As we bid farewell to winter for the final time this millennium, one can only hope something will come along and buck the alarming trend of post-bubblegum teeny bop pop that we’ve been saddled with over the waning years of the “ME FIRST!” decade of the ‘90s. There’s still time to salvage what’s left of rock and roll’s dignity before we place the final nail in it’s coffin. Nearly a score since The Rubinoos announced “Rock and Roll is dead and we don’t care,” the last scourge of youth is desperately hanging on to its last dying breath, despite the valiant, yet ultimately failed efforts of Joe Carducci and his ilk to rescue it from oblivion. Will the world finally succumb to the “pop narcotic” Carducci warned us of via his vitriolic diatribe, Rock and the Pop Narcotic or, will Y2M (“K” is NOT a Roman numeral) present us with enough evidence of life in the old patient to ward off the coroner for another year? Judging by the early returns, the jury is till out; but, a few early salvos offer hope.
 

Songs: Ohia
The Lioness
(Strictly Canadian)

Not a very promising beginning to the new year. For their fourth full-length, Loraine, Ohio’s Songs: Ohia (essentially the one man electrical band, Jason Molina) traveled to Glasgow, Scotland and teamed up with fellow card-carrying depressives, Arab Strap. Taking his cue from their alcohol induced melancholia (“The heart has whisky fuel to burn” he sings in the dirgy “Being in Love”), Jason continues to weave his backporch, backwoods tales of love’s labors lost around his familiar trademark nasal twang – sort of a cross between Neutral Milk’s Jeff Magnum and Red House Painter Mark KozElek.

The sparse arrangements (most tracks prominently feature just Jason and his guitar) recall Will Oldham’s Palace daze, although the opening track, “The Black Crow” outdoes Godspeed You Black Emperor at their own game of exploring the fast/slow, loud/fast dynamics of sound sculpture, easily outdistancing their weak 12” single from last year, which sounded like nothing other than an outtake from their marvelous ? (Infinity) debut.

Unfortunately, matters deteriorate into inconsequential, short ditties by album’s end and the closing trilogy of “B on T,” “Body” and “Just” leave this listener with the feeling that by adding this filler, Jason has expanded what could have been an exceptionally tight and poignant EP into another ultimately disappointing full length, illustrating once again that more does not necessarily mean better.
 
 

The Lucky Bishops –
The Lucky Bishops
(Woronzow/Rubric)
 

Woronzow’s latest signing, Dorset’s Lucky Bishops’ eponymous debut kicks off with a refreshing gust of 80s psychedelia, “Stratosphere.” Tom Hughes’ Hammond keeps things as light and airy as the band’s harmonies.
“Right Direction” recalls Simon & Garfunkle welded to Graham Nash-styled “la-la-las.” Methinks the lads were listening to their L.A. classic rock albums for inspiration as this is perfect for cruising the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down and the speakers rattling! Special kudos to Danny Pulman’s lilting flute.

“I’m Convinced,” with its backwards guitar filler beckons comparison to the Beatles at their psychedelic best. Everything comes to a grinding halt with a mean XTC-styled guitar onslaught. Al Strawbridge’s melodic, McCartney-esque basslines meander throughout “Casanova” until we find ourselves wandering aimlessly in a field of wild strawberries, an illegal smile planted across our faces.

Also included is the third version of the band’s hit single, “Ashtralia” (the demo appeared on the Ptolemaic Terrascope 2xCD benefit, Succour.) This time, the song  takes on a new life via a more powerful bed of backward guitars, cellos, violins, studio techno wizardry and a Spector-ish wall of noise that illustrates the benefits of “smoking all the time.”

“Bad Time” continues the wall of sound, but leaves the melodies behind and suffers accordingly. All that remains is noise and I’m reminded of the old Pete Shelley axiom, “noise annoys.”

Bottoming out with “Evil Thoughts,” the boys seem clueless with what to do with all these ideas and sounds in their heads. Unfortunately, all their evil thoughts ended up in the same song and it remains aimless and unfocused.

“Picture Box” is a shock amidst all this light and airy pop psych. Tom Hughes drags Rick Wakeman kicking and screaming out of the elephant’s graveyard of ol’ prog rockers and drops his familiar breaks smack dab into the middle of this testimonial to long capes and longer haircuts. It’s a ballsy move and it works in a “What the fuck? Why not?” sort of way. “Space: 1949” could be the next single if folks still paid any attention to those marketing gimmicks of the 60s anymore. Its melody is radio friendly ear candy (a compliment) and Strawbridge’s lead vox beckon comparison with Olivia Tremor Control’s current Beach Boys fixations. The song’s also got some fine weird studio collages that the Olivias should take note of for future endeavors.

