Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y Control

Can a band build an entire career, a legacy even, on a handful of EPs and a boundless torrent of press? How many party dresses need to take a beer bath before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs drop the rock icon pastiche and just play some music? Over and over again, they've been accused of empty posturing, wallowing in scrofulous, self-conscious "irony," disguising themselves Predator-style as the public conception of who they were supposed to be rather than who they actually are. And yet (dramatic pause), until the stylists and spin-mongers start writing the music, why does this still have to matter? The band plays the blistering, bassless hand they're dealt, plus or minus the cards up their designer sleeves, and make the "right moves." More power to them; hype, famously, is a bitch, a shrew, and in the end, it's still theirs to try and tame. No one wants to be the ill-fated morning-after tat on the ass-end of the garage-rock revival, after all.
The really stupid part of all this, though, is that the shitstorm of publicity that's been hanging overhead the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is based on all of, what, eight songs? Two EP/singles? Robert Pollard throws away eight songs before breakfast and you sure as hell don't see him on the cover of NME. Well, hold yr breath, kids. The YYY's have finally released the plot element that their garage-to-riches Cinderella II story has most sorely lacked: The Full-Length Album. This is gonna make 'em rockstars, everybody! The final story arc-- and how's this for irony-- will conclude with them shedding their personas here, showing everyone that they've got what it takes to endure, and living happily ever after as the saviors of rock 'n' roll.
Except, they don't do any of that. Or maybe (and this is only an hypothesis) they were never all that guilty of the heinous crimes of Fashion they've been charged with in the first place? Either way, here it is, Fever to Tell, and they just play the same guitar/drums rock they have since the beginning-- what'd you expect? Sure, you can practically feel Karen O looking over her shoulder for approval with every faux-erotic squeal or disdainful shout, and a number of these tracks fall flat entirely because of the knowing, brutal swagger they try so damn hard to affect. And when it's all over, the slow-burning, gently chaotic dissolve of "No No No" (even the title is self-conscious) or the bluesy strut of "Black Tongue" will wither under anything more than passing scrutiny, but more will remain.
Reason is, first and foremost, the near-faultless musical support at the core of the YYY's: Nick Zinner and Brian Chase. If you can hear (or even care to try to hear, which you shouldn't) an ounce of "posture" in Zinner's thunderous guitar licks or Chase's relentless percussive assault, then you're a more cynical man (or woman) than I. The rhythms are never very complicated, but when it counts, Chase pounds away with enough precise desperation to project an unfailing sense of urgency; it carries through even the more emotional tracks, lending the rare vulnerability a tragic sort of transience.
Between the vicious buzz and slender trill of Zinner's strings is a breathtaking range-- the robotically looped harmonics of "Rich" coupled with the layered crunch of the wall-of-sound that collapses on top of them; the stop/start emergency-room shriek of "Date With a Night". Even Karen O seems stunned by the anthemic scope of the blazing, surf-like guitar and Chase's deafening percussion on "Y Control"; she turns in one of her most subdued vocals, as if it's all she can do just to keep up. Not coincidentally, it's also one of her most impressive turns.
That's not O's only compelling performance, though-- there are a couple moments when she drops her lacquered sneers and teases, and when this happens, it suddenly becomes very difficult to avoid seeing the music in a different light. Of course, her success varies. At times, she's the linchpin of the band-- and not just because her gratuitous sexual tension has become their trademark-- while at others she's the weakest link. The problem here is that, while the guys are definitely on here, they're still nowhere near groundbreaking, and as a result, they rise and fall depending largely on Karen's delivery. Her play-acting is what got the Yeah Yeah Yeahs slapped with the charges of shallow insincerity in the first place. It shouldn't matter if it's a façade, but it does; knowing beforehand what you're dealing with or not, it becomes very trying to accept every sleazy squeak as part of her routine. If the band ever wants to really dump these lingering doubts for good, they'll need to overcome this obstacle.
Still, for proof that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, at their core, make a better band than they do runway trendsetters, one need look no further than Fever to Tell's singular true moment of clarity-- a tune of such moving grace I can scarcely believe they're responsible for it-- "Maps". Though the song is sadly in a class by itself on this record (it would take about two seconds to call roll for the tunes that even come close), absolutely everything falls into place here. The drums are gentle enough to simply caress the tune, but still pressing enough to make it clear that this second of happiness is fleeting, and Zinner's guitar work is easily his best to date, equal parts joy and discord. But it's Karen's vocals that steal the show; for once, they fairly drip genuine, regretful emotion: When she sings, "Lay off/ Don't stray/ My kind is your kind/ I'll stay the same/ They don't love you like I love you," almost on the verge of defeated tears, the emotive response it produces is very real, and that means a lot.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8888-fever-to-tell/

