It’s OK. I Understand.

The other night I had an uncomfortable moment. I was watching a local Athens band and the overwhelming feeling I got was “This music is so mediocre that it renders the band completely irrelevant.” And then I saw a friend of mine and I went outside the club and said these exact words to her.

She kind of hemmed and hawed and “I don’t know-ed”. I felt bad at that moment because I think she was thinking I was trying to get her to agree with me. I wasn’t; I was just stating an opinion out of boredom and frustration and I don’t think she really shared my point of view, either. Which leads me to my next point:

For one reason or another its impractical or impolitic for a lot of people involved in the Athens music scene to really open up and say something is awful. I get that. Truly, I do.  The scene, although perpetually pregnant with bands, is all still basically in a five-square mile area so there’s no avoiding them. Which speaks directly to this:

A big reason no one ever goes on the record about how certain bands in Athens are just terrible is out of politeness and social grace. I get that, too. There’s no use or decency in being cruel for cruelty’s sake and participating in scene shit-talking, while an old Athens tradition, is ultimately boring. The problem is that so many bands in Athens seem to always have this attitude that thoughtful, reasoned criticism is the same as shit-talking. In short, the scene is full of babies.  Oh, sure, babies with college educations and, sometimes, jobs. But that all leads to the following:

Being your friend is not my job. My job is to critique your music and records. If I am already your friend then that’s great. If I am not yet your friend then, hell, let’s go get coffee. But us being friends or not friends or anything like that has no bearing on how I’ll hear your music. (An aside: I will admit, though, that the more familiar I am with the process by which you create your music the more that will affect how I wind up hearing it; That’s just unavoidable. )

Look, I love this town and this music scene more than I can say. And I know some people might even feel it’s a betrayal of the home team, so to speak, to engage in heavy criticism toward any Athens band. My feeling is the opposite:  by allowing that each Athens band is its own special star and bundle of talent the soft-ball approach actually sucks the life out the scene. Again, cruelty is unnecessary, counter-productive and inevitably winds up as a personal attack and not an honest critique. Writers should never be cruel but bands should also understand that honest criticism isn’t the same thing as cruelty.

Before any of the regular commenters ask, no, I’m not going to mention any specific bands in this piece or tell you which band I was remarking about in the first paragraph.  Why? Because it would be out-of-context and unrelated to an actual review of a live show or record and it’s not cool to just hang a band out to dry without going into details of why I felt the way I did.  And I’m not about to spend all night going through the details.

So, yeah, this is the second post in a row on music writing and how it relates to the Athens music scene. You can bet I won’t approach this subject again any time soon.

It’s getting obnoxious even for me.

You’re Boring Me

As much as I love and defend the Athens music scene I must admit I’m easily bored  by a chunk of it.  It’s disgusting how much attention is squandered on the half-wit, careerist bullshit so many local bands are pumping out.

Also, it’s really time for the old, chummy “hey, it might not be my thing but some of you might like it” and “this band really has something for everyone” type of  ”writing” to be wiped from the Earth. Seriously? This one band has something for everyone? Did you write that in your sleep or just crib it from your copy of Everything I Need To Know About Music Criticism I Learned In Kindergarten?

The Internet may have leveled the playing field but that doesn’t mean everyone should try to join the team.

Today Is Elvis’ Birthday

Elvis would have been 75 today. See that album cover over there on the left? That’s the first record I ever owned.

It was picked out by me and purchased by my grandmother at the Mongtomery Ward/Jefferson’s department store which was located on 8th Avenue (now a Kmart) in North Miami Beach, FL. I still own this and my little kid handwriting of “Gordon Lamb” scrawled in the yellow box on the cover is still visible. I listened to this record hundreds of times and still have it all memorized. Even the in-between-song chatter.

I got this, I guess, around 1978 or so and even though his passing was the biggest news in the entire world the previous year it had somehow passed me by. I remember being so excited by this record and asking my mom if we could go to Las Vegas and see Elvis because he played at hotels there. She had to sit me down and explain that Elvis wasn’t playing anywhere anymore.