“Open Garden”’s pretentious lyrics aside (it’s OK to SOUND like Yes, but please leave the garbled poetry in the nearest topographic ocean), the disk ends on a “high” note of sitars, mellotrons, FX and a memorable guitar riff that lingers long after the CD is returned to its jewelcase.
 
 
 

Flying Saucer Attack –
Mirror
(Drag City)

For his second full length excursion into FSAs “Phase 2,” Dave Pearce takes us for a spin through his recent record collection. Recorded between 1997 and 1999, almost everything has a sense of, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra “déjà vu all over again.” The title and album cover artwork alone are nicked straight from Neil Young’s collaboration with Pearl Jam. The opening cut, “Space (1999)” is yet another rendition of the track Dave covered for the Pearls Before Swine/Tom Rapp tribute album, For the Dead in Space. [NB: Tom’s version finally makes an appearance on his current Woronzow release, A Journal of the Plague Year – see below for more info.]

“Suncatcher” wouldn’t be out of place on that LP either: a quiet melancholic dream accompanied by Dave’s gentle finger picking and whispered vocals that wouldn’t wake your grandmother. Based on the evidence of this track, Dave has opened a whole new vista of possibilities for himself. I’d like to see him try an entire LP in this folky vein. Could “Phase 3” lurk around the corner?

Borrowing its melody from the traditional “Captain’s Apprentice,” “Islands” ventures back into old familiar FSA guitarritory. His droning, amplified glissando guitar wafts over a driving, repetitive bass riff, but once again his airy, almost breathless voice is almost lost in the swooshy production like a lost soul in outer space. The lyrics, therefore, are unintelligible, so the vocals serve as an additional instrument to be tweaked, bended and distorted with the rest of the mix a la Liz Fraser from vintage Cocteau Twins.  Returning to his folky (!?) roots, “Tides” gently ebbs and flows like a bright summer day. It’s so beautiful (and startling, based on what we’ve come to expect from FSA in the past) that the lyrics don’t really matter. Late night fireplace fare for lovers of the ethereal!

Hip hop jungle beats seem to be pretty popular these days, so next Dave rips a chapter from the Chemical Bros. book of magic tricks and gives it a go. If “Chemicals” was meant to be a tongue in cheeky satirical jab at this unfortunate new subgenre of studio wankery and electronic wizardry, I’ll give it a 6: it’s giving me a splitting headache, but you can sort of dance to it – if you’re David Byrne trying out for the role of the Elasticman superhero! However, if this is supposed to be a serious exploration of the next big thing in electronic dance music, I’ll take OMD any day. Unfortunately, Dave doesn’t know when to leave bad enough alone and “Wintersong” comes on like a Chinese fire drill, kitchen (out of) synch included. Over an annoying electronic jackhammer drumbeat, Dave goes all Kevin Shields on us. Now I’m as troubled by My Bloody Valentine withdrawal symptoms as the next guy, but this is no way to curb my (or anyone else’s) bloodlust. Nor is “River,” which attempts to marry MBV with Jesus and Mary Chain and fails at both. Divorce papers are in the mail. Gounds: aural cruelty.

Having tried and failed miserably at replicating the Chemical Bros. mess,  Dave unearths the “Dust” Bros. next with much better results. Chanting “She is all that I can be/She is all that I can see” like a stoner mantra over a wicked bass line, Dave turns in his finest guitar work in years. The melody imbeds itself into your cerebellum long enough to ignore the lockgroovefest that is “Rise.” More annoying motorik drum machines get the heart racing faster than a speeding bullet and the Wobblesque bass ruminations are amongst the heaviest this side of the PiL box, which is what you’ll be reaching for halfway through this migraine inducing fodderstompf. Could those be strings wandering around in there cascading to the flatliner ending? STRINGS? On a FSA album?! What is the world coming to?

An end, if “Star City” is any indication as it wraps things up in an industrial apocalypse where outer space white noise dissects vintage Hawkwind metal machine music in a Loop-y operating room. Paging Dr. Caligari; your patient is ready now.

Like a greatest hits package covering an amalgam of styles, false starts, radio friendly ear candy and avant garde experimental “What the fucks?,” Mirror reflects what Dave Pearce has encountered over the final years of the closing decade of the 20th century. His appearances at Terrastock have opened his ears to what the kids are up to these days, but old timers like Tom Rapp and Neil Young have also buried themselves in his musical psyche. Regurgitating folk, jungle, drone, white noise and electronica onto a K-tel style platter of “this week’s special” leaves the listener with a queasy stomach and a headful of noise that encapsulates what the 90s have wrought. Mirror may be too much of a sonic overload for the less discerning music fan, but the envelope pushers among you may just want to try discovering what it’s like Being Dave Pearce.
 