The Marshall Tucker Band - You Ain't Foolin' Me

The Marshall Tucker Band’s A New Life (1974) was slightly more country than the previous album had been. The "progressive" thing gives way to a more defined rock sound too, along with some jazzy influences, despite the obviously prog-inspired cover! This is perfectly represented by the muscular rock of the opener, A New Life, a track that nevertheless still manages to reach nearly seven minutes. That old experimental/workout urge is obviously still there.  A really infectious bassline and slow rhythm underpins the excellent Southern Woman, another lengthy track. It sounds like a more melodious, less down 'n' dirty Lynyrd Skynyrd. Mid-track the band launch into a distinctly jazz groove, featuring some highly impressive saxophone and a great jazz guitar solo. This group had a lot of strings to its collective bow. They were definitely not in the stereotypical country rock pigeonhole. How many other country rock bands put out stuff as inventively different as this? Not many, if any. A very Pure Prairie League/Firefall-style lively, tuneful country sound is delivered on the enjoyable breeze of Blue Ridge Mountain Sky. Slow country blues arrives on the equally pleasurable Too Stubborn.  You would have thought the group had gone all big band with the jaunty brassy intro to Another Cruel Love, a track that doesn't let up from its first few beats. It certainly rocks strongly and the brassy vibe puts me in mind of Van Morrison. You Ain't Foolin' Me displays that ability to lay down a lengthy rock workout once more. They really are a country band like no other. Of course, there are hints of many other artists in their sound, but they also have a clear uniqueness, something that really is all of their own. Check out that jazzy saxophone break mid-song for starters. Some of Bruce Hornsby's material in the nineties reminds me of this number as well. Was he listening to this? I reckon so.  24 Hours At A Time is pure mid-seventies country rock and most fine-soundin' it is too. Very representative of its era. Great guitar near the end as well. The album ends with possibly the most country number in the grandly melodious Fly Eagle Fly. The next four albums progress from a clear, essential country sound, such as features on the excellent Searchin' For A Rainbow and Long Hard Ride to a more commercially-oriented country pop approach as the seventies progressed. Other country bands such as Pure Prairie League and Firefall tended to follow this path too, as did The Doobie Brothers. It seemed that by 1977-78 going more mainstream was the thing to do. Doing so actually gained the group their first hit in 1977's catchy and breezy Heard It In A Love Song. The melodic and attractive flute employed in the song puts me in mind of the sound Bob Dylan used a year later in his Live At Budokan show (played there by Steve Douglas). I really, really like the über-cool, immaculately-played grooves of the Searchin' For A Rainbow album but nothing on it screams out at me, begging to be analysed, despite the jazzy, sometimes even Doobie Brothers/Little Feat funky feel of some of it. In some ways that is a shame but in other ways it sort of shows that the album has done its job as something to be consumed as a whole - a collective feeling as opposed to individual song-by-song descriptions.  From: https://thepunkpanthermusicreviews.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-marshall-tucker-band.html

