Music Review: Bess Rogers - Out of the Ocean

Originally published at Blogcritics.org.

After launching a successful Kickstarter campaign with a dynamite video to raise the funds for her second full length project, song writing pop/folk/punk rocker Bess Rogers is out with the results.  Out of the Ocean is in a real sense a concept album.   Rogers explains that her inspiration came from Your Inner Fish, a book by paleontologist Neil Shubin, which takes a compelling look at human evolution.  Oliver Sacks describes the book as "an intelligent, exhilarating, and compelling scientific adventure story, one which will change forever how you understand what it means to be human."  Rogers notes that the "book is about our evolution from life as far back as pre-historic fish and microbes and how that has affected our  bodies and our lives now." The book, she says, obsessed her: "I started to look at everything we do in life as a product of evolution, and many of the songs on this record were inspired by that idea."

While it is certainly worthwhile to know about Rogers' inspiration, it does tend to channel response to the album.  This can be a good thing, but it can also create something of a problem.  In my own case, the more I listened to the songs, the more evolution inspired content I discovered.  The more I discovered, the more I looked for. I began to lose sight of the music, and over intellectualize, ending up with a first draft critique of her remark about "many" of the songs being inspired by the idea that went like this:

"Many" may be something of an understatement.  My own sense is that not only every one of the eleven songs on the album has been inspired by her obsession but that even their order on the record reflects an evolutionary theme.  In a sense what Rogers has done is to create a metaphoric analogy between human physical evolution and the evolution of emotional relationships.  As humanity evolved physically, individuals evolve emotionally in a kind of variation of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny.  Just a few examples: The disc opens with a little introduction of less than a minute called "One Step Free," which gets the speaker out of the depths of the ocean and leads into "Standing Tall" where "a little bit of love" keeps her dry, keeps her alive and fostering evolutionary growth. "Weak Link" deals with a kind of smothering enabling love that weakens its object and prevents it from becoming part of the evolutionary chain.

You get the idea.  This kind of academic gibberish, even if true, which is debatable at best, is little more than pompous posturing.  The song lyrics are available on Bess Roger's website.  Readers are welcome to check them out and decide what they all mean for themselves without third party mediation. Besides when you come right down to it, there are some really fine songs on this album, whether they are related to the evolutionary theme, or whether they're not, they still make for some mighty fine listening. 

"In the Waves" is a kind of other worldly mermaid song that seems to offer an escape from the darkness and pain of the earthly world.  "Math and Science" looks at the physical underpinnings of emotions like love, and happily asserts that whatever the reasons, love is a lot of fun: even if it's "all just math and science/I will offer my compliance."  "I'll Be Gone" rocks with the passion of love gone bad.  The album ends with two acoustic jewels—a softly beautiful "Second Chance" and "Brick by Brick" which begins softly and then builds to an anthemic crescendo.  A pop flavored "Anchor" with a theme that contrasts with the point of "Weak Link" is available for download on the singer's website.

Rogers sings and plays a variety of different instruments on different tracks from ukulele and electric guitar to Moog synthesizer to melodia.  Chris Kuffner, who produced the album and joined in the writing of "Math and Science," also plays a number of different instruments, as does keyboard player Saul Simon-MacWilliams.  Elliot Jacobson and Adam Christgau are on percussion on various tracks.  Other contributors include—Ingrid Michaelson and Allie Moss (vocals), Ian Axel (piano on "Anchor") and Dave Eggar (cello). 

 Whether you want to indulge in fish out of water philosophizing or you prefer listening to some fine songs with tuneful wit, Out of the Ocean is an album that deserves your attention. 

Music Review: Barefoot Truth - Carry Us On

Article first published as Music Review: Barefoot Truth - Carry Us On on Blogcritics.

If like me, Carry Us On, their latest release, is your introduction to Barefoot Truth, you are in for one hell of a ride. At times quietly contemplative, at times filled with passion, at times alternating between the two, this is some emotionally powerful music. Barefoot Truth, a Connecticut product, melds roots music with rock, adds a bit of jazz and funk, some blues and even something pretty close to rap in a recipe for some fine listening. It is no wonder they have blossomed brightly with some eight million plays on Pandora as their publicity proclaims. In a USA Today interview the band's guitarist, Jay Driscoll said: "Pandora has created an avenue for us in music. All of a sudden people we had never met before were buying our music online and asking us to play in their cities." If that success results in an album like Carry Us On, it couldn't have come too soon.

