Kurt Hernon:
September, 2003

Andrew W.K., the Music Industry and the Pandering Print Media: The Wolf is an Awful Record but Nice Guys Finish First

My friends Lucas, Geoffrey, Andy and I were in the midst of a third night of vigorous debate as to what exactly the name of our forthcoming Raspberries tribute band should be when I'd finally gotten fed up with the process and announced in a rather dramatic Popov fueled frenzy that I, in fact, was quitting the band. Jaws dropped. Andy was quick with a contrite, "Jesus man. Okay, okay, we'll call ourselves the fucking Nazzberries." I chuckled to myself. "Nazz-fucking-berries," I disdainfully laughed. Nazzberries, you see, had been my choice from day one. My original idea had been to cover both the Raspberries and the Nazz - thus, the clever moniker Nazzberries. But somewhere along the way the cynical prick within brought me around to thinking that the Nazzberries ought to be called the Nazzberries, but that we should actually be a Posies cover band (and I still wonder what, if anything, the difference would have been).

Geoffrey, the levelheaded one (and slowest drinker amongst the bunch - I suppose the two may go hand in hand), had been pushing for The Wally Bryson Experience. I argued that if we wanted to go that direction it ought to be The Wally Bryson Experiment, but Geoffrey hated the idea saying that it "implied a kind of free form amateurism"(apparently, from the use of such heady language, Geoffrey drank even slower than we'd thought). To which I responded, "Well what else is there? Hell, Andy and I don't even play instruments!"

Lucas, reserved and apparently humored by the lengthy debate we'd been having, was steadfast on calling the group Carmen, an appellation that Andy seemed to favor also. Me, I was fed up with it all. It was probably my third or fourth go around with the novel idea of being in a rockroll band - any sort of rockroll band - and I'd grown to despise the idea.

"C'mon man," Andy pleaded. "Stick it out. This is bigger than just the four of us." I looked at the three of them, leaned down to grab my glass of cheap vodka and melting ice, and raised it in a mock toast. "Count me out," I said. "I've got a 10:30 interview with Andrew W.K. I have to get to anyways," I muttered, hoping they wouldn't hear.

"Who?" asked Lucas. I slipped my sandals on and said nothing as I reached for the doorknob.

"Did you say Andrew W.K.?" Lucas started to get up. "Wait one second pal. You're quitting Carmen because you have to do an interview with a second rate aerobics instructor who masquerades as a rock star?"
"Nazzberries," I said.

"What?" Lucas was thrown off stride for a moment.
"Nazzberries…that's the name."

"Fuck you, it's Carmen."

Here we go again. "I've got to go."

"Yeah, you do that. You go. Go interview Andrew W.K. You just go home and keep playing their fucking game. Grab a string man. Help prop up the puppet. Go ahead…get out of here."

I couldn't look any of them in the face as I walked out the door.

"You oughta be ashamed," cried Lucas as I walked to my car. I was.

My seething and self-loathing began during the drive home. In my car listening to Tiny Voices, Joe Henry's intriguing follow up to 2001's heroic Scar, I began to feel worse about not only the prospect of interviewing Andrew W.K. and then finding myself writing a bullshit gloss piece (because that is what the rag I was writing it for wants - make no bones about that!) about a record (W.K.'s The Wolf) that only last night I'd laughed off as a dreadful slab of mind-bogglingly bad shit, but also that my motivation behind doing so was as vile as it was foolish: ego and a paltry sum of cash. That's all I'd get out of once again being a filthy whore (albeit a minor one that not many folks are likely to read - which, of course, only makes it that much worse) for the record industry.

It'd be fun to say that my self-hatred manifested itself in my pulling the car to the side of the road to retch, but that never happened. Hell, I'd already compromised my integrity in print far too many times to not feel numbed by the process. I'd done too many worthless reviews and celeb-mongering pieces to not fully expect myself to simply play the game and do more of the same. I know exactly what these cheap, unreadable rags want and I have become pretty damn efficient at giving it to them. Not only has my soul been sold, I've refinanced the goddamn thing a few dozen times over.
But with Joe Henry in my ears, the fucking Nazzberries in the back of my brain, and Andrew W.K. looming large in my very near future I think I'd finally had enough. I had finally become so sickened with by my giving in I was finally giving planning on giving up. Who needed this shit anyhow? Who cared? I couldn't think of a single soul. Except for Joe Henry.