The Fiery Furnaces - Navy Nurse

In a grand move to restore liner notes to their informative zenith, the inky little paper accompanying Gallowsbird's Bark offers a handful of (supposedly) autobiographical clues to The Fiery Furnaces' raucous brother/sister gambol: "Matthew encouraged Eleanor to come down in the basement to make their first Fiery Furnaces music together. Maybe he should have hit and stabbed and smashed her. But he just swore." Despite some implied tongue-in-cheekiness (and the obvious fact that relentless sibling posturing is an awfully exhausted conceit right now, even if these kids really are related), it's a surprisingly apt and insightful peep into the bright blue heart of The Fiery Furnaces' blaze: violence, dark rooms, boy/girl handholding, and big selfless compromises all vie for attention on this debut, a feisty blues-rock barn-dance with enough pings and yelps to keep everyone's little hands curled tightly into fists.
The Furnaces' electric guitar, drums, sparingly applied bass, and freewheeling piano riffs recollect everything from Muddy Waters to the Rolling Stones, and Gallowsbird's Bark plays like a big, half-drunken romp through golden-era rock 'n' roll-- airy and thrilling and shifty as hell. Lyrics mostly consist of quasi-rambling witticisms that somehow come together in the delivery; Eleanor Friedberger's brash, oddly assured warble (the evenly hollered "I pierced my ears with a three-hole punch/ I ate three dozen donuts for lunch") is lovingly reminiscent of the kinds of semi-absurdist snickers that Dylan got away with in the late 60s (check the baffling-but-somehow-not credo, "The sun isn't yellow/ It's chicken," from "Tombstone Blues"). Likewise, the duo's spare, confrontational guitar riffing is grating only insofar as it jars; blues-driven, feral, and scribbling all over the page, Bark's sixteen tracks house a mess of weird, undulating musical bits that are hugely intriguing despite not always making a whole shitload of sense.
"South Is Only a Home" opens the record in a sloppy downhill tumble. It's a solid, foot-stomping burst, with honkytonk piano plonking out a declining scale and a wrestled guitar making a mess that's as thrilling as it is damaging. Both "Leaky Tunnel" and "Inca Rag/Name Game" channel Lennon/McCartney melody-gone-weird ("Inca Rag" has a piano opening that's awfully close to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da") while "I'm Gonna Run" sees Eleanor's Jack White/Chrissie Hynde growl/coo suggestively noting, "Saw my brother coming up the hill/ I tied a beach towel around my wrist." It's all muted violence and esoteric observations skidding across wily guitar foundations, bouncy piano hits, and puttering percussion. Despite just now cutting their proper debut, the Furnaces have already burned through a pile of drummers (Ryan Sawyer bravely grips the sticks here), and the duo's brother/sister throwdown seems volatile enough to ignite just about anything seated directly in its blazing path. They spew the best kinds of sparks, though: accessible, but skewed and peculiar enough to keep you peeking nervously over your shoulder every couple of minutes.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/3271-gallowsbirds-bark/

The Left Banke - Pretty Ballerina

 

Tom Finn, the last surviving member of the Left Banke’s classic lineup, died on June 27, 2020 after years of declining health. Finn’s death followed the recent passings of his former bandmates Michael Brown, George Cameron and Steve Martin Caro (billed as Steve Martin during his years with the band), as well as  songwriter/instrumentalist Tom Feher, a frequent collaborator during the band’s original run. In The Left Banke’s ’60s heyday, the New York outfit’s persistent “baroque rock” tag failed to fully convey the breadth and depth of its exquisitely textured arrangements, it’s heart-tugging three-part harmonies and its evocative, emotionally resonant songwriting. The band began its recording career at the top, launching their career with the iconic, Brown-penned single “Walk Away Renee,” which became a Top Five hit and remains an enduring, much-covered pop classic. But the inexperienced teenaged combo quickly ran afoul of a series of mishaps that helped to derail its promising career. Indeed, the Left Banke’s history is strewn with poor choices, missed opportunities, interpersonal acrimony, squandered potential and managerial neglect. Originally anchored by a fragile musical prodigy and managed by his Murry Wilson-like father, the band was prematurely destabilized by internal dissension and outside pressures. Despite this, the Left Banke’s first two albums, 1967’s Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina and 1968’s The Left Banke Too, rank with the era’s most distinctive and enduring music. And the group’s subsequent absence from the public eye, combined with the longstanding unavailability of its albums—finally remedied when Sundazed Music reissued them on CD and LP in 2011—only increased the Left Banke’s mythic stature amongst its admirers. Even in the heady musical atmosphere of 1967, “Walk Away Renee,” and its Top 20 followup “Pretty Ballerina,” also written by Brown, stood out. The Left Banke’s beguiling blend of youthful innocence, autumnal melancholy and precocious musical sophistication remains in a class of its own.  From: https://pleasekillme.com/the-left-banke-story/

