Tommy Keene - In the Late Bright Light

In the Late Bright (2009) ***1/2

One good thing about Tommy Keene's style of music is that you know almost instantly, once the needle hits the groove/laser hits the disc/bytes upload to the speakers, is whether it's good or not.  And I recognized upon first listen that this was Keene's finest achievement in literally over 20 years - yes, it's now around a quarter century as I write this in 2011, since 1986's signature Songs From the Film.  At this late date, Keene's non-likely to convert the uncoverted, but for fans, this is a more than welcome return to form after his decade-long drought.  It would be a mistake to expect any innovations or surprises from a man now past 50 and deep within the third decade of his musical career, and truth be told, Keene doesn't do anything here that he hasn't done better in the past; it's just that, like I said, 'better' means all the way back to the mid-'80s, and Keene hasn't sounded this fresh and invigorated in years.  He's rocking harder than ever, but he's finally found a way production-wise to not do so unpleasantly - the rock crunches and punches smoothly and punchily, not metallically and gratingly (see "Please Don't Come Around").  As trending with late-period Keene, he's emphasizing his guitar chops nearly as much as his pop-hooky songwriting, and while the instrumental "Elevated," demonstrates that he can shred and tear noisily for a Jeff Beck acolyte at mid-century, it's admittedly the song stuck in the middle of the album that I always hit the skip button for:  there's really no need for it to exist except as a showcase.  The album opens with the 2:15 rush of the snappy and feelingly fragmentary title track, which shows that Keene has obviously been listening to pal Robert Pollard's GBV records, and while the second track, "A Secret Life of Stories," painfully emphasizes one of Keene's achilles heels - his clumsy rhyming schemes (there's no excuse for using the word "Hortense" in a pop song, ever - c'mon, "mints"?  "evidence"?  "wince"?  Anything would be better) - it's one of the album's highlights despite its lyrical shortcomings.  I'll conclude by noting that "The Right Time to Fly," is perfectly perfect perfection of jangly-surging power-pop, and after that there's no longer much point in track by track poring over every one of these 11 tracks:  if you know Keene, you know what to expect.  The minor variations of sound and quality of his post-'80s albums all come down to exactly how well he performs his patented'n'predictable formula each time out.  Well, good news - he's back at the top of his game.  Honestly, this is a 3.75 and thereby might inch to a low four star rating, but he's not offering anything we haven't heard before here.  All Tommy Keene albums are equal, but some are more equal than others.

It's That Time of Year Again

Back to the grad school grind!  So don't hold your breath awaiting the daily updates you've gotten used to over the summer.

And I'm still only halfway through the Fall catalogue.....

Artists Whose Stories Beg for a Biopic (Pt. 1)

1.  Fleetwood Mac - I'm surprised that a major Hollywood biopic hasn't been made about one of the world's biggest-ever selling acts, whose story behind Rumours is tailor-made for the soaps - the two couples breaking up at the same time, with the romantic tensiions fueling their best-ever set of songs that catapulted them to superstardom with the-then biggest-selling LP of all time.  And the drummer slept with both Stevie and Christine.  Lucky freakishly tall dude.  I suppose what's holding them back is that they're all still alive.  But hey - '70s rock superstars!  One word:  c-c-c-cocaine!  Scarface mountains of it.

2.  Lynyrd Skynyrd - These guys were gen-u-wine Huck Finn archetypes from Deliverance country, with Ronnie Van Zandt not so much a bandleader as a boxing referee constantly being called to service backstage to sort out fistfights between the members.  The story of how rednecks in the 1970s South came to embrace long-haired hippie rock'n'roll.  And the horrific plane crash punctuates a dramatic career arch.  The aftermath of the survivors would be an interesting story, too, but perhaps too dark and depressing (I'm looking at you, Artimus "Pedo" Pyle).

3.  Robert Johnson - Hellhound on my trail, sold my soul to the devil to play the blues, died from drinking poison whiskey from messing round with another man's woman.  Yes, they sort of made a movie about this called Crossroads, but come on - Ralph Macchio guitar dueling with Steve Vai?  They can do better than that.

