A Few Drive-bys

Jeanjacket Shotgun
Collides Again

(Houston Party)

www.houstonpartyrecords.com

Gorillaz
Self-titled

(VirginRecords America, Inc.)

www.gorillaz.com

Millionaire
Outside the Simian Flock

(PIAS)

www.PIAS.com

I’ve just spent all of winter and what has passed so far of spring up to my ears (quite literally) in CDs that either received so much hype I had to check it out myself; or so roundly loathed that I needed to make my own decision about its worthiness; or in a certain case, simply because I hadda know what Damon Albarn would sound like fronting a hip-hop outfit. This doesn’t begin to encompass a lot of other CDs I have, and couldn’t or wouldn’t review because I didn’t want to go through their entire back catalogs (Garbage, Chemical Brothers, who both released strong work recently).

Interestingly, three fourths of what used to be the Posies turned in a record that sounds like Traffic and which, from what I gather, was put together as an ode to Joe Walsh (whom I know f**k-all about, save a few songs that got heavy airplay with the James Gang and then while he was solo, just after he joined the Eagles, but before the Eagles called it quits. Mr. Walsh did have a hilarious habit of giving his album titles that sent me into stitches as an adolescent, however. I will always love him for calling an album You Bought It, You Name It).

Anyway, everyone now hates the Eagles, but I don’t, and I will say so publicly: I do not hate the Eagles. I hate what the various members of the Eagles got up to as solo entities in the 1980s and early ‘90s.

And none of this has a damned thing to do with three fourths of the Posies. Jon Auer, Joe Bass and Brian Young got together with some other people and made a little record, Jeanjacket Shotgun Collides Again which sounds by turns, part bluesy, neo-psychedelic until it collapses into a cacophony of barely listenable trash not fit to be heard around maybe track number seven. I’m not certain because I’ve never been in the mood to actually back up and find out.

Out of the ten tracks, certainly the stand-outs are the ones that lend us Auer’s sweet-as-sugar vocals, especially “Gimme Gimme” and “Kissing You”. Still after hearing this guy sing almost anything and everything with Posies partner Ken Stringfellow on their great unplugged tours of 2000 couldn’t prepare anyone for hearing Auer grind his voice down to gravel on “Gimme Gimme”. I think we’re all used to him being bitter by now, so I can’t say there are any lyrical surprises left here; still, stylistically, this will cause die-hard pop-specific-only fans to keel over and die. To declare that this record is a bit weird (coming from who it comes from, after all) is a bit of an understatement. One of a few non-disappointments I got my mitts all over. Mostly because I am of the slightly skewed and not unbiased opinion that Jon Auer could sing the ABCs or “Happy Birthday” and make them sound like a gang of angels giving directions on getting out of dodge on judgement day. And not least, because it doesn’t sound like I wanted it to or expected it to. Which is a huge plus.

Don’t remember when I decided I had to hear Gorillaz. But I did have to hear it, and I’m very glad for having done it. Never been a fan of Blur much. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what to expect of this and like all good dance records, it holds special fort within my soul for making me feel inexcusably happy, inexhaustably energetic, yet simultaneously strangely relaxed. It’s because it’s stupid. Begging to be played at the loudest volume possible, resplendent with fuzzy bass overlays, trip-hop rhythms and topped off with Damon Albarn’s lazy, dreamy, Brit-pop crooning, no one could sit still with this on, and not get caught up in it.

It reminds me of how I’d go to strange shows a few years back (Money Mark, techno all-nighters) and be moved---stone cold sober, stone cold clean---to stand off in a corner by myself, away from who ever I’d come to the gig with, bouncing around to some Massive Attack record, before the show ever started.

Dancing is a great thing. Everyone with feet and a heart and a soul should own a few dance records and this is a goody, right down to the “let’s pretend we’re primates” vocals and hooting that goes on, which are hysterical. Standout tracks: 5/4, “Clint Eastwood”, “Punk”…just put the whole thing on and have a party. One of those records that makes a person feel that cleaning the house or driving to work is a disco.

Millionaire is one of those bands from Flanders (as in “that other part of Belgium, that part where they make a lot of records”, as I’ve catagorized it in my twisted little mind), but it was recorded in Brussels. All of the songs are by some guy named Tim Vanhamel, and he’s got more than a substantial band backing him while he rips apart his take on the human psyche and its battle with love and lust.

Additionally, there’s a little magazine all printed in Dutch with the CD so that I could spend the past three plus months trying to figure out one single thing about this CD. This guy named Tim used to be in the Evil Superstars with Mauro, who released one of my favorite albums of 2001.

I still can’t read Dutch, nor can I speak it. Good thing all of these Belgian rock stars are mad anglophiles (that’s what I’ve been told anyway) or I’d be sunk.

This album is a bit of gem. Takes some getting used to, it’s true, but one day, I found myself actually humming it and craving it, especially tracks three (“Me Crazy, You Sane”) and five (“Blindfold”). The first two songs rock out all over the place angrily and aggressively. The first song, “Body Experience Revue”, repeats every line of the lyrics twice over nothing but a bass line and drums, building into a violent crescendo of guitars and springs straight into the second track that has the strangest sounding thing I’ve ever heard: it sounds like something is being wound---a clock, a piece of machinery, I don’t know what---every time the guitars kick in. They are both mean-spirited tunes, and fine if you’re in a sour mood. “Me Crazy, You Sane” starts out acoustically, then kicks into high gear in the second chorus.

Wryly funny, this too is awfully mean spirited, about the narrator telling off his suffocating girlfriend. “Blindfold” is woozy psychedelica, while “She’s A Doll” actually lets up on the girl bashing, and pays her a tribute, instead. Somewhere in the midst of this, between the hate and the love, there’s a lot of sex n’ drugs n’ rock n’ roll, too. Amazing, to hear an actual rock record that sounds like one.

In all, a wonderful surprise of an album, once it starts to take hold. A real wild ride all over the place, touching on glam, hard rock. And of course, there’s a song here that sounds like it was ripped off the Pixies. Not to mention that one song where the chorus sounds like it was constructed by Brian Wilson and sung by the Beach Boys. Or that other song where they ape the Stones…

God, what a weird, crazy, brilliant record.

Especially brilliant on those days when you don’t want to get out of bed; goes well with a mondo gargantuan tankard of mega-strength java on the way to work when you’re in a bad mood. Trust me.

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