Mean Mary - Iron Horse

A singer and songwriter with a gift for connecting with sounds of the past, Mean Mary (real name, Mary James) has gained a loyal following for music that draws on vintage country, bluegrass, and traditional folk with just a touch of modern-day flash. A performer since she was six years old, Mean Mary grew up on the work of country artists like Dolly Parton and Hank Williams, Jr., but as she matured, she developed a taste for American folk songs of the Civil War era, and by the time she began recording prolifically with 2006's Thank You Very Much, she was combining songs of the past with fresh material that reshaped the sounds of history with her strong, emotive, blues-influenced vocals as well as her capable instrumental skills on banjo, fiddle, and guitar. While acoustic traditionalism remained the hallmark of Mean Mary's music, on albums like 2012's Walk a Little Ways with Me and 2016's Sweet found her incorporating more contemporary themes and sounds to her performances without compromising her creative vision.
Mary James was born in Geneva, Alabama on March 22, 1980, though her family lived in Florida. Her parents were rugged individualists, and when she was young, the family relocated to Northern Minnesota not far from the Canadian border, where they lived in a makeshift tent while her father built a log cabin by hand. James became interested in music when her brother, who had joined the military, sent her folks a guitar and some tapes of country artists he liked. James especially enjoyed the Dolly Parton and Hank Williams, Jr. numbers on the tape, and after learning to sing the songs, her mother taught her to play from instructional books, and she was able to read music before she entered kindergarten. By the time she was six years old, James' family had returned to Florida and the youngster was writing and performing her own songs; she became a regular on a local Alabama television series The Country Boy Eddie Show, and one of her songs, "Mean Mary from Alabam," was popular enough that it inspired her stage name, Mean Mary. She and her family opted for home schooling as she was playing regular concerts and practicing her music up to seven hours a day; she passed high school GED when she was nine. She was in her early teens when her brother Frank James joined the act, and their repertoire began leaning to traditional folk songs and songs of the Civil War as they found a lucrative specialty performing at civil war reenactments and other events celebrating American history.
After a spell in California, where Mary and Frank tried their luck in the film industry, she relocated to Tennessee, and had returned to performing when an auto accident nearly ended her life and career. In February 2003, Mary was in the front passenger seat of a car traveling on slippery pavement during a rainstorm when the vehicle spun out of control and she was thrown against the dashboard and through the windshield. The speedy intervention of emergency medical providers saved Mary despite her injured neck, but doctors soon determined that one of her vocal cords had been paralyzed. After extensive physical therapy, Mary returned to live performing, relying on her instrumental skills since she could only sing for short periods. (Mary can play 11 instruments, including banjo, guitar, and violin.) She performed extensive vocal exercises after her doctors discovered the injured cord was showing signs of recovery, and in 2006, she was well enough to cut an album with the group Jamestown, Thank You Very Much.
A solo single, "Ding Dong Day," arrived in 2008, and Mary's first full-length album on her own, Walk a Little Ways with Me, was issued in 2012. During her time off from the road, she started writing prose, collaborating with her mother Mary James on the novel Sparrow Alone on the Housetop, published in 2011. Between 2013 and 2018, Mary would publish five more books in tandem with her mother, four novels and a spiritual memoir. Mean Mary's audience grew when she began posting videos of her performances on line, which also helped spread word about her outside the United States. Along with a busy performance schedule and much time devoted to writing, Mary was prolific as a recording artist; she brought out the solo albums Year of the Sparrow (2013) and Sweet (2016) before cutting an album with her brother Frank, 2017's Down Home. 2018's Blazing was a set of songs meant to accompany her novel Hell Is Naked, published the same year, and in 2019 Mary was back with the LP Cold.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mean-mary-mn0001761489#biography