 
 

Tom Rapp -
A Journal of the Plague Year
(Woronzow/Rubric)

Mr. Rapp’s first studio recording in over a quarter of a century opens with an a cappella rendition of Yeats’ “Silver Apples.” It’s a bold move which announces “I’m back!” warts and all. That beautiful voice crackles a bit here and there, but adds to the cozy campfire feeling of the songs that follow. “The Swimmer” is dedicated to Kurt Cobain (and a second, full instrumentation version of “Silver Apples” is dedicated to Simeon Coxe from the band of the same name that, like Rapp, had it’s nascent career jumpstarted via appearances at the recent Terrastock festivals. Rapp and Simeon were two of the few performers who appeared at all three festivals.) Assisted by fellow Terrastock alum, Stone Breath and Green Crown multi-instrumentalist Olivardil Prydwyn on harp, Rapp’s eulogy to the troubled star questions society’s role in ignoring not only Cobain’s demons, but all like minded troubled individuals:

“we all pass by so silently
like swimmers in the dark
lost inside the pull of tides
that keep us all apart
people drowning all among us
if only we could see
and they’re lost like all the fishes
that can never find the sea.”

Here Rapp, as he did so often with Pearls Before Swine, displays a knack for creating what superficially appears to be a simple tale of a lost sole (sic) floundering in a sea of indifference, but actually is a scathing indictment of society’s ignorance of everyone but themselves.

“Blind” opens with the riff from Buffy Sainte Marie’s “Universal Soldier” (on harmonica, no less!) and puts another spin on the old “life passing before my eyes” cliché while “Space” features Rapp’s finest vocal performance on this welcome return. (A demo version of this old PBS track is also available with the current “folk issue” of Ben Goldberg’s wonderful Badaboom Gramophone #4 magazine. Also, note that Dave Pearce of FSA was actually the first to commit this song to vinyl on the Rapp/PBS tribute album, For the Dead in Space and an updated “1999” version appears on his Mirror release [see above.])

Most of the LP was produced by Damon Krukowski at the studio, Kali, that he runs with partner Naomi Yang (both are ex-members of Galaxie 500, current residents of Magic Hour and have three of their own releases available on Sub Pop.) Damon & Naomi also performed with Rapp at the Terrastock festivals, making this album a reunion of sorts (Dave thanks many Terrastock alum on the back cover) and Damon returns the favor by adding drums to “Mars,” a rather inconsequential rambling piece that seems unfinished. Damon and Prydwyn also contribute to “Hopelessly Romantic,” which also features Tom’s son David from Shy Camp. Tom performed an early solo version of this song on his tribute album, but the vocal here is crisper, the production stronger and the additional instrumentation (including Tom’s old PBS partner, Carl Edwards) rejuvenates the song into a wonderful campfire singalong. Kudos, also to Prydwyn’s wonderful mandolin work here. Damon, Naomi and Prydwyn also join Tom for “Wedding Song” and one is immediately reminded of their Terrastock collaboration and how seamlessly this quartet blends together. It’s nice to finally have a studio performance of them captured for posterity. Speaking of being hopelessly romantic, this song contains my favorite lyric in the whole set, “The only thing I love more than you is us.”

This brings us to the album’s centerpiece, “Shoebox Symphony.” Tom discovered the track in a shoebox on an old PBS tape marked “1968” and it is presented here for the first time. Recorded and co-produced in London by Nick Saloman and Ade Shaw from the Bevis Frond and at Kali Studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Damon & Naomi (and featuring all four), the trilogy opens with “Where is Love?” featuring a lengthy organ solo by Nick, who combines the riff from The Beatles’ “Nowhere Man” with a lilting merry-go-round styled funhouse melody. Tom enters with his best Dylan impersonation, circa “Highway 61” and we’re off and running with the first “shoulda been a hit single” of 2000. Part two, “State U” is another scathing diatribe against the phony “peace and love” myth of the ‘60s as Tom recounts the lifestyles of the ungrateful generation that seemingly had everything handed to them on a silver platter, yet still found the time to “write ‘FUCK’ on the bathroom walls.” The “symphony” ends with the nursery rhyme mantra “Just Let the Grass Grow” accompanied by Ade Shaw’s special FX of children laughing in what appears to be a pastoral picnic outing.

