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The Posies
Nice Cheekbones And A PhD - EP

(Houston Party)

www.theposies.com

But When They Are Good, They Are Very, Very Good

I feel like I should make some kind of qualifying statement before I say how underwhelmed I was and remain with this release. (All good Sloan fans will applaud my use of this non-existent word, and all English majors and professors reading this review will surely point out that underwhelmed isn't a word at all, but disappointed sounds too harsh).

So to qualify the statements I'm about to make, let me say that I've always been of the opinion that anything Ken Stringfellow or Jon Auer (or any combination thereof ) which either or both happen to come into contact with is the equivalent of pop music manna from heaven. And it isn't even that this is a bad little collection. It's just that well, it sounds not so much like the Posies, as like Jon and Ken. Meaning: Jon did a song, then Ken did a song, and so on. And much of the time, the EP sounds not quite finished, as if a particular song made it to demo stage and was recorded and released. Birthed like a premature baby, a bit before, perhaps, it was quite ready to see the light of day. Aside from "Matinee", the lead track (a contribution from Stringfellow) the work seems largely like a group of songs still in infancy, rather than something fully realized and executed to fullest potential, It's not that the EP lacks hooks---"Chainsmoking In the USA" has a great, hooky chorus. But the songs never seem to kick in or climax and are lacking crunch. And crunch is good. From the Posies, crunch is practically expected.

That said, fans who never recovered when the Posies departed from the pure pop sound of *Dear 23* are going to be elated. In fact, the coda to "With Those Eyes" sounds like the long-lost stolen closing notes from that album's "Any Other Way". For those of us who really got hung up on this band because of Frosting on the Beater and Amazing Disgrace and the real kicking power behind the pop, there may be some minor deflation in store. I very much preferred Stringfellow gone solo with Saltine and think Auer's The Perfect Size EP to be one of the past year's real can't-live-without essential releases for pop/power pop enthusiasts (that's a really beautiful little record which garnered barely any attention, oddly enough).

Still, there are amazing moments here. On "Matinee", Ken hits high notes that had the hair on the nape of my neck standing on end. And whenever these two sing together, the harmony is the same as it ever was,. One thing remains plain: separate or combined, they can sing like nobody's business, and have two of the flat out prettiest voices in the history of popular music. (This is no overstatement from a rabidly zealous fan, either). Their take on the David Crosby penned song, the Byrds' "Lady Friend" , for the closer of this release is an absolute stunner. They sound gorgeous together, and it's breathtaking. Shame they couldn't have done it for the entire five-song duration. Perhaps this is an indicator of future collaboration. We should all continue to live in hope.

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Weezer
Weezer

Interscope Records/Geffen

www.weezer.com

Released May 15, 2001

There *IS* A Cure For The Summertime Blues… (and it has a green cover)

This is a really unprofessional, very personal and deeply heartfelt, hence not the least bit objective, opening for a record review. I love Weezer. I reiterate: I LOVE Weezer. I love the band so much that I've been a card-carrying member of the Weezer fanclub. I was way too old, but I did it anyway. I worked with people during the time that "Buddy Holly" was a hit who swore up and down that they'd think of me for the rest of their lives every time and any time they heard that or "Undone (The Sweater Song)". I had terminology in my speech based on Weezerisms and Weezerishness. I have at times felt Weezeresque. I had tickets to see them on their latest tour, got them four months in advance, and I was so ill that I could not go. I cried for a week. Big tears. And I'm a grown woman raising a child. Folks, this was true pathos. Was I happy to get my sweaty little paws on this disc? Did pigs ever fly at Pink Floyd concerts?

People have been split down the middle about the reappearance of this band on the music scene. Weezer've got former Car Ric Ocasek back in the producer's seat, leading to speculation that the band can't go it alone, having tried and failed. There's been a lot of sniping about how short the record is (it clocks in at around thirty minutes or so, I guess---I haven't gotten the egg timer out and checked). Someone started carrying on about how all the songs on it sound alike (some do, some don't). Then there are detractors who are bitching about how the quality of the songwriting has suffered (ostensibly because frontman Rivers Cuomo is out to make a fast buck off his quick fix hit record, which isn't "deep", like 1996's *Pinkerton* which sold like six hundred copies worldwide because there were only six hundred music fans in the entire universe who understood it, because it was the rock and roll equivalent of "Madame Butterfly", and moreover, it didn't spawn a bunch of really cool videos on empty-vee---no, really).

For the record, I don't watch TV much, and I don't have cable, so I don't know about videos for either *Pinkerton* or the latest eponymously titled offering. Further, I thought, apparently stupidly, that Pinkerton was a great pop record and played it nearly as much as Weezer's other self-tilted album released back in 1994. And this one? Oh my heavenly stars----this is something wonderful.

Think of ten songs, all of them ripe to bursting point with perfect hooks and clocking in at just under three minutes average. Now imagine that all the songs are bouncy in a hip-shaking, shoulder-shimmying, head-nodding kinda way and overlaid with a lot of crunchy guitar and fuzzy bass and a teeny tiny hint of some reverb, and just packed whompin' full of heaps of sugar buzz and sunshine.

Basically, the record is the audio equivalent of drinking Orange Crush at the beach when you were a twelve year old and members of the opposite sex were interesting in a vague way, but not as much fun as the tilt-a-whirl or the Monkees' song being blasted over the PA system at the carnival.

This album was invented for summer. It will doubtless serve as someone's soundtrack to an essay on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" next fall.

Is it missing the old angst? Yes, it is. Does that matter? Probably not. Wasn't Cuomo's brand of lyrical angst always slightly humorous anyway? Wasn't that why we related to it in the first place? Is the songwriting suffering? No, not really. The songs do feel short and in comparison to what Cuomo and Weezer have done before, they do seem simple. Strangely enough, for this, they come off sounding fresh and bubbly---pristinely poppy.

It's understandable that there'd be complaints about length, because the record's so good and so damned much fun that it doesn't seem like enough, but a half hour of "really good" is always better than an hour in which half is spent hitting the forward skip on the CD player. Technology does have "repeat". Don't wear it out.

Best pick of the lot: not a bummer amongst them, but the stand out is "Island In The Sun", which comes right after the locomotive chug-chugging of the single "Hash Pipe", a song that will doubtless go down in history for driving the censors at the FCC round the bend once and for all.

Biggest question after repeated listenings: since when has any Yank ever referred to female undergarments as "knickers" any time in the past century?

Piece of advice: buy it, play it, love it.

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