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CD REVIEW :
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Dap-Dippin’ With...
In a recent issue of The Nation, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder was quoted as saying, “One of the best ways to deal with some problems every once in a while is to dance all over them.” Vedder would probably find a like mind in Sharon Jones, a 46-year-old firecracker of a soul singer whose latest album, Dap-Dippin’ With Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings, was one of the most convincing reasons to hit the dance floor in 2002.
Dap-Kings bassist and songwriter Bosco Mann was obviously born and bred on classic James Brown LPs, as every track on Dap-Dippin’ aspires for tight, Live At The Apollo-sized grooves. Each song is an unflinching homage to the loose, sweaty funk of the JB’s, driven by nimble horns, crackling guitar, pulsating bass and the taut snap of the snare drum. There’s even a Godfather of Soul-styled live introduction of “Miss Sharon Jones” that kicks off the album.
Given all of these factors, the music is still delightfully fresh and energetic–probably because there are few funk/R&B bands out there who sound straight outta 1968. Jones belts out each note with a soulful, gravelly passion, taking all of Brown’s legendary heat-of-the-moment screams and injecting them with potent female instincts.
The songs rarely tread from the break-chorus-break formula of all of the JB’s greatest hits (with the exception of the Motown-flavored ballad “Make It Good To Me”). “Pick It Up, Lay It In The Cut” and a cover of Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” are a few of Dap-Dippin’s standout grooves–bereft of intricate solos or drastic changes in tempo or time signature, the tracks are simple, straight-ahead and smart enough to never overstep their bounds.
This is not the type of record that will change the face of music; it’s not groundbreaking in any sense of the word, and it won’t inspire anyone to sit down and write introspective poetry. That’s not its purpose. In a nation where most people rely on Jerry Bruckheimer for their escapism, Sharon Jones is reminding the folks living in the real world that sometimes, there is no better way to deal with the stresses of the day than rolling up your sleeves and cutting loose to the sounds of the
funky drummer.
CD REVIEW :
Billy Bang
Vietnam: The Aftermath
My vote for the most vomit-inducing trend of 2002 would be the rash of ignorant songwriters that blatantly cashed in on the events of September 11, 2001. While there were a few heartfelt artistic reactions (Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising,” overrated as it is, and Steve Earle’s song “John Walker’s Blues”), they didn’t jam the airwaves half as much as the empty, myopic swill of Alan Jackson, Paul McCartney and Toby Keith. Practically nobody commented on the inherent hypocrisy of U.S. retaliation–killing in the name of freedom and religion. Not a soul gave us any inkling of what war actually feels like, with the exception of jazz violinist Billy Bang, who related the terrific horror of it all without uttering a single word.
Vietnam: The Aftermath is a jazz concept record, comprised of songs birthed from Bang’s emotional recollections of his service in the war in Vietnam. Combining elements of fusion, funk and free-form jazz with hypnotic Asian scales and harmonies, the album provides a soundtrack to what must be some of the artist’s most turbulent memories.
The record begins with the faint murmurs of the opening track “Yo! Ho Chi Minh Is In The House,” the quiet before the firestorm of Bang’s chaotic bowing; the ten-minute composition is a rollercoaster of brash dynamic shifts in mood and volume. Vietnam delves into every pore of Bang’s wartime experiences, from the intense violence (“Tet Offensive”) to the mystical nature of the opposition (“Mystery Of The Mekons”), and the inevitable physical and emotional scars of battle (the mournful strains of “Moments For The KIAMIA,” which is an acronym for “killed in action, missing in action”).
The cover of the record features a photo of a young Billy Bang in the jungle, shirtless, an automatic rifle resting on his shoulders, a cigar butt in his mouth, a film of repression over his eyes. In the liner notes, Bang comments on the purging nature of the album by saying, “The possibility of getting rid of the dark side that forever haunted me outweighed the pessimistic thoughts I had carried with me all these years.” The intimation is that this record isn’t simply a period piece, but a slice of instrumental commentary on the “aftermath” of war in general on the bodies and minds of the human beings involved.
Thus, Vietnam: The Aftermath really couldn’t have come at a better time. Whereas Bob Dylan’s “Masters Of War” or Tom Waits’ “Soldier’s Things” are brilliant due to the suggestive nature of the lyrics, Bang’s record is just as relevant and enthralling on a different level, pushing forward the idea that no poet or folksinger can relate the devastating effect of war with a simple couplet.
When listening to moments like Bang’s furious, mind-bending solo on “Saigon Phunk,” it becomes obvious that the damage lies deeper than language, and that Vietnam: The Aftermath isn’t just an interesting concept: it’s an intimate cleansing of an artist’s haunted mind, and a convincing argument that any war is a means towards nothing but dementia, death and terror.
CD REVIEW :
Bright Eyes
Lifted or the Story is in The Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
The uninhibited, ambitious musical collages of 22-year-old singer/songwriter Conor Oberst have garnered him some ridiculous acclaim over the past few years. Saddled with that “next Dylan” label that has proved to be the death of so many musicians before him, Oberst didn’t hold anything back on his third Bright Eyes album, Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, released on the independent Saddle
Creek label.
Oberst’s lack of an editor isn’t just evident in the record’s verbose title; Lifted is absolutely spilling over with words, and they’re presented in drastically different ways, from tinny whispers to screeching scream therapy. Trying to corral all of these sprawling diatribes into digestible songs was obviously the biggest conundrum for Oberst, but he attacks the problem with genuine fervor and priceless honesty, forming what could be whiny melodrama into sweet, authentic lamentation.
