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Ben Kweller
Sha-Sha

(ATO Records)

Release Date: March 4, 2002

When the media spotlight throws its intense heat on you as a child, the pressure and expectation rarely lead to good things later on. Happily, there are exceptions and Ben Kweller certainly seems to be one of them. Kweller already has had a full career in music, and yet he’s only twenty.

With Sha-Sha, his first official full-length solo release, you get a lot of good things that indicate even better things for a not-too-distant future. Fun music from a talented guy would be the easiest way to sum it up. Now that the spotlight isn’t shining directly on him, Kweller seems to have taken a big breath of relief and decided to make music according to what he wants, rather than what others expect of him. What he serves up is a wide range of original music that plays as easily as a pleasant summer’s day.

Coming from a musical family (Kweller’s dad was pals with Nils Lofgren during his Bruce Springsteen days), Kweller started playing piano as soon as he could reach the keys, and began writing songs at the tender age of eight. Writing lyrics about girls and love that were modeled on Beatles songs his parents’ played endlessly, the wunderkind was off and running (without quite understanding what it was he was writing about). A year later, he got honorable mention from a Billboard Magazine national songwriting contest.

At twelve, the Greenville, TX boy got his first electric guitar and soon became an accomplished guitarist and a drummer as well. Early bands like Mirage, Green Eggs & Ham and Foxglove never made the big time, but by 1993, a trio called Radish did.

With Kweller helming the group, and with Bryan Blur on bass and John Kent playing drums, Radish played and gained a following around Dallas. They put out an EP and an album that gained the attention of Mercury Records in 1996 (who re-released the Restraining Bolt album in 1997). They were touted as the next Nirvana or Pearl Jam or Silverchair, and toured Europe and America, including media appearances on The Conan O’Brien Show and Late Night With David Letterman.

In a sense, this glorified garage band was a victim of its own hype, and the indifference of critics and the public ultimately made it an example of how the record label excesses don’t always work. The New Yorker ran a ten-page profile on the then fifteen-year old Kweller, focusing on the music industry’s ability to manufacture stardom.

The profile was kind to Kweller, but addressed the ongoing battle to sign the much-hyped Radish to a record label, including the story of a party at Jimmy Iovine’s place, where such luminaries as Tom Petty, Joe Strummer, Axl Rose and Dr. Dre were on hand to see what all the fuss was about. For Kweller, it was basically a tale of wide-eyed amazement.

He’s been on the receiving end of record label favors that included “line skipping” passes at Disneyland, lunch with Madonna and even a private audience with Brian Wilson. Wilson appeared to fall asleep as Kweller played him songs, but he woke up to request more songs, before ultimately returning to bed. “He heard everything," Kweller relates; "He was totally sweet."
While Radish’s brand of serious grunge got its due course of media hype (along with a half million dollar record deal) and managed to have a top-40 hit in the U.K., the band got caught in the squeeze of record label mergers and subsequent indifference. A second album recorded by the band never got released and, by 1999, the band agreed to part ways. Kweller headed east (first to Guilford CT and then onto Brooklyn NY) to pursue what would become a solo career, allowing him to lighten up and re-invent himself as someone who has fun with music.

Kweller began booking his own shows, eager just to play his music unhindered. He started writing new music, and piecing together demos and alternate versions of older songs that would become Freak Out…It’s Ben Kweller, a self-released CD that he sold at shows and through his web site.

Word got out. Juliana Hatfield gave a copy to Evan Dando, who phoned Kweller to tell him how much he liked it. That led to the two of them touring together. Kweller began to open for the likes of Jeff Tweedy, Guster, Creeper Lagoon, Eels and Dashboard Confessional. Given the freedom away from the hype, good things were happening naturally and that meant more to Kweller than any huge record deal.

Ironically, it led to Kweller signing on with Dave Matthews’ ATO Records for this new release. The 11-song Sha-Sha is a treat of sorts, a fine showcase of Kweller’s quirky songwriting talents, as well as his mastery of guitar and piano. Assisting is Radish drummer John Kent and bassist Josh Lattanzi, while the record was produced, engineered and mixed by Stephen Harris (The Bluetones, Francis Dunnery).

