinely funny words, genuinely charming vocal inflections, this album is not folk, singer-song writer, local, any of that. It's a collection of stories about a genuinely confused and horny American boy in India with guitar accompaniment. I keep saying genuine, because that's its greatest strength. Released on a label so indie that their head quarters is a run down brick and mortar converted shack in the seedy underbelly of Atlanta, Juju sing talks his way through things you typically don't hear addressed on plastic. The constant feeling is that he never thought any one would hear his songs, so they're savagely honest and, well, genuine. Play all the time.

Jumbling Towers

Over the past couple o' years, a few unwritten rules have been written for indie pop/rock. It's unspeakable, but unmistakable. We expect our underground artists to sound either professionally unprofessional (think Steve Albani), like it's been recorded on a 4 track, or to have a totally clean and polished sheen. Jumbling Towers isn't any of this, it sounds truly unprofessional. It's refreshing. It's four midwestern dudes with four different ideas about music. The vocals are a tongue and cheek British dandy impersonation, with hints of the David Byrne. Drums sound like cheap ass drums, riffs sound like riffs, the bass does some good nearly Joy Division stuff. There's a lot of DIY layering. There's that insufferable Rhodes keyboard and the droning organ. And it all works, together, passingly well. I know nobody knows of this band, but it sounds uncannily like Grape Digging Sharon Fruits. It's not one of the best albums of 2007. It's not one of the greatest albums of all time. It's unassuming, quirky in the most genuine way, indie tunes. Awesomely self released, some real promise in the future. Indie. That's it.

Oh, yea, this was the first draft. Later on I included a bit on the drumming. The drumming is really terrible sounding, cheap and tinny. It keeps this album from greatness. I've been in touch with the band, and they mentioned that it was the only part they didn't record themselves. They hated the sound as well. In other words, in the future, if they get that worked out, they will have an amazing album. Keep Jumbling Towers in mind for the future.

Jose Gonzales - In Our Nature

Rock began from the musings of the poor on the acoustic guitar. Anymore, it seems rock is ending in the same fashion, crawling back towards its roots. A classic story of a rags to riches king dying in exile. Folk, singer song writer, whatever you want to call it, has been descending, slowly, on our station for decades. A smog of crisp quarter and half notes bellow from the smoke stack fingers of the folk guitarist, suffocating the shelves and drowning the DJs.This is no fault of Jose Gonzalez, an Argentinian Swede. These are all expertly crafted, folk inspired, acoustic, singer-song writer tunes with average lyrics. I'm simply tired of expertly crafted, folk inspired, singer-song writer tunes. On any instrument.

Old Time Relijun - Catharsis in Crisis

A swamp of upright bass, dirty delta blues guitar, scary ass screeching saxophone birds manically emerging from the cloudscape, hauntingly powerful Captain Beefheart vocals growled from beyond the grave, drum riffs rhythmically removing your brain: this is an album apart. After 7 of these things, Arrington de Dionyso is starting to get things together. It always works, but on the songs that everything comes together perfectly, it's impossibly catchy and horrifying. And, oddly, a few times, it really reminds me of Television, if Television were a delta blues cover band.

People - Misbegotten Man

You know how people at Panera and Borders always "appreciate" jazz? No one ever admits to something so pedestrian as the verb "to listen".But, with People, I really do appreciate the music. (Some listening also happens.) I appreciate bands still willing to make challenging music. Rock hasn't been dangerous since the Ramones were used to sell Pepsi, maybe even longer. I appreciate how there isn't any art house stuff in rotation. I appreciate how this album sucks by any modern convention yet they still had the balls to not only record it, but to spend the money sending it to radio stations all over the country. Girl singer that moves erratically in and out of tune. Drummer who doesn't stretch or shrink time, he ignores it completely. Incomprehensible 17 syllable words and a a guitar that follows its own trajectory all together. Accepting them on their own terms, this album isn't spectacular. It gets tedious quickly. By the second song, you know all the tricks. By the fifth, you begin to feel dizzy. By the end, your ears start to bleed. But for radio use, I highly recommend playing at least one song a day. They do stand alone quite well, especially alongside a traditional verse-chorus-verse indie pop ditty.