Songs like “Waste of Paint” and “Don’t Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come” get dangerously close to sounding like the ostentatious ramblings of a morose teenager, but they’re delivered with such trembling, heartfelt passion that they provide some of Lifted’s most stunning emotional passages.
The album is rooted in the art of stripped-down, injured folk songs like “Paint” and the opening track “The Big Picture,” and it’s these quiet, somber reflections that allow Oberst to take some brilliant artistic leaps with harmony and arrangements, resulting in some of the most personal and beautiful compositions of this past year. “False Advertising” is a string-laden waltz that takes a page from John Lennon’s book of vocal harmony. The dark sexual musings of “Lover I Don’t Have To Love” are anchored by a haunting Fender Rhodes hook. “You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will” is an addictive country sing-a-long.
If there are faults with Lifted, they all have to do with the fact that Conor Oberst writes songs with the express purpose of laying his heart out to dry, to be scrutinized by writers across the globe who honestly couldn’t care less if he’s happy or sad. Sure, there are a few moments that make one think he should be whining to his high school guidance counselor instead of writing songs, but it’s all part and parcel of Oberst’s art–it goes straight from the heart onto the page. After all, in this age of plasticized mass media assaults and water cooler discussions about Super Bowl commericals, the unchecked emotion and inherent innocence of a Bright Eyes album is a rare beast. If nothing else, it should be treasured as a document of truth in a world that pukes up a new fradulent pop star once a week.
Is Oberst the next Bob Dylan? No, and he’s probably not trying to be. It’s plain that his own internal conflicts are what drives him to create, resulting in some of the most tearfully truthful songwriting you’re bound to hear these days.
CD REVIEW :
Peter Gabriel
Up
Looking back on the musical highs and lows of 2002, it’s safe to say that no album had a larger impact on my ear canals than the otherworldly squeals of Up, the latest effort from experimental rock shaman Peter Gabriel. While a lion’s share of this “year in review” section focuses on albums that may have slipped through the cracks in another year where popular music just plain stunk, the energy and force of Up and its accompanying tour would be a crime to ignore.
Critics and music buffs are always frothing at the mouth to discover the next rock savior, to be the first to find the next Dylan, the heir apparent to Coltrane, the best thing since Radiohead. This voracious search for a new sensation allowed Up to smack us all upside the head at first listen, courtesy of the bone-jarring dynamics of the opening track, “Darkness.” With each distorted, screaming refrain, Mr. Gabriel reminds us that he’s still kicking, and that middle age hasn’t made him any smoother around the edges. The rest of the album is just as spellbinding, from the voluptuous harmonies of “Blue Sky” to the spiritual optimism of “More Than This” and the naked, confessional piano of “The Drop.”
Even though I liked to tell strangers that I was a Gabriel aficionado (using words like “eclectic” and “ebullient” to describe him), the truth was that I was painfully unfamiliar with his work, and in no way knowledgeable about his back catalog. It’s true that in the years that Peter ruled the charts and won over critics’ hearts, I was listening to Tesla and wearing a different Metallica shirt each day of the week, growing a limp mullet and stealing cans of Miller High Life from the fridge. So, if I was going to live up to all of the lies, I had some catching up to do. Given my ignorance, I had fairly lukewarm expectations for the artist’s first album in a decade, and after my harsh conversion, I was still in a full-fledged state of sonic shock last December, as I traveled up to Toronto to see the Up tour, once again in the dark and prepared for a rude awakening.
The lights dimmed as Gabriel climbed up the steps of the circular stage to perform a solo piano/vocal version of “Here Comes The Flood,” from his 1977 debut album. Dressed like your everyday industrial-ninja-wizard, the man was clad in some sort of heavy black jumpsuit, full of obtuse pockets and unnecessary zippers. The soulful emoting of “Flood” faded away, and the lights rose to reveal Gabriel’s sensational band, which abruptly ripped into an especially scary rendition of “Darkness.” The show unfolded in a way unlike any I’ve seen: after Gabriel and his back-up singer walked upside-down under the rigging of a retractable stage that was lifted and dropped countless times throughout the performance, a gigantic white egg was dramatically lowered from an opening in the ceiling. A few songs later, the covering was stripped from the massive zygote by an invisible force, revealing a translucent plastic orb, from which all colors of light bounced off. Then came a truly thrilling high point: for the song “Growing Up,” it was lowered to the floor. Gabriel then proceeded to crawl inside a tiny opening in the clear, starry ball, stuck his feet and hands into some stirrups within, and became some sort of mystical hamster, running around the periphery of the stage and singing the song in a huge, glittery sphere.
With inspired renditions of “Sledgehammer,” “Shock The Monkey” and “In Your Eyes,” Gabriel managed to pretty much do it all: for the fanatics, plenty of strange metaphors and astounding visuals, and for the casual listener, a healthy dose of hits, performed with surprising vigor.
Upon leaving the arena and shuffling through the icy, ten-degree Canadian evening, a cliché mostly reserved for embittered old men kept running through my head: “they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.” Of all of the insanely overpriced rock tours I’ve seen in recent years, I can’t think of a single one that was especially awe-inspiring in its presentation. (This includes all of the fresh young bucks on the scene, too, with their ripped jeans and their unkept hair.) The 52-year-old Gabriel is one of a precious few rock giants with enough dramatic sense to actually put on a show, in every sense of the word. Up exhibits this innate sense of artistic expression, one that certainly wasn’t created with heavy airplay in mind (nine out of the ten songs clock in at over six minutes long). Above all else, it made this lying, crotchety old buzzard a convert to the Gabriel sect in the first song, and that’s sayin’ a lot, because most artists that charge $80 for a concert ticket tend to give me a rash.
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