There is a New Alternative
New releases by The Strokes, Ween, Stereolab, and Pleaseeasaur.

By Mark Prindle
www.markprindle.com

The Strokes
Room On Fire
(RCA, 2003)

It can’t be easy to follow up a debut album as massively popular as Is This It?. Can you imagine the stress that Julian Casablancas must have felt while developing this follow-up, knowing that thousands of anti-hippists were rooting for his failure -- just so they could congratulate themselves on not falling for the propaganda the first time around? As much as I love the first album, even I couldn’t see a way for them to follow up such a simple expression of catchy rock and roll. I figured that the style was perfect -- if they altered it, it would no longer be perfect, but if they repeated it, it would be boring the second time. So what was the solution?

Proving himself much smarter than me personally, Julian figured out the ideal way to ensure that Room On Fire would neither disappoint fans nor inspire no-goodnicks to quip, “Is this still it?” What he’s done is brought back just enough of the Is This It? formula to make the music instantly recognizable as The Strokes (distorted hipster vocals, beautiful guitar tones, hypnotic repetition) while widening his musical universe to encompass interesting new songwriting approaches (a beat-heavy dance song, a pretty ballad), influences (The Cars, Booker T and the MGs) and guitar tones/ playing styles (including several appearances of a guitar that sounds exactly like a new wave synthesizer). And most importantly -- he’s written eleven more great little hooks!

I admit that I had a hard time adjusting to the slower tempos at first. After the speedy pop-o-thon of the first album, I suspect a lot of people might encounter the same problem. This is not a non-stop energy rush like Is This It?. It’s a collection of inspired and inspiring ‘60s-flavored guitar songs (of various tempos) with an inordinate amount of truly wonderful “celebration of life” melodies. So you may be thrown for a loopity at first, but give yourself three solid listens to get used to their slightly revised technique, and you’ll be whistling “Meet Me In The Bathroom” til the day is nigh.

Stereolab
Instant 0 In The Universe EP
(Elektra, 2003)

Interesting thing about death in the music world -- it naturally makes us look for references in the surviving artists’ next work. When Linda McCartney died, we listened tearfully to Paul rocking against his sorrow on Run Devil Run. When Bon Scott died, we understood the mournful album cover and the meaning of lyrics like “Forget the hearse ‘cuz I’ll never die” on Back In Black. When June Carter Cash died, we held our heads in sorrow while awaiting Johnny Cash’s.... oooooo.

On December 9th, 2002, Stereolab’s Mary Hansen was killed in a bicycling accident at age 36. The suddenness of her death shocked the band members and fans worldwide, even motivating one fan to say to the BBC, “Oh my God. Time to keep the good memories in mind. Her backings were great, her guitar playing tremendous, and she was so cool. Rest in peace, honey.”

Many less stupid human beings were saddened by the death as well. As such, this EP -- the first music recorded since her passing -- will likely pique the interest of all fans looking for a tribute. Personally, I can’t tell whether there is one or not. Certainly, the back of the album reads, “Mary, thinking about you,” which pretty much says it all in a way that a song or songs isn’t going to improve upon.

But still, something about the song “...Sudden Stars” seems to be a bit tribute-ish. I can’t make out the words, but part of it almost sounds like, “Thank you, Mary, for something something something.” It might be in French though, so take my words with a grain of alcohol. Also, the CD title itself -- I can’t make out by the chosen font whether it’s called Instant O in the Universe or Instant 0 In The Universe. If it’s a zero, that might be a reference to Mary’s passing as well. If it’s an “O” though, it’s about an orgasm, which has very little reference to the bicycle accident at all.

And that’s what the new Stereolab EP sounds like!
No hang on, I forgot to listen to it. Ah! Here we go. Well, it definitely seems less “bachelor paddy” and “EZ Listeningy” than the last few albums. More peppy and bouncy, more along the Emperor Tomato Ketchup lines. Some great uptempo moments (the intro to “Jaunty Monty And The Bubbles Of Silence” is bliss distilled into bounciness and saved on cassette tape for lovers to enjoy together) merge with several just really WEIRD chord sequences -- all presented with multiple fuzzed-out gorgeous synth and organ tones (from yesteryear), brilliantly bubbly bass playing and light lead guitar riffs that, if removed from the heavenly sugar tone surroundings, would actually tend towards blues-rock strangely enough.

So yes, this release is more melodiously electronics-focused and less EZ sleepy focused than the last few, with the beats faster and a bit more danceable. But one thing I really notice this time around is that almost all of the songs consist of two or more completely different parts spliced together with no apparent regard for whether they actually fit together at all. In fact, the disc feels more like ten short simple songs than five full-length, well-developed songs.

For just one of several examples, the bent weirdo uptempo two minutes that begin “Good Is Me” have absolutely NOTHING in common with the generic dull slower part that it suddenly segues (pronounced “segg-ways”) into for no reason at all. It just sounds like two completely different songs glued together as one because they couldn’t figure out how to develop each segment into a full song. And this is what the whole disc sounds like. Luckily, most of the parts are intelligent and pleasing to the eary canal!

So does “banal” really rhyme with “canal”? I’ve always rhymed it with “anal,” and now I feel awfully dumb. One shouldn’t make it all the way to age thirty thinking that “banal” rhymes with “anal.”

The short line review bottom: The new Stereolab is sorely lacking in counter-backup vocals by Mary Hansen. They really blew it by not having her sing backup on it.