Good Life - Help Wanted Nights

While putting the crunchy vocals of Tim Kasher slightly ahead of brushed drums, Album of the Year wasn’t. Murky, subdued. Vivid and listless. 37 shades of tri-color rotini. Having an actual band, instead of whoever happens to be wandering through Omaha, keeps this album expansive, consistent, and crunchy in all the right ways. It’s like sticking pop songs in the broiler. What’s more spectacular is that this album is nothing more than archetypes and clichés of small town drunks and whores. An abstraction of Tim’s first movie. But he abstracts them so well, that the cheesy parts don’t seem cheesy and the serious parts aren’t taken all too seriously. It keeps everything focused on lodging his wailing and guitar howling and drum drummering deep inside your log cabin mind.

Charlemagne

Down at the Orange Jubilee of Indie Music, on the menu sitting comfortably above Eclectic Noise Band and right below Post-Post-Neo-Contemporary-Post-Punk, you’ll find a nice, tall, refreshing ‘90s College Rock Revival Smoothie. Made from finely aged Dinosaur Jr licks, Pavement vocals, and early REM sensibilities, Carl John’s Charlemagne project goes well with everything. It’s crafted meticulously to make those on the verge of getting their first mortgage to feel the early pangs of nostalgia. If you have wanted to fight the mainstream, be a director to show the world your vision, or have thought that girls are hottest with Jennifer Aniston haircuts and Star Jones sized shirts in the past 15 years, this record is for you. When you are moving into your house and all of your

MV and EE

From the back porch, rain of indeterminate origin hazes down over patched earth. Water pools around the muddied city, skyscrapers of ambling weeds struggling to stay afloat. Concrete relics, yard art no one remembers buying stand alongside forgotten pine trees as the rain keeps falling. From behind you, from the door, wafts must, dirt, dust from the stack of vinyl. Neil Young. Pink Floyd. Moby Grape. As you sit on the porch, wood on wood, smoking hash, watching the rain fall. That is this album. It draws on enough classic rock, reverb and fuzz guitar drones, screeching, and psychedelic wailing while using enough modern era lingo to keep it fresh..

Drug Rug

Tommy Allen and Sarah Cronin met in a bar, fell in love, exchanged demo tapes. You know how this works. Forming Drug Rug, inviting some friends along the way, they ambled through this album, happily indulgent in their new relationship. Really, though, I wish they would have saved the music for later, because someone needs to punch Sarah Cronin in the face. This is a solid '60s psychedelic pop sound a la the Byrds meets modern indie twee sensibilities in a lo fi recording studio kind of album. Think chicken jello, vietnam, and plastics - along with a whole lot of hash. Except on the songs where Sarah Cronin gets out of control.

Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War

Twee was cute. Sweater vests and androgynous hair cuts were adorable. But Stars? Stars are pure, uncut lines of snow white bunny magic that shimmers Richard Simmons rainbows. Synth, duets, songs about heartbreak. Some may remember them from Heart or Set Yourself On Fire, the album that brought them O.C. success. Some may remember them from their kid sister playing them too loud while on the phone with Brad, oh.. that Brad. This isn't as good, but it is typical Stars. No selling out, yet.

Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover

Sunset Rubdown is Spencer Krug's non commercial, least successful project, but the one he has the most control over. And we are better off for that. These songs aren't immediately accessible, but there is an honestly in their dense, suffocating nature. All the songs blend together so perfectly that it takes nearly the whole hour before you realize that songs are actually happening. Motifs about violins and random guitar melodies show up throughout these songs, further emphasizing the album over the songs. The feeling is of some crazy musical genius in a room blowing through ideas, one after the other, not bothering to stop and polish them up. No slaving over dubs and masters. Get the songs down and move on. You should play this often. It shows that indie rock is still breathing, that there are bands who are still innovative within the typical constructs of the garage.

