Mark Eitzel is much beloved by both British and American male music critics. This is probably because during his 12-year sojourn as singer with American Music Club, he created mature, introspective, tortured, too-many-beers-and-it’s-now-5-in-the-morning-and-I-still-haven’t-been-fucked music that a certain generation of older male music critics could empathize with. Emphasis on the "mature": there’s nothing "serious" hacks dislike
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The new album David Candy Play Power from Ian Svenonius may confuse a couple of people. Previously, the hirsute singer has been noted for the way he tempered the primal showmanship of a James Brown or a Little Richard to a Marxist screed and postpunk, pro-feminist sensibilities in his groups Nation of Ulysses and the
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The first thought that comes into my head when confronted with this collection of "demos, stuff that didn’t make it onto vinyl and various Fuzz and Nonsense" is "Why?" No one even knew who this gang of cheeky, lippy, energetic, fun-seeking Brummie girls were while they existed (loosely speaking, between 1985 and 1989). Who’s going
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All I know is this. The Duo isn’t sexy. By no stretch of the imagination could this random and sometimes alarmingly deliberate sequence of dissonance, jazz, sonic experimentation, vibes and the odd harsh blast of cornet be called sexy. The Rolling Stones, or even their grandchildren, the Chicago Underground Duo is not. Note follows note,
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In a week’s time, barring an unexpected earthquake in the south of England or perhaps yet another bloody railway network breakdown, we shall be seated on two of the swiveling seats in London’s Royal Albert Hall, enjoying an evening of refined, graceful light entertainment with Scots pop stars Belle & Sebastian. We expect to be
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This band freaks me out. Don’t get me wrong–I love gospel music. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Blind Boys of Alabama, all of Aretha’s clan. I’ve always understood it’s far better to attempt to hit the note then actually get it so perfect you throw in half-a-dozen minor arpeggios and a quick sliding chromatic scale while
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The boy stands awkward, posed to cry, beseech and seduce his way into our hearts. To one side, there’s a girl with a bob haircut holding a tambourine, singing the odd trembling, tentative, torched harmony. Behind her, the sound man and bartender and half-a-dozen arcing clouds of smoke, a hand-chalked notice on the blackboard stating
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I’ve always been vaguely suspicious of alt-country. It’s probably because alternative music had its roots in postpunk acts like Gang of Four and the Pop Group, where a whole new rhythmic language was finally invented by the white boys who up until that point had been firmly in thrall to r&b rhythms. So, on one
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The beat is all wrong. We’ve become used to hearing popular music set to a certain rhythm, a certain pattern of beats, whether they’re rooted in r&b traditions, or minimalist classical, or the dreadful, clinical white drumming of all rock bands from Coldplay downward. We take the beats for granted, that there’s only one
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Pop music is a series of cliches, walked through by would-be dreamers in a half-daze. There’s no need for most of it. Indeed, most music merely serves to add to the suffocating aura of mediocrity that suffuses our everyday existence, dogs each movement. Conner Oberst, the tormented prodigal whiz kid who fronts Bright Eyes, hugging
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