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Monday, July 7, 2008
LP news: Reckless tops Alejandro in first week sales
There were no appearances on late night network TV or the “Today” show, but Reckless Kelly’s “Bulletproof” sold more copies, 6,500 to 6,100 than the media-blitzed Alejandro Escovedo album “Real Animal,” in the first week after their shared June 24 release dates.
The Braun brothers and company landed at the No. 120 spot on the Billboard 200, while A.E. came in at 122.
In other local LP news, the amazing Redd Volkaert will release his solo LP “Reddhead” September 16 on his own Telehog Records label.
Also, coming out in September is “Naked Willie,” in which harmonica wiz Mickey Raphael takes all the strings and other “countrypolitan” touches off Willie Nelson recordings on RCA from 1966- 1970. Despite the “Naked Willie” title, Raphael says, “It’s not as stripped down as ‘Red-Headed Stranger.’ But it’s more in tune with what Willie had in mind when he wrote those songs.”
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Beck’s ‘Guilt’ found mostly in apparent apathy
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beck
‘Modern Guilt’
(Interscope)
About 10 years ago, Beck seemed to be the voice of the past, present and future all at once, the voice of a generation that couldn’t be bothered to have one.
Today? Not so much.
Back then, Beck was our most winning loser, the sleepy-eyed Los Angeles man-child who could make the most ironic musical gestures sound frank (or at least confuse the two to the point where we didn’t care). Whose muse, fearing no genre or form, seemed to go anywhere. Who made it seem like music that could go anywhere was the only music that mattered.
These days, Beck sounds sluggish where he once sounded vibrant, subdued where he once sounded energized. He enlisted producer du jour Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley and a bunch more) to helm “Modern Guilt,” but Danger seems like more of an enabler, letting Beck mosey around even when the beat picks up. The album clocks in at a mere 33 minutes (and consider a point added for that), but it drags anyway. “I’m tired of people who just want to be pleased,” he sings on “Volcano,” but it comes off sounding more like “I’m tired of people,” which is not a good sign for a guy who once sounded energized by everything around him.
He even gets a little snippy with us. “Walls” chastises his fellow Americans: “You treat distraction like it’s a religion,” he sings. From whom do you think we learned that trick, buddy?
Much of “Modern Guilt” goes for a watery psychedelia but ends up soggy. “Gamma Ray” evokes loosey-goosey garage pop but ends up loggy. “Chemtrails” looks at the L.A. sky’s pollution-tipped beauty but just seems smoggy. There’s a haze here he just can’t shake.
See, around 2000, he and his girlfriend, designer Leigh Limon, split up; nothing has been quite the same since. His 2002 album, “Sea Change,” is one of the decade’s most emotionally exhausting break-up records, an almost-comatose lament that’s perfect by which to Google old flames. He got religion, got married within his childhood faith (he and his wife, actress Marissa Ribisi, are second-generation Scientologists) and had a couple of kids. He even made a few more records, “Guero” in ‘05 and “The Information” in ‘06. They were OK. Good, actually. Well, “Guero” was, wasn’t it? It seems forever ago, but it wasn’t even four years ago.
Maybe it’s because the old stuff still sounds more alive, not tired of people but engaged by them.
In short, he became an adult. And “Modern Guilt” aims for an adult depth of feeling, but being an adult doesn’t mean giving up on the world. If anything, it should make you redouble your efforts to make it what you want it to be.
Which makes you wonder: Does the guilt come from no longer sounding modern?
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Reviews
Review, sort of: Exit Fest at Waterloo Park
You know your festival is in trouble if it’s supposed to begin at 10 a.m. and street parking is still available at 3 p.m. And then again at 7 p.m., two hours before the headliners are supposed to go on.
And yet, that’s what happened Saturday at Exit Fest, the all-day, mostly-Austin-band shindig at Waterloo Park. Waterloo Park can probably hold about 10,000 people. The Exit Fest Web site predicted something about 15,000 attending.