[Special note: the CD version of the album features a hidden track recorded at Terrastock I in Providence, Rhode Island in 1997, where Tom does a perfect rendition of Woody Allen’s stand up comedy routine as he recounts a hilarious “drug story” from the old days, peopled with the likes of Wavy Gravy, the New York City Drug Enforcement Agency and Electra, er, a major recording label on the east coast. Hopefully, a full version of this concert will see the light of day sometime soon.]
 

The Green Pajamas –
Seven Fathoms Down and Falling
(Woronzow/Rubric)

The new year is all abustle with releases from Terrastock alumni (not to mention Nick Saloman’s Woronzow imprint) and this may be the best of them all. Seattle’s Green Pajamas have been around for a decade and a half and this, their 15th full length (and third in less than three years) may be the one that finally elevates them above cult status.  Wasting no time, Jeff Kelly and company pick up where they left off on last year’s best album, All Clues Lead To Meagan’s Bed (Camera Obscura) with the wonderful one-two pop psych punch of “Just A Breath Away from the Night” and “She’s Still Bewitching Me.” The former’s opening “Taxman” guitar riff yields to Joe Ross’ melodic McCartney-esque basslines and we’re off on another of Kelly’s excursions into Revolver-era Beatlemania, while the latter is another example of the genius of Kelly’s uncanny knack to effortlessly produce some of the finest "shoulda been" hit singles of the last decade.  A melody that refuses to release its stranglehold on our heartstrings, Jeff once again relates his undying devotion to wife, Susanne with a universal Valentine that men everywhere can offer to their sweethearts. Once and for all, the GPJs emphatically answer the question: what would the Fab Four sound like if they had an opportunity to hit the reunion circuit?

Keyboard player Eric Lichter’s “Riverfull of Reasons” opens with the guitar riff straight out of the younger Dylan’s “6th Avenue Heartache” and features some nice slide guitar from Kelly. Joe Ross’ “My Visit with Magpie” reveals the GPJs secret weapon: like Teenage Fan Club before them, the band boasts three major songwriters, each with their own unique voice and sound, yet each with the ability to focus their energies and vision on the Pajamas’ ethic without seemingly auditioning for a solo career.

Newest Pajama Laura Weller breaks into the old boys’ club with her backing vocal contribution to “She Doesn’t Love You Anymore.” Having previously duetted with Jeff on Strung Behind the Sun’s “Secret Day,” Weller previously led Capping Day, one of the bands Ross migrated to during his brief GPJ hiatus. Here, she adds a wonderful softness to Kelly’s melodic confections. Joe told me recently, "Laura fits in well with the Pajamas 'sound' and I'm sure Jeff is glad to finally be working with a professional." and this tightening of previous songs’ tendencies to overstay their welcome augurs well for the band’s future.

Not content merely to replicate the Beatles circa ’66, Kelly also shows a fondness for their US counterparts, the Pre-Fab Four Monkees, pilchering the melody from the chorus of their version of Neil Diamond’s “I’m A Believer” for “Bronte Moon.” The old Nick Lowe game of “Spot the Riff” continues with “Swans and Butterflies.” Both “Here Comes the Sun” and The Records’ “Starry Eyes” are in there somewhere amidst this laid back country tinged tale of passage and change. Just as the ugly duckling transforms into the beautiful swan, so, too, does the butterfly symbolize evolution and the lyrics relate the desire of the storyteller to advance beyond a platonic relationship, all the while realizing the impossibility of this ever coming to pass.
 

Jeff hikes his voice up an octave for “Planet Love,” another toe tapper that recalls AM radio hits from the 60s. In fact, the whole album is almost presented as a game of “Name that Tune.” A longtime trademark of the GPJs is that many of their songs remind you of something you’ve heard before, yet they are all unique. Kelly and Co. wear their record collections on their sleeves and invite you to join the party. After all, the best hosts always seem to have the most adventurous record collections to enthrall you with at friendly get togethers.

“Still Never Away” reminds me of lullabies my mom sang me to sleep with and also demonstrates Kelly’s fascination with Leonard Cohen’s method of assembling lilting madrigal-like melodies into a basic three minute pop song. The title track is a bit of a departure from its surroundings and resurrects the band’s old pension for endless jamming, a staple of their early live sets. It doesn’t totally work for me because it doesn’t seem focused on a final destination. Perhaps the point of the title, but I’m not so sure it wouldn’t have been more effective at half its 9 minute length.

So, title track aside, Seven Fathoms Down and Falling adds another masterpiece to the increasingly impressive discography of The Green Pajamas, perhaps the finest pop band in the world today.

[ED. - My utmost apologies to Jeff for publishing this almost 3 month's after recieving them.  Things got a bit weird at the home office and sadly it meant a big hiatus on updates.  Again, sorry Jeff.]