4.  The Stranglers - Dark and sleazy does it every time.  This one's got it all:  punk, karate, hard drugs, wifebeating, prison sentences, flatmates getting raped, dangling journalists from the Eiffel Tower, taking on the Clash and Sex Pistols singlehandedly in a bar brawl, strippers onstage at a major rock festival (and the bass player joining in the naked fun), acid-damaged UFO conspiracy theories, the European Union, ice cream vans.  Poetic license would have to be taken by having Hugh immediately quit the band after being beaten up backstage by JJ Burnel, instead of hanging around for a few years to provide a shitty album as his finale.  And to be an honest portrait it's definitely got to be at least NC-17.  

5.  Badfinger - Depressing?  Um, yes, which is why this movie shall never be made.  Hollywood demands a happy ending and there's no way the two main frontmen committing suicide (several years apart) is going to give filmgoers that coda.  But a compelling story of how talented musicians get fucked over by the biz - that it is.  Plus there's the Beatles connection.

6.  Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young - Speaking of drugs, how could a story involving David Crosby, Stephen "Steel Nose" Stills, Neil "Airbrushed Cokebooger" Young, and um, that other dude, not be interesting?  And personality clashes galore with those four massive egos in the room!  The story even has a perfect opening scene, with Neil and Stephen running into each other on a traffic-jammed LA freeway as one of them travels cross-country to find the other and form a band.  (I forget which)  Five decades in which we witness the hippie generation growing older, and four men drop or maintain friendships.

7.  The Byrds - Surprisingly, the biggest-selling American rock band that has not had a major film made about them (the Beach Boys and the Doors and the Temptations all have theirs; CCR's story simply isn't all that interesting).  Watch as Roger McGuinn struggles to maintain a band named The Byrds as every single original member quits in succession!  Feel Gene Clark's fear of flying!  Catch trust-fund hippie Gram Parsons invent country-rock!  Weep as the original lineup reconvenes in the mid-'70s only to sabotage their comeback by saving all of their best songs for their solo albums!

8.  The Velvet Undergound - Maybe this shouldn't count.  Nico has her own film about that vapid, uninteresting, and highly dislikable racist Aryan bitch (an objective description), and there are several films that deal tangentially with the Velvets scene; but there's not a film directly about the band itself.  The backdrop of Andy Warhol's Factory and his circus of freaks alone makes such a film a must-make.

9.  Jefferson Airplane - I view this as a rom-com in which our heroine, Grace Slick, proceeds to fuck every guy in the band in her quest for true love.

10.  Pink Floyd - Other than the fact that the former members of Pink Floyd are all as bitter and litigious as hell (and rich enough to back it up), I can't see why infamous history of constant feuding can't make for great entertainment.  With the sad, slow decline of a musical genius descending into drug-fueled insanity.  Shine on, you crazy, bitter old diamonds.  You can't be sued for defaming a dead person, so maybe then this flick shall be made.

P.S.  The Band don't count because of The Last Waltz.

This has more or less turned out to be the boomer edition of this list - tune in next week (or the next couple days, whenever) for the post-punk candidates.  And just to get things straight, I mean major Hollywood biopic:  all of these bands have videotape releases of grainy interviews and concert footage, but who cares except for fanboys?  Pink Floyd almost don't count because of The Wall, but then I decided that rock operas shouldn't count, either.  Appearing in Woodstock: The Movie doesn't count, either.  No, I want Anne Hathaway or some other foxily vampish brunette to play the role of Grace Slick - that's the sort of thing I'm talking about. 