The Hooters - Karla With a K

After two years of extensive touring in support of their first major label success, Nervous Night, the Philadelphia based group The Hooters returned to the studio to record One Way Home. Like their breakthrough predecessor, this album was co-produced by Rick Chertoff, a former executive at Columbia Records, along with the band’s primary songwriters Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman. Unlike its predecessor, One Way Home was heavily folk and Americana influenced and a testament to the Hooters desire to put the music first as well as experiment with the new influences and instruments they discovered during their extensive touring.
Although there are some similarities in songwriting and instrumentation, One Way Home is a clear step forward from Nervous Night in terms of production. That 1985 release is heavy with slick, pop, eighties style production while this 1987 album, although still clearly catchy pop, is closer to the Hooters’ signature rootsy mixed sound. Along with Bazilian and Hyman, the band consisted of rhythm guitarist John Lilly, bassist Andy King, and drummer Dave Uosikkinen, who had been with the band since its inception in 1980. Uosikkinen’s distinctive drumming is the backbone of The Hooters sound as he hits those drums hard and with an intensity that keeps the sound loud and right up front.
The album begins with “Satellite”, an example of the Hooters ability to artfully blend modern synth sounds with traditional instruments. The song was inspired by a televangelist broadcasting his message and includes some space aged synthesizer sounds. “Karla with a K” takes this one step further by making a accordion sound really hip and fresh. The song, named after a hurricane, was inspired by a street performer the band met in Louisiana.
The band also included an updated version of “Fightin’ On the Same Side” from their independent album, Amore – still upbeat but with a slower tempo and the awesome addition of accordion. “Johnny B” is a haunting song about fighting addiction with an outstanding guitar solo and harmonica accents. This song remains very popular to this day with the band’s German fans. “Hard Rockin’ Summer” was inspired by a group of “heavy metal” kids who would hang out outside the band’s rehearsal space. The title song, “One Way Home” is perhaps the best on the album. It has a heavy reggae beat, similar to the Nervous Night version of “All You Zombies”. The lyrics are dark and spiritually cryptic similar to Zombies as well. “Washington’s Day” is akin to a campfire sing a long and is rumored to be Bob Dylan’s favorite Hooters Song. It has a hook that can get a crowd swaying in unison. “Graveyard Waltz” has the same eerie feeling as that on the earlier “Where Do the Children Go?”, as both songs deal with death, depression, and thoughts of suicide.
Although One Way Home did not enjoy the mass commercial appeal of its predecessor, it did open up the European market for the band due to the popularity of “Satellite” across the Atlantic. In fact, after the band performed the song on Britain’s Top Of the Pops in December 1987, they were privileged to meet their idol Paul McCartney. A month earlier, on Thanksgiving night 1987, The Hooters headlined a show at The Spectrum in Philadelphia, which was broadcast live on MTV and Westwood One radio network simultaneously, perhaps the absolute pinnacle of their American success.  From: https://www.classicrockreview.com/2012/10/1987-hooters-one-way-home/

Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - Taffy

Guitar Girl Magazine: When did you begin playing guitar and who were some of your musical influences?

Lisa Loeb: I started playing guitar when I was probably about 14 years old. I played briefly at school, but I really got into it at summer camp. My friend Alan Doff showed me how to play “Stairway to Heaven” and a couple of other songs. I started playing acoustic guitar there and soon after I got a Fender Stratocaster Guitar – it was a 1972 reissue – with a Carvin DCM150 amp, which was influenced by one of my favorite guitar heroes Andy Summers from the band The Police. I was really influenced, or in my mind at least, by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Even bands like The Cure that had very interesting guitar parts. Their guitar player would play these interesting textures and melodies. Johnny Mars from The Smiths also had these intriguing textures and melodies, as well. There was also some new wave music like the guitar part in Thomas Dolby’s The Flat Earth, it was more textured, and very influential.

