Stick a Pitchfork in Ted Leo's Pseudo Rockery

By Dale Nixon

Remember in the 80's when you could look at an album cover and somehow know the record inside sucked solely from the packaging and artwork?

That feeling resurfaced upon opening the envelope with the new Ted Leo & the Pharmacists CD Living with the Living. The cover art vaguely resembles something that might have been sketched by a Haitian delirious and dehydrated after crossing the Caribbean on a discarded shipping pallet while escaping from the tonton macoute.

Unfortunately, the shuttering of previous record label Lookout Records could not kill off this pretentious band of chickenhawkish indie rock geeks. Of course, the American Apparel-sponsored sect at Pitchforkmedia.com sees fit to dissect this like a frog in seventh grade biology class (here) and pontificate over alleged brilliance and social relevance, while incorporating thesaurus words and inappropriate phrasing such as “intellectual populists, oeuvre, big-hearted emotional openness, jeremiad, fastidious, unabashed big-ness, molting”

Now, I'm surely not the one to remind Pitchfork minion Jess Leavell that those words and phrases have no place in a music review. We shall leave that to his (or her?) editor. But the Nixon Now sloganeering surely could have been stricken from the record:

“Call me a booster rather than a critic, but I love Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and seriously want this band be, like, fucking huge.”

“I like that he sees writing the most compassionate song possible about eating disorders as a political act, because it is.”

“no rock band currently touring puts on a better live show than the Pharmacists.”

There it is, in three sentences or less. The alleged critic has completely and irrevocably decimated his/her own credibility, while offering precisely nothing in terms of a supporting argument. Jess must have been stricken with mono during the “supporting your thesis” segment of AP English.

As for Ted's pseudo-rockery, frankly, I'd rather have flaming cocktail sandwich toothpicks hammered into my testicles with a miniature croquet mallet than suffer through the whole album.

Although I'm of German descent, that is not intended as a compliment.

The first pressing comes with a five-song bonus EP, if somehow you escaped Abu Ghraib and need to prolong your fix. I just wish that Touch & Go Records mainman Corey Rusk would see fit to anthologize his own band the Necros rather than devoting time and aluminum-coated discs to Ted's rock(less) crusade.

My only hope is that Ted Leo and the Pharmacists can headline the Al Gore Music Fest.

In Antarctica.

Wolf & Cub Channels Syd

by Dale Nixon

From the outset, it is clear that Wolf & Cub are coming from a different plane. Not simply the Aussie outback (the power trio in fact hails from the urban locale of Adelaide) but perhaps more accurately the astral outback.

From the 60's kitch-inspired wrap around digipack to the swirling murk of the band's 4AD debut release Vessels, it can all be a bit disorienting at first, with phase shifts and actual use of (gasp) “stereophonic sound”. Producer Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Super Furry Animals, Belle & Sebastian and Mountain Goats) knows his way around a mixing board, and endeavors to make a dinosaur footprint that pushes the spacial tolerances and rebound capacity of the speakers. And make no mistake, this is an album meant to be processed by the human ear at maximum room volume; headphones would only unduly contain the glacial spacial atmosphere.

The points of departure for Wolf & Cub are the pre-moonwalk earth circa when space was still a mystery and not full of hi-res digital cameras and space shuttle takeout wrappers. There is a lot of early Pink Floyd, Hawkwind as well as more obscure acts like Budgie and Blue Cheer in the groove. But the aural extravagance is not purely retro as the Spacemen 3, Jesus & Mary Chain, Spiritualized and pre-sellout Jane's Addiction also figure prominently in the baby batter. Vox man/guitarist/organist Joel Byrne has the early Perry Farrell lilt down to a science (without the former's coke-addled nasal inflections) combined with a liberal dose of the singer from the criminally and commercially under-appreciated UK act the Music. A tour with fellow rockers Dead Meadow could push the limits of modern heavy indie rock psych, along with the 9-volt battery lifespan of numerous effects pedals.