Tommy Keene - Crashing the Ether

Crashing the Ether (2006) ***

In which the most strikingly consistent man in showbiz comes perilously close to making a bad record.  The problem isn't so much the songwriting - when he's on, he's on, as "Quit That Scene," ranks among his finest ever, and the Based on Happy Times-ish "Driving Down the Road in My Mind," sits well next to any random melancholy Keene ballad of wistful listlessness.  The sprightly "Warren in the '60s," and the lovely "Wishing," (which unfortunately emphasizes his annoying habit of lazily tossing off obvious rhymes) are up to his usual standards as well.  But the album's misfirings are apparent from the first track, "Black and White New York," which lives up to the crashing part of the album's title, in more senses than one:  it's a thuddy metallic drag that sorely lacks Keene's usual melodic touch, substituting loud rock dynamics for pop tunecraft.  Things right themselves swiftly with "Warren in the '60s," and the first half of the album is mostly excellent, containing all the highlights I've previously mentioned.  But the second half is much, much weaker, with the final three or four songs a complete mess - a string of unpleasantly noisy rockers that makes one wonder if Keene had misplaced his talent by fancying his strengths were that of a guitar hero rather than tunesmith.  "Texas Tower 4," drags on its hard rock bombast for over six excruciating minutes, closing the album on a harshly bum note.  Maybe all those Mission of Burma records rubbed off on Tommy the wrong way, or he's trying to keep current with grunge fashion ten years too late, and while experimentation and fucking with the formula are important directions for any artist to pursue, as a hard rocker Keene's always made a much more compelling Alex Chilton than a Ted Nugent.

Youtubes?  No puedo encontrar los videos.  Tommy Keene videos are extremely hard to find, period, much less any for songs from one of his least popular albums.

Keene Brothers - Blues and Boogie Shoes

Blues and Boogie Shoes (2006) ***

Essentially what you get is a Tommy Keene record sung by Robert Pollard.  I don't know whether they were there together in the studio or whether Keene mailed in the music and Pollard recorded the vocals over the tapes (it may very well have been the former, but too often sounds like more of the latter).  Keene's guitar playing is keen as keenful and his melodic arrangements are as intact as ever, and Pollard is Bob, haphazardly tossing off his trademark ready-made vocal melodies to infectious effect.  The problems are twofold:  the post-Isolation Drills uniformity of sound (all steely guitars cruise controlled at midtempo except for a few acoustic balladic breathers), and as I implied in my second sentence, the fact that Keene and Pollard don't quite mesh.  Keene's music sounds as meticulously crafted as usual, but Bob's vocal melodies sound as slapdash and written in five seconds as usual - which can work if Bob's going for spontaneous and lo-fi, but Keene's work is hi-fi and carefully non-spontaneous (look at how long the man takes between albums.  Now, compare and contrast with Pollard's recording release schedule.)  Long point made short, I can't hear these songs and not wonder how much better they'd be if they'd had Tommy singing them.  And for all his obvious rhymes and romantic cliches, at least that's preferable to lyrics that make literally no sense at all, as is Pollard's stock in trade.  So, no emotional heft, that's one point off.  It's not as if this 40 minute, 12 track longplayer doesn't have some fine tunes up its sleeve, and in GBV (but definitely not Keene) tradition the highlights are scattered all over the place in non-chronological order.  Thus, it blasts off on a classic 50-second GBV rocker note, "Evil vs. Evil," which is catchy and strong in large part because of its breathless brevity - a sheer jolt of caffeine.  "Death of a Party," happens to be one of the stronger tunes Pollard has put his name to since GBV broke up, and buried near the tail end of the CD is "This Time Do You Feel It?" which contains a brilliant vocal hook (so I see that Pollard's good for something).  Bob's not needed at all on "The Camouflaged Friend," which is a guitar instrumental.  "Island of Lost Lucys," is a pretty ballad, and tracks like "A Blue Shadow," rock anthemically, but you'd expect all of those things from a GBV album (Tommy Keene, too - "The Naked Wall," being the most Keene-ish of these tracks).  As most of Pollard's post-'90s albums have been, the music is non-lo-fi, unadventurous jangly hardish-rock -  but we can hardly blame Bob for that in this instance, now can we?