Foreign Born - On the Wing Now

As an album, On the Wing Now masterfully begins with a straight rip off of Arcade Fire, but quickly, slowly and subtly falls into a disenchanted neoshoegazing affair. It's only when, by the 9th track, when you want honey, that you even realize you're shoegazing. What an odd state of affairs. What's even odder is that it shoegazes, but not in a wall of sound/droning guitar kind of way. It merely is saturated in delay and reverb, along with amazing production values. None of this dream pop mumble jumble: these are real life, honest to goodness indie pop songs that dance at the gates of self indulgence. Foreign Born is Slowdive sexing up Arcade Fire on a park bench bathed in yellow sodium enriched light.

Iron and Wine - Shepard's Dog

While nothing will ever beat Sam Beam's first couple of albums creeping out of the stereo as the fire crawls from the wall in the room where hands stumble, clasped, holding - your love and you cuddling in a log cabin while Iron and Wine cement in the week long blizzard outside - listening to them by yourself is boring as shit. You've got to be really messed up to make it through a couple of songs. When he started his experimental phase with Calexico, everyone took note. His beautiful lyrics, played faster! Shepard's Dog takes this a step further, creating the lushest, fastest, most melodic album he has ever made. Sam Beam punching through a hazy jungle of ghosts and Gods while monkeys howl out drum riffs and the stand up toucan bass plucks out into the endless sonic canopy.

5. House by the Sea - Juju music! This one needs to be heard to understand how far this man has come. Again, for emphasis, Sam Beam doing juju music!
8. Resurection Fern - A classic Iron and Wine song, done with perfect production, slide guitars, percussion, and backup vocals. This one is so fucking delicious.
10. IS DIRTY, maybe. It says bitching. But this song actually rollicks, and it is ironic to play it on the radio. So, your call...
12. Flightless Bird, American Mouth - Beautiful, spacey waltz.

Fiery Furnaces - Widow City

Half typical Fiery Furnaces, half Fiery Furnaces dressing up as the Ramones for Halloween, Widow City is weird. Think of it as an older, wiser Fiery Furnaces impersonating the younger, more spontaneous Fiery Furnaces. The first half is mostly Bitter Tea/Gallowbird's Park territory, while the latter half falls quickly into this amazing punk rock mash up with an actual no jokes drum set!

Tracks 2, 3, 4 all blend together in the trademark FF fashion, so play together if you want to. They are all similar, typical FF tracks. 3 is the highlight for this group.
Track 5 is this great fuzzy crunchy FF track. Really good, but goes on way too long.
Track 8 on begins to get more dissonant.
10 is my favorite track, as they have never quite been here before. Starts off with a great drum solo, continues on with a fuzzy electronic FF ode to punk. Short and abrasive.
12 is another standout track. Great hook, this is the one you'll be singing days later. Let's call it this albums "Birdie Brain"
13 is one of those that feels like it goes on forever, but not in a bad way. So many tempo changes, so many lyrical shifts.
14 sounds like freaking Patti Smith jamming out with new wave robots. It needs to be experienced.
16 has a minute and half "instrumental" opening. Rest of the song is a really structured yet spontaneous sounding free jazz affair with her singing clearly over top.

Rogue Wave

My Morning Jacket started off sounding like they recorded everything inside of a barn silo. After every frat far and why picked up a copy of Z , after they hit the majors, they still sounded like they were being recorded in a barn silo. This album, which has nothing to do with My Morning Jacket, supposedly required over 150 instruments to record. What small indie band has that many ironic toy instruments lying around? Essentially, I'm getting at Rogue Wave selling out. Although I'm sure this is the album they would have recorded all along, given time and money, it just ambles along, loose and without any anchoring. It really is an odd thing to listen to, the songs just sort of exist, there is no meat to them at all. Space pop at it's finest? I don't know.