Music and lyrics of the 12 tracks on the album are the work of a variety of combinations of members of the band, although the one name that comes up most often, even in a case or two as sole creator, is drummer and vocalist Will Evans. Driscoll is featured on the Weissenborn slide guitar as well as electric and acoustic. Andy Wrba plays upright and electric bass and some electric guitar. John Waynelovich (Wayno) is on piano and organ, and Garrett Duffy plays harmonica. Both join in with vocals. Some of the tracks add in horns or violin and cello.

A quick check on YouTube shows that at least some of these songs have been around for awhile. There is for example a duo guitar version of the album's opener, "Roll if You Fall." You can compare it with the official slickly produced video for its latest manifestation on Carry Us On on the band's website. It is a song that speaks for itself. I don't know that it needs the glossy production, but I don't know that it hurts. On the other hand the rawer live performance of "Drink to You" from a 2009 Bates College gig doesn't have quite the polished drama of the studio production on the album which builds to a climax that is little short of an anthem.

This is a band that is at home with a variety of styles. Whether it's the funky "Reelin,'" the jazzy "Hesitation," or the reggae "Eagle Front," they deliver the goods. Whether they play stripped down, low key roots with a catchy melody like "Rope" or add a little dramatic passion augmented with some strings like "Changes in the Weather," they rock. "Reach" is a beautiful simple melody with a beautifully earnest lyric. "Misled" begins with a little bit of scat and swings with a message about the courage to go on in spite of growing old and feeling "the weight on his shoulders." "The Ocean" rocks with a vision of a paradise on the beach and ends with a harmonica solo that at its very end suggests an ironic message. "Solitude" has a rough bluesy vibe. Variety is the key.

I read somewhere that Barefoot Truth is the best band you never heard of or something to that effect. I have to say whoever it was said it, was right.

Concert Review:They Might Be Giants at the Byham Theater, Pittsburgh, PA, 9/14/11

Article first published as Concert Review:They Might Be Giants at the Byham Theater, Pittsburgh, PA, 9/14/11 on Blogcritics.

They Might Be Giants brought their unique brand of goofy smarts to the Byham Theater in Pittsburgh as the fifth stop in their cross country tour in support of their newly released album, Join Us and they tore the place up. Unlike some alternative rockers, this is a band who knows how to work an audience. You come for a good time, and the Giants make sure you have one. You've got a light show. You've got sock puppets. You've got Flansburgh and company handing out decals to fans. But most important you've got the beguiling mind bending music that has defined the band for lo these 30 years, and you've got it played with joy and flair.

Of course the set featured a good selection of songs from the new album, but they also made sure to include what seemed like every classic TMBG song any diehard fan could have wanted. They opened with their revisionist take on "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," "The Guitar." Scattered through the rest of the show were "Particle Man," "The Mesopotamians," "New York City," and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" among others. A show stopping acoustic guitar solo by Dan Miller led into their rollicking update of that 1920's novelty hit "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)." Earlier in the show there was an equally mind blowing drum solo—a shorter version of the kind of drum solo you used to get when the drummer took off and the rest of the band left the stage—by Marty Beller. Along with Danny Weinkauf on bass, multi-talented Linnell and the frenetic Flansburgh, this is a band that can rock when it wants to and then throw in a little avant garde dissonance as a change of pace. Playful doesn't begin to describe them.

Of the eighteen songs on the new album they made sure to play the two that had been promoted with videos. The "Spoiler Alert" video which featured singing hands was done here with the cutesy sock puppet avatars flashed on a screen from just off stage seasoned with a bit of comic patter. "Can't Keep Johnny Down," the first video from the album was the final song before the band came back for the obligatory encores. Other tunes from Join Us included "Judy is Your Viet Nam," the cryptic "Cloissoné," and the crowd pleasing "Celebration." What the band gave us was a nice, audience friendly blend of the new with the tried and true, a formula that a lot of other bands would do well to follow.