Ween
Quebec
(Sanctuary, 2003)

For weeks, days and time before the release of this CD, Ween kept telling fans to expect “a really brown album!” I did so, and was thus somewhat astonished to find it one of the most “blue” albums I’ve heard in ages. Aside from the purposely jaunty “So Many People In The Neighborhood” and “Hey There Fancypants,” this is extremely sad and thoughtful music.

Everything falls apart, from relationships to civilizations. The guitar tones are gorgeous and the gentle, harrowing melodies will make you stand in a huge empty field, lift your arms to the heavens and scream,

“WWWWHHHHHHYYYYYYYY???!?!!?!??!?!?!!” And sure, you’d expect such painful beauty from Sigur Ros, but Ween, those jerks that did “Push Th’ Little Daisies”??

Instrumentally, some of this stuff is immediately recognizable as Ween -- “It’s Gonna Be A Long Night” is total Moist Boyz/”Stroker Ace” rokkk akkktion; “Transdermal Celebration” adds a Black Crowes guitar lick to Gene’s stereotypical “emotional” oversung delivery, and “Hey There Fancypants” is just a rewrite of “Mr. Richard Smoker.” The addition of dark acoustic and electric textures reminiscent of Traffic, CSNY, and Cat Stevens gives the overall piece an extremely haunting and serious feel, the likes of which Ween has never before created.

“Among His Tribe,” “Tried And True,” “The Argus,” “I Don’t Want It,” “If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All)” and especially the eerily reverbed “Captain” simply DO NOT sound like Ween! If anything, they sound like rare tracks by such ghostly kings as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and the Moody Blues, with song composition every bit as powerful as all four of those fine bands and those like them, including but not limited to Yes.

Plus, all of the mixes develop intriguingly as the songs progress -- which is to say that a song will start off quiet and sparse, but fill up with new guitar tones and electronic noises, something fierce as it goes. The most unsettling example is “Happy Colored Marbles,” which builds from a Pure Guava plinkity goof into a monstrous heavy din of violence and Queen-style guitar bombast through the course of its 3 minutes, 16 seconds on Planet Rock ’n’ Roll.

So, Ween have “done it again.” They have, for the jillionth time in their career, come out with a new album that gives us everything we expect and love from Ween, plus a new element that is amazing and wonderful. And maybe the straight man, Johnny Law, wouldn’t use the words “amazing” and “wonderful” to describe music that makes one feel uncomfortable and hopelessly sorrowful, but when his world is set aflame by the revolutionaries of the younger generation, maybe he’ll feel some of our pain for a change.

Pleaseeasaur
The Yellow Pages
(Imputor?, 2003)

Pleaseeasaur is a two-man band composed of costume maker Thomas Hurley III and keyboardist/ vocalist/ songwriter JP Hasson, who hails from Seattle, WA, thus implying that he considers himself more talented than Jimi Hendrix and is glad that Kurt Cobain killed himself (he’s never said these things, but they’re pretty much implied, I would have to think).

JP writes and performs ridiculous keyboard music that has all the warmth and emotion of morning show theme songs, then simply talks over them in a ridiculously smarmy and not quite in-any-key-at-all voice, turning coffee muzak into hilariously stupid ruminations on early ‘80s icons and outdated male fantasies of hot tubs and Trans Ams cooling you down on those hot Los Angeles nights.

On this, his third CD release, JP has outdone himself. The lyrics are hilarious and smart from beginning to end, and the music is so ludicrously smarmy and fake (similar to what you hear when a dentist’s operator puts you on hold), you’ll wonder how on Earth somebody from our generation (the YOUNGER generation) (not that young though) would be capable of composing it.

But thank Goodness he’s capable, because no other type of music would mesh nearly as well with such mind-scratching lyrics like “I’m telling my friends to tell their friends to call my new friends at No Prob Limo right away!” and “Good job! Have an Orange Slice! I’m proud of you -- because you are so good at sports!” and “Burned beyond recognition? Slipped on a banana peel? You need a lawyer who knows just how you feel!”

This is JP’s brand of humor -- focusing obsessively on subjects that no other musician on Earth would bother with (especially bad local TV advertisements), and throwing in strange, nearly meaningless lyrics that just come across as unbelievably witty in the context of a “song.” Like the jingle for a new pharmaceutical product called “Paradontex,” in which the adman excitedly exclaims, “The difference -- is in the DONTEX!” Or the “Pizza Brothers & Sons Incorporated” spot that brags, “We’ve got Sprite / And extra cheese / We’ve got a new logo of a pizza tree.” Or in “LA Nights 2... Even Hotter” -- perhaps the most memorable song on the record (out of a LOT of good songs) -- when JP anxiously recites the lines, “Here’s the song for a new movie -- it’s called ‘LA Nights 2’/ It’s ‘Even Hotter’! ‘Cuz it’s ‘Number 2’/ Again, the title is ‘LA Nights 2’/ It’s coming soon to a theater near you!”

I could sit here and quote funny lines for you all night, but I have a dermatology appointment. Besides, you need the background muzak to really appreciate what this oddball is doing. It’s a form of entertainment that I’m fairly certain nobody else is doing these days (if they ever did), and it’s JP’s finest pile of whatever-the-hell-genre-this-is yet! It even has a song on it called “Warning: These Cobras Are Totally Cool”!!!!!

----

Reader Comments

No Comments.

Citizine Home