I loved Henry's Scar. I didn't love Joe Henry at the time; I simply took him for more of the same singer/songwriter/acoustic troubadour trash that revivified as an ideal in the late 90's. But then, on the recommendation of a friend and the promise of Ornette Coleman playing on a new rock record (I suppose that's technically correct, but Coleman has quite often "rocked" and a few of his middle era records - Dancing in My Head comes to mind first - are nothing short of rockroll), I went out, dropped money on Scar, and found myself a new hero. Joe Henry won me over.

I'm not sure about sales numbers and that sort of shit, but I'd hazard a wild-assed guess that Henry hasn't won over a ton of folks yet. He may never. And I am pretty damn sure he doesn't care. In fact I am sure he doesn't care. How? Simple - just listen to Tiny Voices. Only an absolute fool would reach back into smoky lounge and jazz music and hope to strike it rich in rockroll today. And to do so on two straight recordings, well you're either as damned a fool as they come or a wildly talented and focused sonuvabitch who could give two fucks less what rockroll wants in exchange for its bullshit fame. Sure, Henry will tell you, sure I'd like lots of people to hear my music…that's why I make it. But, what he won't tell you is that he ain't gonna compromise its integrity just for a few bucks cash and another chance to place his name under shrink-wrap.

There is no compromise on Tiny Voices, just a warm and wonderful earthy jazz vibe that sounds so much more alive (and human! Imagine that, music that sounds like flesh, bone, and blood) than seventy-three percent of all the lifeless canned music polluting the air these days. Sure it's somewhat derivative of Tom Waits, but without all of the obvious eccentricities. Yeah, it's slightly pretentious in its all-out embrace of lounge lizard-ism, but most of the pretense dissipates as it blends into astute performances and truly exceptional songcrafting. Henry isn't faking anything here. He's real. The music is real. And in the surreal reality of pop music today, that makes Henry a goddamn hero in my book.

There isn't much real about Andrew W.K.'s music. It's a jumbled mess of over-the-top hard rock and pompous cornheaded drama music: like Meat Loaf minus Jim Steinman's tunes and playing with a Def Leppard cover band doing a set of Queen tunes. Oh, and with John Madden singing.

But, if The Wolf is so rotten (and I cannot emphasize enough how rotten it is), then why are so many major music outlets tossing it such nice reviews? (4 stars in Blender and Rolling Stone, a B+ in Entertainment Weekly! Come on now!) That's the real question here. And, unfortunately, the answer to that query merely reveals rock criticism to be the advertising revenue driven celeb-mongering journalism it has become; rockwriting co-opted by the industry to legitimize long-winded advertisements that are not so well disguised as "criticism".

Sure Andrew W.K. is as likable a kid as you're bound to ever talk to in music. He's energetic, humble, affable, and loves to talk as much as rock. There is no sense of celebrity about him; he's just an earnest kid from Southeast Michigan who is as stoked as he is truly surprised to be where he is. You want to cheer for the guy - hell, I do cheer for the guy. Go get yours Andrew, knock 'em dead! Just don't expect me to be an accessory by perpetuating the fraud that says your music is even listenable. It isn't. Not one bit.

The Review:

So, with that said what was I going to do? An honest review might mean the death of a writing outlet for me. Hell, even a forgiving but truthful review might do that. It was supposed to be a whitewash job and I knew it. So why not? Why not whitewash it? Who the fuck cares anyway? Everyone else is telling the consumer that this hideous record, The Wolf, is worth his or her 18 bucks; why not participate in the con? Why not, indeed! I'd done it before!

I'd done it before and felt as sick as I've ever felt in my life. I'd done it before and hated myself. I'd done it before and still hate myself for it. I'd done it before…but never again. There's enough bad music getting decent reviews out there. Too much in fact. Hell, any music consumer I know will tell you that they're lucky to hit on five or six really good records in one year anymore. Sure, there are entertaining records - inoffensive and, for the most part, somewhat entertaining, but even those feel like a waste of good money eighty percent of the time. The last thing any of us need is another useless voice (mine) perpetuating this muddled, phony bullshit in lockstep harmony with these highfalutin' moneyed rags who routinely push this snake oil music on us with insincere promises of quality. It's somewhat insidious to me - these "reputable" magazines acting as consumer guidelines for a public that, for some reason, trusts them. Although, the whole unsavory process goes a long way toward explaining some of the proliferation of online music trading - a self-inflicted wound by an arrogant industry that, by fattening the wallets of music/cultural magazine, had figured it could buy its way into separating people from their money. After all, if you've been burned by the phony reviews in this industry choked media too many times where else are you gonna turn? Why the sample platter that is the internet of course.