The John's stage personas remind me a little of the comic magicians Penn and Teller. Linnell, although he does manage to speak, indeed more and more as the show progresses seems calm and distant, almost casually disinterested at times. Flansburgh jumps around the stage, flashes upstage and down, and does most of the talking. Even when Linnell throws in a comment, more often than not it seems like an off-hand remark. If this were a comedy team, Flansburgh would be the comic, Linnell the straight man. However you describe it, their interaction is clearly one of the charms of the show.

While the Byham has never been one of my favorite venues, it is a long narrow theater that costs those in the back rows a great deal of intimacy, neither the band nor the audience seemed to be bothered by it. Still as Linnell reflected back on the days of the Electric Banana, somehow that, despite its grunginess, feels more like the right king of venue for the Giants.

Opening for the band and for most of the shows on the tour is singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton. No stranger to Pittsburgh he had been profiled in the Pittsburgh City Paper prior to a January gig at the Rex Theatre. His new album, Artificial Heart, was produced by Flansburgh, and listening to his music, it is easy to see why he would be attractive to the Giants. Unconventional doesn't begin to describe his songs. His set included "Nemeses" and the title song from the new album. Together Coulton and the Giants put on one great night of music.

Music Review: The Spin Doctors-Pocket Full of Kryptonite: 20th Anniversary Edition

Article first published as Music Review: The Spin Doctors-Pocket Full of Kryptonite [20th Anniversary Edition] on Blogcritics.

The Pocket Full of Kryptonite: 20^th Anniversary Edition, set for an August 30^th release to commemorate the band's classic debut album, is a two CD set featuring a re-mastered version of the platinum selling album on Disc 1 and a set of previously unreleased demo tapes and live performances on Disc 2. A CD set to get the mouth of any real fan of this funky 90's jam band watering, this anniversary edition, especially the previously unreleased tracks—over 75 minutes of rarely heard music, has got what it takes to satisfy even the casual listener.

Disc 2 opens with six songs from a 1989 "Can't Say No" demo. It includes earlier versions of "Jimmy Olsen's Blues," "Forty or Fifty" and "Hard to Exist," all of which were to turn up on the Kryptonite album. "Big Fat Funky Booty" and "At This Hour" showed up on later albums. Of the eight tracks from the band's last cassette, the 1990 "Piece of Glass" demo four are songs that made it onto Kryptonite: "What Time is It?," "How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me)," "Refrigerator Car," and probably their biggest hit, "Two Princes." "Hungry Hamed's" and "Rosetta Stone" appeared on the 1994 Turn it Upside Down. "House," which the liner notes calls "a signature live show rabble rouser," adds some improvised lyrics from singer/songwriter Chris Barron, something he used to do at live gigs. The two live tracks are a 1993 performance of "Turn It Upside Down" from the Kingswood Music Theater in Toronto and "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" from the Continental Divide in New York in 1990.

Fans who have never had the opportunity to hear these demo tapes are in for a treat. There is a quirky joy the band takes in what they are doing that comes through loud and clear as they revel in developing their signature funky rock style. Guitarist Eric Schenkman says: "Our sound just kind of revealed itself to us. Like some kind of crazy sandwich that's exponential, where strange things happen and two plus two equals five." This is clearly a band ready to make their move.

Although it may have taken the album a year or so to hit its stride, it did go gold in 1992, and eventually five times platinum. The re-mastered Kryptonite album holds up well after 20 years. Drummer Aaron Comess, fresh from his recent Beautiful Mistake CD, reflects in Cree McCree's liner notes: We recorded the album about a year before it came out. . . .By the time it came out I was over it. I felt like we're better now, that was a year ago, and you should hear us now. Now I hear the record 20 years later and I'm like, this is a great record!" And you know what? He's right.

Music Review: They Might Be Giants-Join Us (full album)

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Article first published as Music Review: They Might Be Giants-Join Us on Blogcritics.