When the band stretches out to instrumentals, the quality remains high. Conundrum is a five minute tour de force phasing and delay effects that stands as the band's Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. It's fairly easy to imagine the song being stretched to 15 or 20 minutes in a live setting, provided strobe and high-booted go-go girls are added to the mix. It is Syd's Floyd colliding with Sunn O))) – drone without the dreary.

It is also probably the album that their canis lupus brethren Wolfmother should have made. Thick on atmosphere and thicker in layered heft, bereft of distractions.

If the original Dr.Who had beamed down a hologram of pre-acid damaged Syd Barrett into the recording studio, it could not possibly sound more authentic and enthralling.

Because wherever he floats in the aether these days, Syd would be proud of Wolf & Cub.

The Stooges – The Weirdness

by Dale Nixon

Talk about an antagonym.

Actually, that word itself should probably be defined first. An internet creation for a word that has two contradictory meanings, i.e. Awful: Extremely unpleasant, ugly vs. Awe-inspiring [typically, a feeling of admiration].

Fancy wordplay aside, the Stooges “comeback” album reeks of frustration. This time, 34 years after the seminal explosion of Raw Power, it is not the frustration borne of the hopelessness triumvirate of sex, drugs and rock n' roll. It's more boredom, middle age and income potential.

That in and of itself is the crux of the problem. First off, the “weirdness” implied and promised by the album title is wholly lacking from beginning to end. It is an Iggy-as-maestro effort right down to the too clear vocal mix rising decibels above what should have been a seething swampy morass of Ron Asheton's guitar noise and the chainsaw backbeat ably provided by one Scott “Rock Action” Asheton.

At this point, I have to admit I've never been a big fan of the murky production/”recorded by” style of one Mr. Steve Albini. How about some bass in the mix, Steve? But it's hard to lay the blame at Albini's feet, as I get the feeling that Albini himself stood in awe during the recording process, and as such did frightfully little reining of Mr. Pop's lyrical excesses which blossom from annoying to full-blown retarded by mid-album; “She took all my money and didn't say thank you.”

Okay, Iggy, that is just what we needed. Another middle-aged rocker sloganeering about the inequality of alimony.

Lyrical depth is another area in which Pop's implied weirdness falls short of the mark. If you are going to be truly bizarre in this day and age, you have to put something forward a bit deeper or more shocking than “my idea of fun is killing everyone”. There are already people that have been there, done that, and rode the chair to prove it. Leave it nebulous. Be “dirt-y” and revel in it. I mean, for crissakes, Gary Glitter flies to Cambodia to buy 11-year old girls. Being “deep fried” really doesn't cut it.

And nothing dates a record as made for 2007 like a gratuitous reference to Dr. Phil.

It makes you wish for a snatch of the multi-dimensional brilliance that shod “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. Pop's trademark double entendres are singled out here. They fall flat, literally and figuratively, with a vocal style that relies on tunefulness and singing (never an Iggy strong suit), and distinctly lacks in spit and snarl. If you thought Pop's vocal inflections on Little China Girl were bad, get a load of the title track, which sounds like Pop doing a karaoke version of David Johansen's Buster Poindexter character.

A ripoff of a lounge singer version of an Igg-postor.

Of course, one would presume that Pop is simply content to enjoy steak, expensive red wine and cruising his Cadillac into the AARP commercial golden years. If his payback is to take the grey-crowned Mike Watt and the Asheton brothers into the cruise ship realm for guaranteed retirement income, that's fine.

But somehow I can't trust Iggy's motivations. It's almost as if he made a mediocre album on purpose, to put the notion of The Stooges as a superior unit to Iggy Pop, solo performer, to bed once and for all.

And I'm still on the fence about whether it should have even been called a Stooges album, because it sure isn't a comeback.

Whatever The Weirdness is, weird it is not.