This record resists easy categorization, offering up a wide span of different styles from folk-rock to punk/powerpop to charming ballads. Yet Kweller’s energy and enthusiasm make it all work well. Released from major label pressure and incessant hype, we finally get a record that reflects the true whimsy of being Ben.

For instance, the CD leads off with “How It Should Be (sha sha)” a warm, affable piece of syncopated pop that calls to mind Ben Folds, complete with backing vocals contributed by Moldy Peaches’ Kimya Dawson. Kweller manages to poke fun at those far too serious, relating this as his proclamation while having his movie career ended by an asteroid hitting the earth: “Nothing isn’t nothing / Nothing’s something that’s important to me / That’s right / And everyone’s a little nothing / that’s okay, that’s how it should be.”

He moves onto more topical generational angst in the terrifically catchy, harder rocking “Wasted & Ready,” where he declares: “I’m wasted but I’m ready / Running as fast as I can.” Vincent Chancey adds a nice French horn as well.

He moves into an Elliott Smith mode with the soft ambling ballad of “Family Tree.” Trading off the lazy strumming of the Beatles’ “I’m Only Sleeping,” Kweller employs nice harmonies and piano backing in this ode to friendship and support in the face of all the craziness of this wacky world.

“Commerce TX” is another grunge-crunch guitar-driven running commentary on modern oblivious slacker lifestyle that holds its own with the Nirvana/Pearl Jam comparisons of yore. But Kweller is quick to show that the harder rock is merely one of the weapons in his arsenal. He follows this track with the beautiful piano, violin and pedal steel ballad “In Other Words.”

Here we get beautiful melody and wordplay to match it. Kweller explains what can’t stay just goes away, poignantly noting “And he’ll realize the only thing that’s real/ are the kids that kid themselves / and the demise of the beautiful.” At twenty, he’s been through plenty, and the words belie his age.

“Walk On Me” is a lover’s plea for fair treatment, while “Make It Up” is a darker tale of waiting for his lover to make up her mind, in what obviously already is a doomed relationship. “No Reason” is a loud protest against the incomprehensible portents of this modern world, trying to assure one’s self that “there is no reason to cry.”

“Lizzy” is a lovely acoustic folk ditty to Kweller’s darling and how they keep love alive, even when apart: “Lizzy I’ll write, I’ll sing/ telegraph, telegram, telephone/ telling you I’ll be home soon/ Dienu.” “Harriet’s Got A Song” shows Kweller shifting gears from hard to soft, fast to slow, relating a tale of conflicting ideologies getting along swell.

“Falling” is the CD’s closer, and perhaps its strongest track. With piano leading this midtempo ballad, Kweller employs Beach Boy-like “ba ba bas” within the lyrics that talk around the descent into love: “I don’t feel like I’m falling down / Just say hello to the ground.”

Ben Kweller tantalizes here, showing some of the flair of his songwriting skills and hinting at the greater promise yet to come. You can sense his happiness at where he is right now, doing his music the way he wants, rather than having to play with celebrities for the sake of being won over by a record label.

He’s fun and enthusiastic, and his lyrics and music reflect this, wordplay and heartfelt emotions set against the junk of a too-busy world. These are eleven well-crafted songs, free of the pressure that the media exerted on his past career. As a wizened sage at twenty, Ben Kweller only now is realizing “How It Should Be” with exuberance and joy. The talented prodigy serves up a nice mix of both impressive guitar and piano; his melodies are those of a seasoned pop craftsman, and the variety of styles shows that he’s still exploring to find his own inimitable voice. With youth still in his favor, I’d say the odds are good that his best music lies yet ahead.

If you want a refreshing variety of sounds from a most gifted singer-songwriter who is gaining in confidence and comes by his music through a world of musical influence, Ben Kweller’s your man. Perhaps the songs of Sha Sha won’t change the world, but they might just brighten yours on many an upcoming summer’s day.