I heard there was a paid attendance of about 200, but I don’t think I saw more than 60 or 70 people there at any one time. I have no idea how many of those people were part of bands slated to play.
I saw a few good performances. DertyBird seemed worth further investigation. Patrice Pike and Suzanne Choffel were pros. Rattletree Marimba get cooler every time I see them. There were some good performances over at the Shut Up & Sing! stage, which featured singer-songwriters with small bands.
But you also know your festival is in trouble if there is no straw hat vendor. Or beer.
Some bands were claiming even they didn’t get water or beer. Or paid. (More on this as the story develops.)
As a final coda to the full-tilt disaster that was this show, headliners Nelo and the Black and White Years did not perform, reportedly because of a problem with lights.
The whole thing was over a little after 8 p.m.
Calls to organizer Will Matthews have not yet been returned.
Click here to view photos from the festival.
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Review: King Khan
King Khan doesn’t have much regard for the fourth wall. He was in and out of the crowd Sunday at Mohawk more times than Eddie Murphy was in and out of the hot tub on “Saturday Night Live.” For his finale, he was led by one of his saxophone players through the crowd and upstairs to the balcony, where, arms raised triumphantly in the air, he brought his band’s frenzy on the stage below to an end. It was total rock ‘n’ roll down to Khan’s outfit: tight wrestler shorts, a cape, and a medieval helmet that covered his entire face.
Rewind to the beginning of the show. Khan and his escort, a female with gold pom-poms who would shimmy next to him for the entire set like a B-movie go-go dancer, had just joined the eight other players in King Khan & the Shrines onstage. At this point, Khan was wearing a white suit and black shirt in the style of John Travolta circa “Saturday Night Fever.” Immediately, the three-piece horn section, drums and percussion, and twin guitars lit up, as Khan broke into “Land of the Freak,” one of the “greatest hits” on his European group’s Vice Records compilation album, “The Supreme Genius of King Khan & the Shrines.”
“It’s gonna get nasty tonight,” Khan concluded. And indeed it did, at least nasty enough not to be recounted verbatim here. Let’s just say in between fervent R&B and soul songs like “I Wanna Be a Girl” and “Welfare Bread,” Khan got frank about transvestitism and offered $5 to anyone who would puke down from the aforementioned balcony (there were no takers). Shtick like that, plus the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins vocal manipulations and staff-wielding, was essential to the act. And Khan was fine with it. On the song preceding his interactive finale, he and his bandmates harmonized, “No, I don’t regret a thing.”
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Waterloo Top 10 for the week ending July 5
Los Lonely Boys, “Forgiven” (Sony)
Alejandro Escovedo, “Real Animal” (Back Porch)
Coldplay, “Viva La Vida” (EMI)
Sigur Ros, “Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust” (XL)
Grupo Fantasma, “Sonidos Gold” (High Wire Music)
Fleet Foxes, “Fleet Foxes” (Sub Pop)
Reckless Kelly, “Bulletproof” (Yep Roc)
My Morning Jacket. “Evil Urges” (ATO)
Eliza Gilkyson, “Beautiful World” (Red House)
James McMurtry, “Just Us Kids” (Lightning Rod)
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Musicmania Top 10 for the week ending July 6
Lil Wayne ‘Tha Carter III’ (Cash Money)
Trae ‘Streets Of The South Pt. 2’ (Oarfin)
Plies ‘Definition Of Real’ (SlipNSlide)
G-Unit ‘T.O.S.’ (G-Unit)
Usher ‘Here I Stand’ (LaFace)
Bun-B ‘II Trill’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Jim Jones & The Byrdgang ‘M.O.B. (MOB)
Three 6 Mafia ‘Last 2 Walk’ (Columbia)
C-Murder ‘Screamin’ 4 Vengeance’ (TRU)
Marvin Sapp ‘Thirsty’ (Verity)