GGM: When hearing the guitar players in the present time, is there anyone who sticks out to you?

LL: There are so many good guitar players now, too! The Arctic Monkeys with the way their guitar sounds in their music is really strong and bold. Dave Grohl with the guitar playing that he puts into his music. The really extreme sounds that Nine Inch Nails uses; I don’t listen to them a whole lot, but what I have heard the guitar playing is really there. There are a ton of people I’m forgetting. There’s a lot of guitar playing going on! There might be less of soloing with some of the music going on today, but different people are providing interesting textures that support the songs in a lot of the bands.

GGM: Are there any guitars that you prefer to play?

LL: The one that I play the most is my Taylor 512 C; it’s a little smaller, not a tiny, but a smaller acoustic guitar with a cutaway that I bought in the early ‘90s at Matt Umanov Guitars. It’s a custom guitar that he had put together. I really like that it’s small; it fits my body, it stays in tune really well, the tone is great, and it’s great to work with in the studio because you can add a lot more bass or whatever you want in the studio depending on the mic placement and the way it’s played. I also do love the older guitars. I have an old, old Martin, and I’m always looking for an older Gibson. Electric-wise, I play a lot of different electric guitars. I do have a really great Gretsch – it’s one of the pea green Gretschs that is on a little bit smaller scale. Also, my husband just gave me a shell pink Fender Strat, a reissue Strat, which is really cool. I do end up playing acoustic more than electric just because that’s usually what I take on the road with me, but I also have a Gibson SG, an old one from 1958 that I really love. It’s just really a plug-in-and-play kind of guitar and it has a great tone.

GGM: What was it like collaborating with Chad Gilbert, from New Found Glory, on the new album No Fairy Tale?

LL: It was amazing! They had covered my song “Stay” on a New Found Glory record, and years later, he came to me to see if he could produce a record for me. More of a poppy-punk-rock record; something a little more extreme than what I had done in the past. I actually thought it was a great idea! I like the idea of doing something different and I loved his enthusiasm. We worked together to make this record, which was really interesting to me because he brought in Tegan & Sara, which was a band that I was specifically influenced by while writing these songs not knowing I was going to be making this record. They are actually a band I listen to, to get in the writing mood, because I really like the way they write. I ended up having two Tegan & Sara songs on my record, and had Tegan & Sara sing on it, too. It was great working with Chad because he is a great producer and he knew exactly what he wanted. I appreciated the fact that he went with a really edgy guitar sound which I really like. Some people shy away from those when working with me because they think it is too intense, but it’s something I actually really like! He was also very helpful in my vocal direction, which I’m not always super open to vocal direction. He helped me get more of a stronger sound and more rhythmic.

GGM: Are there any future plans of touring?

LL: I don’t do the kind of tours that I used to, where you put an album out and then go out on tour for two months and then come home and start on a new record. Instead, I’m always going out on the road, like last weekend I was doing an event up in Palo Alto. I have a week of touring coming up in different areas and then another week of shows in other areas. I try to balance how much I go out with how much I really want to stay home and be with my kids. I’m just trying to feel out that balance. I know last year I did a line-up of shows that ended up being a week and a half and that was just too long for me. The kids were fine when I came home but I wasn’t comfortable with that. Luckily, I have a lot of work here in Los Angeles to do, so it all ends up working out. But it’s definitely a process! I’m sure other parents can understand, especially with really young kids. Hopefully when my kids get a little bit older we can do the kind of traveling I did when I was a kid, where we can take a really great drive and do a bunch of different cities and look up different monuments and natural things like caverns in New Mexico, or something. Hopefully when the kids’ bedtime gets a little bit later and they’re not napping, it’ll be a little bit easier to travel with them. I would love to be able to do something like that with them because I do have a certain amount of control over my schedule and we can take advantage of the days and do different things during the day. Then I can do a show at night, so hopefully we can take advantage of that when they are older and take summer vacations.

From: https://guitargirlmag.com/interviews/interview-with-lisa-loeb-on-musical-influences-guitars-touring-and-more/