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Bob Mould
Modulate

(Granary Music)

Release Date: March 12, 2002

www.bobmould.com

Change is hard; change is necessary, yet change ultimately is good. If change scares you, stay inside and keep playing your old Husker Du, Sugar and other solo Bob Mould CDs. Modulate is a musical transition. While perhaps forsaking commercial success for musical growth, Bob Mould gives us a “bear with me while I try something new” release some four years of relative silence.

After 20 years of loud guitar rock band recording and touring, Mould made a promise to abandon his signature sonically distorted guitar sounds for something different in 1998. While billing tour support of his last solo album Last Dog And Pony Show as “an end to the punk-rocky guitar guy standing at stage left, jumping around and yelling”, Mould did put in a few great decades of hardcore rock time.

His loud and tuneful rock career has been underway since age 19, when Mould really paved the way for others in alternative rock, first with Husker Du in the 1980s (where he was oft-cited as a sort of innovative American Pete Townshend) and then through the 1990s, releasing several CDs with his second band Sugar as well as exploring a viable ongoing solo career.

With his influential guitar sound and music forever inscribed as a footnote to rock history, Mould decided it was enough. “That’s good for when you’re in your twenties and you have that angst and you want to change the world and you’re pissed off at everybody,” Mould declared. “I don’t feel like I’m going to be a lost soul by not playing in the white-boy-punk-rock guitar game.”

So at age 38 (he’ll be 41 in October), he walked away from rock into a new realm. He simplified his life, lost weight and let go of the way he used to worry and convolute over everything. He also spent seven months in late 1999/early 2000 living out a childhood dream as Creative Consultant at the now defunct AOL/Time Warner-owned World Championship Wrestling.

Friends in the business let him know about this opportunity and this wrestling fan ran with it. He helped steer creative direction of the product, making talent decisions, managing the "behind the curtain" spots, as well as being part of deciding who fights who, for how long, and who wins or loses. As part of a team creating 4 to 7 hours weekly of episodic television watched by 3-4 million households, Mould says it was perhaps the hardest work he’d ever done.

“I wish I could have convinced the other creatives to see things more my way, and less through the eyes of a 12-year old boy who’s just learned about girls and masturbation,” Mould relates. “The wrestlers, by and large, are gifted athletes who need a little guidance and encouragement. Unfortunately, some of the writers felt that athleticism and natural charisma weren't as important as hare-brained stunts that lead to injury, or playing on xenophobia and homophobia to draw a crowd.”

Mould claims he learned a lot about life from the job, but it took him months to decompress from the experience. Perhaps it was during that time when he started listening to the likes of *Expander* by Sasha and was intrigued by the droning structure, the way it seemed to relate to his own pop sensibility. He liked Digweed, Swayzak, Paul Van Dyk, Morel and the kind of do-it-yourself spirit found among artists in electronic music. He went out and bought lots of new toys, outfitting a studio full of electronic gear.

Aside from writing things like the theme music for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Mould spent the intervening time relearning the process of composition - using only electronic tools - samplers, synthesizers, and computer-based recorders. Modulate serves up simple chordal structures, direct lyrical content and manages to mirror the density of Mould’s sonic layering in media other than guitar.

The Mould pop sensibility remains - only it’s a palette of vocorder, distortion, loops, samples, and other noise tricks from which he paints his sound pictures now. And, to be honest, Modulate does not totally abandon the past; occasional strains of that familiar Mould guitar sound are evident.

Already, it has incited a flurry of mixed reaction from fans, intriguing some and affronting others. Mould is hoping fans listen with an open mind: “I’m trying to find different ways to create songs, and while the work may not appear to be as sophisticated as the work of others who specialize in electronic-based music, I think the songs stand up as well as any I’ve written.”

This is a CD that requires patience. The distinctive Bob Mould voice and songwriting remain intact, that deceptively soft-toned delivery still packing power in the words and images it conveys, only now filtered through and surrounded by a conglomeration of electronic effects.