Foreign Born - On the Wing

As an album, On the Wing masterfully begins with a straight rip off of Arcade Fire, but quickly, slowly and subtly falls into a disenchanted neoshoegazing affair. It's only when, by the 9th track, when you want honey, that you even realize you're shoegazing. What an odd state of affairs. What's even odder is that it shoegazes, but not in a wall of sound/droning guitar kind of way. It merely is saturated in delay, reverb, and amazing production values. None of this dream pop mumble jumble: these are real life, honest to goodness indie pop songs that dance at the gates of self indulgence. Slowdive as the wedding band for Arcade Fire and Pavement's wedding.

Matt Pond PA - Last Light

Modern blahcore is a diverse, intricate genre. Most fans don't realize that their band is blahcore until their favorite Threadless shirt gets stained at the show from the glitter and massacre of the teenie bopping, sorority girl in training spawns of Satan dancing like coked up chipmunks in front of the stage. While Matt Pond PA's latest.. work.. is one of the lushest, most intricate, and sonically pleasing blahcore albums I've heard in a good long while, it still can't escape its roots. Barely audible female vocals? Awkward call backs during the bridge? Random ass violins? Dumb lyrics ("Wild Girl")? Blahcore, blahcore, blahcore! Still, at times, it really transcends the dollar bin at Wal Mart. And that's why this album is so frustrating. At it's worst, it still is better than almost anything on modern commercial radio. At it's best, it is slightly better. Whatever.

The Dodos - Beware of the Maniacs

A one man band, who happens to have a drummer along the way, Meric Long proudly marches forth with the freak (folk) flag long established in California. Wait, let’s start over, this isn’t really freak folk at all. These songs are a man with a guitar played blisteringly fast, well, and very much in a blue(grass) tradition. Besides his technical virtuosity, the drumming adds a hauntingly hollow skeleton on which Meric sings wistfully, wails confidently, and plucks that guitar so prettily. Imagine the world’s loveliest beluga whale, in a deep blue aquarium, with a large maple dreadnaught guitar, and all the other sea creatures hammering out simple complex percussion as the kids gather around the tank, bopping their heads. Early Animal Collective, raw The Robot Ate Me, or Uncle Billy at your families last picnic after one too many opium hits, this is astonishingly fresh and rightfully raucous. Play all the damn time.

Dead Syndrome- The Ortolan

An ortolan is a French bird notorious for it’s use in gourmet cooking. Caught in nets, the bird is overstuffed until it is 4 times its size. Then, it is drowned in brandy or any other hard liquor on hand and roasted over hot coals. Eaten whole, this album has a perfect title. Sweet bird flesh folk songs, bone guitars crunching in your teeth, piercing your gums during the extended jam sessions, the salty keyboard riffs pouring out of your jaws, the bitter lyrical organ meat hinted at throughout. You also have to eat this album under a napkin or linen cloth, although this time for hipsters and not God. It teeters uncomfortably close to Wolf Parade, Arcade Fire, and CYHSY, while mostly dancing in modern blah pop. But, through solid production, having fun, and being damn talented, it doesn’t make a shit. This album is damn good. Give it a chance. They will be popular soon, so get in on the ground floor.

Good Life - Help Wanted Nights

While putting the crunchy vocals of Tim Kasher slightly ahead of brushed drums, Album of the Year wasn’t. Murky, subdued. Vivid and listless. 37 shades of tri-color rotini. Having an actual band, instead of whoever happens to be wandering through Omaha, keeps this album expansive, consistent, and crunchy in all the right ways. It’s like sticking pop songs in the broiler. What’s more spectacular is that this album is nothing more than archetypes and clichés of small town drunks and whores. An abstraction of Tim’s first movie. But he abstracts them so well, that the cheesy parts don’t seem cheesy and the serious parts aren’t taken all too seriously. It keeps everything focused on lodging his wailing and guitar howling and drum drummering deep inside your log cabin mind.

Child Bite - Gold Thriller

You never expect such an obscure band to be so excellent. Sure, they have more influences than Zsa Zsa Gabore has husbands, but this entire album kicks more jerks than the serious. Instead of filling up 20 tracks of blah quality, they’ve provided 6 exceptional tuneskies, all perfect in composition, length, lyrics, and use of fuzz. And oh, the fuzz. Fuzzier than the eyesight of Zsa Zsa’s makeup artist. And last five husbands, for that matter. Play this heavily, you fools.