But that's a completely different cat to skin. The bottom line of what I am rambling about is this: you can't trust record reviews in major publications anymore. You haven't been able to in quite some while. Most of you know that out there, but even the best of us get sucked in at times. No more! I refuse, as a writer, to participate. If a record sucks (and more do than don't) then it sucks. Period. There are no gray areas. There are no compromises. Your money is too valuable for me to be the guy who cons you into handing it over to a multi-million (billion…trillion) dollar industry for an inferior piece of shit record just because the guy who made it is a hoot of a character. Andrew W.K. is a hoot to be sure…he's one king hell of an entertaining character, but his new record is an A1 rip-off at even five dollars, let alone eighteen.

I'm not sure this will make it into print, and if it does it may be the end of my time at this little rag, but I had to say it so here's what I said:

"To me," says a perpetually excited Andrew W.K. as he explains the omnipresence of the word 'party' in his songs, "it's a simple word that says everything I ever wanted to say. Party means freedom, taking pride in everything you do, and doing it all full on!"

W.K., working the advance push for his new record The Wolf like a carnival barker, sounds as thought he's just come from a Tony Robbins seminar - or Marine Corp boot camp. He's as excited as he is excitable and his manic yes sir/no sir-music-is-my-life energy is as unnerving as it is infectious. Full on, indeed!

And why not, The Wolf is as almost as entertaining as it is absurd. Almost. Andrew W.K.'s second helping (last year's I Get Wet supposedly whet the public's appetite for the return of this sort of Big Dumb Rock) of spastic howling rock and roll is more of the same but this time pushed all the way over the top and into the abyss. Rachmaninoff-ian piano runs work to texture songs that lack any subtlety (ABBA did this with disco, and did it brilliantly - here on The Wolf it's a bad idea made worse by dim-witted songs); synthesized orchestral flourishes turn intro's into bumper music for talk radio; and a hoarse voiced W.K. often come across as a wannabe Meat Loaf (suffer with "Really In Love" for awhile) and generally sounds as though he's swallowed some Drano recently.

But party on he does, because that's what the folks at the label (Island/Def Jam) think you'll buy into, or rather that you'll buy into the idea of Andrew W.K., not the concrete stupidity of his music. Because, you see, this is the day and age of image, and image doesn't even have to be real.

Take a cat like W.K., as nice a kid as you're bound to ever meet or talk to in the music biz. He's comes across as an earnest, hard working, humble, and straightforward fellow, and that's rare these days to be sure. The energy and excitement he exudes over what he's doing is undeniable. And there's no reason to doubt that this isn't who Andrew W.K. really is. He of all people understands his bizarre good fortune. "In the grand scheme of things I've really accomplished nothing. But I'm going to keep working hard, keep pushing harder, and never stop. I'll never forget where I came from, but I'll always move forward," he'll tell you. And he means it.

But musically, in a mad rush to record sales and fame, he's been turned into a caricature - a bloodied nose poster boy for someone else's silly notion of mindless party rock. Media friendliness and undeniable high-energy sincerity, as admirable as those qualities may be, is hardly the path to rock and roll legitimacy. That only comes through the music. And the music on The Wolf, while it does for a moment have a fun Saturday morning cartoon quality to it, is hardly lasting and memorable stuff. It's highly disposable entertainment that draws what little intrigue it holds from the odd-but-amiable personality of the man who makes it, not from the music itself. And unfortunately, that may be the point of it all. Let's just hope that Andrew W.K understands this, and that he knows that, when it gets right down to it, more people are laughing at him than are laughing with him. Whatever sells records, right?

So, in the end, what are we supposed to do? There just isn't that much good music going around. And that which is pretty good tends to stay buried under the pile of shit that passes as valuable culture these days. For every The Wolf there are at least four or five records that merit legitimate notice that they will never receive. Not that any of those records would turn out to be exceptional -or even memorable - but at least they'd be about the music therein.

Andrew W.K. seems to be a great kid, but his music flat out sucks - and the only thing that sucks worse is the rockwriting going on that claims it doesn't.

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