The songs that sport electronic effects seem curiously concentrated on the first half of this CD. “180 Rain” opens with its array of sirens, car alarms, vocoder and other noises to enhance the lyrical idea of “a catastrophe is happening tonight,” like rain that can’t be stopped, another unhappy relationship.

“Sunset Safety Glass” lets noisy synth sounds and drum machines replace familiar instruments in this tune that trades on repetition to drive home its musical point, while oddly juxtaposed lyrical images seek to disturb: “Faster ‘round the roller rink / Smell of meat and suicide / Guides me nearer to dementia.”

“Semper Fi” is old-school melodic Mould dressed in new electronic clothes, and is one of the true hybrid songs. Electronic effects are layered much the way the guitars used to be, sonically couching the pleasant melody and obscure lyrics that seem to reference some sort of secret military love affair. “Lost Zoloft” similarly seems very much a familiar Mould concoction, only with synthesized keyboard percussions driving its stream-of-consciousness comments as lyrics that explore emotions and self-doubts.

Fully halfway through the CD, dedicated fans will delight to the distinctive Mould guitar sound on “Slay/Sway,” a lyrical dream/nightmare that moves forward without a familiar chorus or refrain (just the catchy repetition of the music). “The Receipt” follows a similar structure with old guitar sounds intact, and apart from the final half minute of electronic coda, could fit easily on Mould’s last solo album.

“Quasar” lets Mould play with his new synthesizers, samplers, and digital toys in another interesting layered clatter that's tuneful and catchy, but suffers from its halfway treatment. It seems just different enough to displease old fans, yet not electronically original enough to win over new fans. Mould veers into New Order/Pet Shop Boys territory in “Trade,” and not unpleasantly. Using synthesized hooks around his seasoned pop vocals, he tells a tale of an unnamed trade that suggests pleasant karmic recourse.

“Soundonsound,” by contrast, shows how old and new can work together. Perhaps my favorite song here (pop traditionalist that I am), it weaves a chorus of unusual rhythms, and even sports a middle bridge, telling a tale of a couple that has grown apart and yet remains together.

“Come On Strong” ironically does just that, another strong example to show that Mould can successfully meld his classic sound with a new electronic one. Here is where the CD’s title is derived, as Mould explores the difficulties of maintaining the right balance in this fragile life: “Some times we make our choices / Some times we take our chances / Know when to walk away / Know when to stay / We try to find the balance / We try to keep it straight / We try to stay in tune / We modulate.”

“Author’s Lament” ends the album with electric piano and digital percussion, starting spare and building with eerie feedback and noise, in perhaps an apt questioning of identity. The point here is that Mould is trying on a new skin, and is to be admired for the effort. Instead of selling out, he’s stepping ahead and taking some chances.

This is just a start however. As mentioned above, not all of these noise-pop songs achieve the right degree of unity and balance between old and new. Some get lost in a limbo of electronic cacophony, with too many elements not coming together to match Mould’s pop-songwriting skill.

Three instrumental tracks are interesting experimental diversions between longer songs and give Mould a chance to display his studio mastery: “Homecoming Parade” is a two-minute “art piece” that uses bagpipe samples and other noise to conjure up the title’s image. “Without?” sounds like a piece of something from a longer soundtrack, while “Hornery” is a short distorted guitar feedback session that lasts just over a minute.

Perhaps this is a sneak preview of what’s to come next. Now that the ambitious Mould has his own independent record company (Granary Music), he plans two more releases in 2002. Soon we’ll get the all-electronica Long Playing Grooves (under the alias moniker Loudbomb) and in the Fall he promises a softer acoustic collection entitled Body of Song.

Mould is a happy paradox: a lover of change (even in Husker Du days, he flirted with psychedelia and folk music and his more recent “Megamanic” was a fun romp into pseudo-rap) and yet the same angry, creative sonic-layered genius he always was and ever will be.

Modulate doesn’t claim to be Mould’s best work; he admits it is a departure as he tries to re-invent himself with new tools. He’s an artist-in-progress, growing and learning as he goes. Still, this CD sounds better the more you play it. One hopes the public will understand it as a first step toward a new phase in an important ongoing career.

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