First there was the advance release of a four track appetizer (See http://elderlythespian.blogspot.com/2011/05/music-review-they-might-be-giants-join.htm). Then there was the announcement of a contest for fans to create a video for one of the songs. And now, appetites having been duly whetted, the four year wait is over and the new album from alternative rockers, They Might Be Giants, is here. Join Us adds fourteen more songs to the four already released, and everything presaged by those four is realized in the complete album. This is the Giants at their best: catchy hooks, absurdist lyrics bordering on the surreal, stylistically eclectic.

These are smart suggestive songs that tease the imagination. They seem fraught with meaning, yet defy any kind of simple explanation. Like the best poetry they can’t be reduced to any sort of prosaic paraphrase. They are the only way to say what they say, or more accurately sing what they sing. To pick at them, to analyze is to destroy them: as the poet says, "We murder to dissect." Besides, it would take more guts than I have to even make the attempt. These are songs that make their impact emotionally. It is not necessary to understand every image; it is not necessary to work out logical connections. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying I can't do it, and I'm saying, in the end, it doesn't really matter anyway. If you take them on their own terms these are songs that will make you happy.

"Three Might Be Duende" is a perfect example. If you're like me the first thing you'll have to do is run to Wikipedia to find out what "duende" means. Then there are other allusions that may or may not need research: necropolis, dystopia, Orpheum act, Faustian pact, espadrille; never mind such mystically allusive phrases as "sleep's older brother" or the paradoxical "a smile that would frighten the blind." It is easy to get lost in these images and rhymes, but it is like the joy of getting lost in a maze that has been purposely been created to put you to the test. Besides the more you listen, the more you hear.

This is true of nearly every song on Join Us. There is the pulsating counterpoint of "Spoiler Alert" and its truck with a mind of its own set against the distractions of the driver which seems to be so much more than a caution against driving and texting. There is the funky homage to the old Frank Stockton story, The Lady and the Tiger and its commentary on the necessity of choice. There is the sci/fi meditation on youth and age in "2082," the metaphysical conceit of "Judy is Your Viet Nam," and the rocking take off on Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" in a kind of post modern rewrite which even includes a pun on Hieronymus Bosch. The trick is that for all their intellectual games with language and esoteric allusions (I also had to look up cephalophore) they don't come across as pretentious; their songs are filled with a kind of self effacing humor.

It is as though each song comes out of the mouth of a persona—so many voices not their own. If there are disappointed lovers, they are characters created to speak their particular disappointment, not generic types. These are characters who use a vocabulary peculiar to them and their situation. The voice in "You Don't Like Me" is nothing like the voice that speaks in "Never Knew Love." The voice in "Canajoharie" is mellow and perhaps sentimental. The voice in "Dogwalker" is harsh and mechanical. Moreover the music is unique to the voice: sound echoes sense to echo another poet.

When it comes to musical style, the band is eclectic if you like what they do, all over the place if you don't. One song will be a march; another has a hip hop vibe. There are sounds that will remind old timers of their past, and there are some modernist allusions to classical forms. There are some jazz riffs scattered liberally throughout, and of course a good bit of swinging rock. This is no generic rock band, neither musically, nor verbally. If each of its songs has a voice of its own, this is a band with a voice of its own.

Whether they are singing about decapitated saints, decorative enamel, or an upstate New York idyll, They Might Be Giants are unique in their invention. Their songs are a breed all their own. You are not likely to hear anything like them from any other band, and if you ever do Flansburgh and Linnell will more than likely move on and find themselves a new voice.

Music Review: They Might Be Giants-Join Us

Article first published as Music Review: They Might Be Giants - Join Us (Four Advance Tracks) on Blogcritics.

Giants? They may be, but if the four advance tracks from their new album, Join Us currently available from iTunes are any indication—giants? They sure as hell are. While the complete album is scheduled for release later this summer, this first taste is well calculated to whet the appetite of all those fans of the band who have been waiting patiently for a return to the quirky joy of the "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Particle Man" era after the Giants' recent forays into children's music and family programming (not that there's anything wrong with that, in the words of some other pop heroes). Here are four songs that capture the free spirited absurdist world critique that colored the band's journey from cult status to tops on the alternative charts.