Gene Clark - Firebyrd

Firebyrd (1984) ***

Sadly, the '80s got to Gene the same as they did to every other '60s dinosaur, but since Clark was on a low, low budget (and does it sound like it) the results aren't nearly as bad as they could have been.  On first listen, you might be forgiven for thinking you've picked up the wrong CD by mistake, as the low-rent sound and performances make it sound like one of those generic re-recordings of Classic Songs By Classic Artists that were floating around during the times - y'know, the Temptations as performed by the California Raisins, with a tinny glossy sheen shorn of the passion and a tinny glossy drum sound.  At first I wasn't quite sure if it was Clark at all, as even his trademark shakey baritone sounded distressingly generic on the harmonies, but relax - it is him.  This is a funny little album, and I do mean little:  at only nine tunes, four of which are quite unnecessary covers, it fits the definition of skimpy.  But '80s Gene Clark fans had to make do with what little (very little) he had to offer that decade, and considering the scarcity of post-'70s Gene Clark material, this is grudgingly essential for diehards.  Bad news first:  the remakes of Byrds classics are OK enough ("Mr. Tambourine Man," "Feel a Whole Lot Better,") but will never, ever, never displace the sterling originals and are beyond superfluous, the spitting definition of totally non-essential.  "If I Could Read Your Mind," likewise is a fair reading, but I've already got Gordon Lightfoot's (a god amongst moosejockeys) greatest hits; "Vanessa," isn't that bad, but I have no idea what the original sounds like.  Of the five remaining Clark originals, "Rodeo Rider," is too hickily country for my tastes, and "Blue Raven," is a less successful sequel to "Silver Raven," in which Clark rejoinds his darkly lit No Other classic with a tune swearing to his love that these days he's in a sunnier mood.  That leaves three Clark winners:  "Something About You Baby," "Rain Song," and "Made For Love," which land him back on his feet as a fine pop-rock/country songwriter.  Like I said - mighty skimpy.  But this album is a never less than pleasant listen, and if it's short & lightweight, who doesn't mind hearing "Feel a Whole Lot Better," for the 50th time, even in this alternate '80s version?

Killing Joke - Ha

"Ha" (1982) **1/2

This is a brief mini-LP so I'll keep this brief:  the original incarnation offered six songs - one each from their first three albums + three non-LP songs.  "Pssyche," is beyond essential, so if you haven't downloaded the original single version....wait, wait - this isn't 1982 anymore, so I guess you don't really need this.  Vinyl/cassette era Joke fans had to take what they could grub up, so if they couldn't get their claws on the original "7 of "Pssyche," then this live version would have to make do.  And it does make do!  Almost as awesome as the studio version.  For such a technological band, KJ aren't noticably different in a live as opposed to studio setting, because their songs are more about raw, rhythmic drive and crushing guitar power than anything else.  The lyrics to "Pssyche," are well worth quoting, hysterical in both senses:

Look at the controller

A Nazi with a social degree

A middle-class hero
A rapist with your eyes on me
Increase your masturbation, three cheers for the nuns you fuck
You'd wipe out spastics if you had the chance,but Jesus wouldn't like it
No!

WTF is Jaz going on about?!  That was originally the B-side of "Wardance," which you get here shorn of its somewhat silly R2D2 vocal effect.  I suppose I was incorrect about Revelations being weak mostly due to the production, as "The Pandys Are Coming," still sucks in its much raw powerer live version, and "Unspeakable," might not be the ideal selection from wTf! but who can tell any of those "tunes" apart, anyways.  Of the remaining two live tracks, "Sun Goes Down," was an unexceptional but not-bad B-side, and "Take Take Take," was an outtake for good reason - it's a slow-slow grind devoid of much interest other than the fact that it's considerably slower and grindier than most other Joketunes.  Oh, but that's not all:  reissues append three bonus studio tracks.  The original studio B-side of "Sun Goes Down," still isn't that memorable, but you do get "Birds of a Feather," which sounds like XTC, of all things.  Well, not exactly, more of Killing Joke accidentally imitating XTC and getting it all horribly, horribly wrong, but in a good way.  "Flock," is just some dubby version of the same, but not without the merit of a good listen.  Once.  Or maybe twice.  

P.S.  The most disappointing aspect of this release is that Killing Joke, sadly, do not live up to their name.  There is no - absolutely nada - stage banter.  Jaz Coleman can obviously be a very funny guy, as the lyrical snippet of "Pssyche," testifies, so where's Having Fun With The Killing Jokesters Onstage?