Jaguar Club

As far as decades go, the ‘80s were nothing short of waking up with your pants off in a Eurotrash 2 door coupe 30 miles east of where you were last conscious. How you got there, why you got there, and the strange, incredulous feeling you get looking back on those times all are the ’80s. New wave. Mall hair. Stirrup pants. Wait, let’s stick to New Wave. New Wave began as a way to brush off punk bands and sell them to society at large. Once bands started to call themselves New Wave, all bets were off. As everything does, it was cool, then cheesy, then on VH1, and now it’s ironically hip. In comes The Jaguar Club. They are New Wave. I don’t know why they bother, but them’s the breaks.

Tennis and the Mennonites - Quilt Noise

“Read me a story Uncle Oberst!”

“Man, I fucking hate kids.. which one do you want, little snotty Jerstin?”

“How to be a song writer!”

“Fuck. Ok. Once upon a time, pick up a damn guitar. Start singing. Wiggle your voice like fish having sex. The End.”

“Aww, that sucked, you’re a dink, Uncle Oberst!”

“Fuck, fine, let’s get out my damn finger puppets. I’m going to cry.”

“Yay!”

M.I.A. - Kala

Take a jalapeno mango flavored popsicle and jam it in your ears. Take it out and repeat, while hand clapping. Get a beat going, jam it in your ears, get a beat going, jam it in your ears, get a beat going. This is M.I.A., aka Maya, aka Mathangi Arulpragasam. If you don’t get it yet, you will. At some point you’ll know. Over your broccoli and cheese soup or over a political enemy you’re snuffing out, you’ll screech “Jimmmmmmmy!” in a high falsetto and you’ll understand. It’s Lady Sovereign with some actual problems to be pissed about. No, there is no going back. Good luck, we’re counting on you.

Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil

Every generation has their tragedies. What defines us is how we deal with these tragedies as a society. Once upon a time, the survivors of the Hindenburg were kept in terra cotta pots. Not too long ago, every family had their own image of their favorite cat floating on a door down the flooded Mississippi River, never to be seen again, matted and framed above the fire place. For our generation, we only have the mental images of the Black Lips guitarist pissing in his mouth and playing guitar with his own pecker. You didn’t have to be there; it’s an image that is collectively carried by us as a society. Oddly enough, the only way to erase these images is by spinning this disc. This perfect grungy punky invasion era brit pop southern anthem disc. It really is their best yet. It really is perfect. It really is punk as fuck.

Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter is none more classic than playing apple pie and eating baseball. Between our ears, amber waves of grain undulate through long past memories of warm summer nights, rolled down windows, first loves sitting passenger, and Bruce Springsteen falling out the dashboard. Folk has been born, died, relived, accepted, rejoiced, forgotten, returned. From Woodie fighting the fascists armed solely with a G and C chord, to last summer’s freak folk explosion, Josh Ritter returns quietly to a time when Bob Dylan was still doing covers. Even when Historical Conquests explores either a nuclear annihilation or Joan of Arc, he does so simply and effortlessly. For those who are already fans, this is his most wide swinging album to date – barn burners, motor-mouthing, and simple sweet ballads all are patriots here.

Shout Out Louds - Our Ill Wills

Go to any town in the Midwest, find a dinky high school out in the scraps, then look for the kids in black standing on the side of the road “off school property” grumbling and smoking cloves. Take the Shout Out Louds sophomore release, put it into a Cure dust jacket, throw it to the hungry crowd, and no one would be the wiser. Every lyric breathlessly uttered finds itself somewhere between Robert Smith or Morrissey while the jangling guitars meander around simple 4/4 percussion and, at times, a string quartet. Most importantly, it doesn’t sound hokey at all. Somehow, be it the sincerely uttered dark and brooding words or the simple sweet Swede-pop of it all, it simply works. Definitely for Cure/Smith fans.