You've got the clever esoteric lyrics which cry out for explication. Where else are you going to get a refrain that uses a kind of enamel work as a simile, Quonset hutting used as a gerund? You've got the infectious syncopating rhythms. You've got their characteristic harmonies and instrumental gamesmanship. You've got the joyful echoes of musical styles long gone. This is deceptively simple music that can bite. Everything that makes They Might Be Giants unique is on display.

"Can't Keep Johnny Down" is as catchy a melodic pop romp as you're likely to hear this summer. In an interview with Spinner, John Flansburgh says it’s a song about defiance, "a very nice bittersweet concoction of a very bitchy lyric with an incredibly sunny arrangement." Cloissone" is a Salvatore Dali painting in music with the kind of lyrics that play with your head. "Never Knew Love" is a sweet ballad with a driving beat, although the title suggests at least some ambiguity. Flansburgh says the full title should be "Never Knew Love Like This Before," which would certainly get rid of the ambiguity. "Old Pine Box," a song with something of a folk quality, he says is a song about burnout. The whole interview which includes Flansburgh's explanation for why the band decided to produce an adult album at this time, is available at the Spinner website.

Music Review: David Lowery, The Palace Guards

Article first published as Music Review: David Lowery - The Palace Guards on Blogcritics.

In one of those odd coincidences that seem to presage something momentous but are probably more common than they seem, I had been listening to a podcast of a 2008 concert by Victor Krummenacher and his band on Americana Rock Mix when David Lowery's new solo album, The Palace Guards, arrived in the mail. If you believe in signs, well, here was definitely a sign. Of course, the podcast had been sitting on my iPod for several weeks and I had ordered the Lowery CD awhile back and was awaiting it expectantly, still if it wasn't quite the conversion of the Titanic and the iceberg (with apologies to Thomas Hardy), it was nonetheless a sign worth noting. The only question was a sign of what.

I synched the CD to my iPod; I listened for a couple of dadys, and it wasn’t long before I knew of what. If the eclectic alternative rock of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker lit you up, Lowery's new album is going to make you a very happy camper all over again. The nine tracks on The Palace Guards, eight written by the singer, are as good as anything he's done in the past, and he's done some mighty good things in the past. He opens with "Raise 'em Up on Honey," a folksy gospel romp with a sweet melody that belies its subversive lyric. He ends with, "Submarine," a gentle rocker where once again the sweetness of the melody contrasts with an undercurrent of bitterness in a lyric that describes wasted lives focused on beauty contests and gin rummy.

Many of the songs between follow a similar pattern where the music and the lyric seem to undercut and subvert each other. "Baby, All Those Girls Meant Nothing to Me" plays like a rock anthem for cheaters. It is written in the voice of a serial cheater who has finally loaded one straw too many. The lyric in "Big Life" is in the voice of someone who has lost love and art in his pursuit of popular success. His answer to any regrets he may feel is that he at least got the "big life." The only problem is that the big life may also be the empty life. "I Sold the Arabs the Moon" is a political comment on the limits of power in the voice of a con man who at best offers a transient moment of dominance. He sold the Arabs the moon, but the power of the crescent didn't last. He sold the English the sea and that power didn't last. He sold the Yankees the sky; the implication is clear. "Marigold" is the cryptic symbol that awaits us all at the end of our journey, at the end of our walk through the jungle—heaven, beauty, love. "Deep Oblivion" has the quality of a bad trip, or a bad dream at the least.

Lowery says he called the album The Palace Guards after the song he liked best. He doesn't say it is the best; it is simply the one he likes best. On his website he talks about the song at length and a discussion he had with his son about the song and its meaning. What he suggests is that the Palace Guards are like super heroes who have gone over to the dark side: "They've gone from being the public's protectors to being overprotective, secretive and controlling. They've turned into Stalkers." His son says the beginning sounds like a children's song, and in a sense he is right. The palace guards represent a government that treats its citizens like children. They have our "best interests at heart;" they will do what's best for us even if it kills us. This is a truly nightmarish political vision. It is a dark song that captures the essence of a very dark album, very dark but very important.