This was recorded in 1969 when he was hot off his ‘68 Comeback and had yet to don his karate suits and jumpsuits and cover himself in rhinestones.

I never cared much for the cult and comedy that surrounds Elvis as a cultural icon. I sure do love the music, though, as much as I ever did.

(Buy Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada here.)

Clear The Decks

Every so often I like to clean house. Please take these.

1)Brad Register (who had a mustache years ago when it was just invented) has a new band The Tenant that is kinda tasty and this track bleeds early 1980’s White R&B renaissance.  Full review of the new 7″ soon.

MP3: The Tenant-The Stranger

2) I was gonna give you a couple of tracks from the new Eels album but I was provided them in M4A/ACC format which is a total pain in the ass so you’re not getting them. EDIT: here’s a new track that packs as much heartbreak as you’re used to from the fabulous Mr. E.

MP3: Eels-Little Bird

3) New Ruby Isle remix from Night Shot: The Remixes which comes out in 11 days.

MP3: So Damn High (Will Eastman Club Edit)

4) R.E.M. from Live At The Olympia just because.

MP3: R.E.M.-Driver 8 (Live)

5) Nana Grizol is likely the most positive band in Athens that isn’t also a church group. Good people, too.

MP3: Nana Grizol-Galaxies

6) Scott Sosebee as The King Of Rocksprings is going to meet inevitable comparisons to Maganetic Fields but I would guarantee that Sosebee is friendlier and just as funny.  He’s a hell of a swell guy and I couldn’t be happier for him that his record is out.

MP3: The King Of Rocksprings-How To Be A Stalker

7) I am now, and have always been, a total sucker for synth-y/orchestral pop sung with kind of sad male vocals. To wit, The Mary Onettes. The album came out a couple of months ago. From Sweden, too, which is always a plus.

MP3: The Mary Onettes-Puzzles

(<—isn’t that cute? That’s what happens when you’re too tired to change default settings that allow for emoticons. I’m leaving it for now. It’s supposed to be an “8″.)

Mashup of Dorrough and Fela Kuti from Wallpaper. It’s OK for a few minutes but coulda used more Fela. You can get a wider canvas to judge for giving up your email address and getting a free download of Wallpaper’s new mixtape. Not a bad deal at all and if you’re concerned about privacy but don’t know how to unsubscribe, manage a spam filter and otherwise deal with actually having an email address then it’s time for you to leave the Internet.

MP3: Wallpaper-Dorrough+Fela Kuti

That’s good enough for now.

Enjoy!

Leaving A Trail For Me

By the time I was aware of  Merge Records the label was already two years old.

The point seems laughable because surely I can be forgiven my unawareness of a small label, no matter its proximity to Athens, back in the relative stone age of 1991. But, no matter. The album that clued me in was Superchunk’s No Pocky for Kitty and it wasn’t even on Merge Records. It was on Matador. 1991 was a shape-shifting year for me in many ways and No Pocky For Kitty was spun repeatedly daily in my basement apartment. I found out about Merge by heading into record stores (mainly the Athens Wuxtry locations) and searching out more from the band.

Merge seemed grown up from the get-go. That is, it seemed to have its act together. I also wasn’t completely cognizant at this point of how records really came together; for me, they still just happened. It says something, though, that Merge releases seemed dependable. I never imagined there wouldn’t be another new 7” next month or a new album by Superchunk each year. I’m pretty sure I even sent a demo from one of my old bands to Merge circa 1994 or so but I could be wrong. I sent out a lot of them and I still kind of shiver when I think that there may be someone out there as pack-ratty as me holding onto one of them.

But this is supposed to be a book review so ennui go, so to speak…

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records (The Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small) is, in no uncertain terms, gorgeous. It’s layout is clean, its photos crisp and its interviews seemingly exhaustive. At 320 pages it’s a surprisingly quick read if you want to blow through it but I didn’t. And that’s why I’m reviewing it almost a full three months after I received my copy of it. I read this slowly and only a few pages at a time. I needed to really sink my teeth into it. Or, rather, I wanted to do so.

In The Headphones

Elvis heals all wounds.

They Sure Looked Like Doves To Me

The stories surrounding the passing of Vic Chesnutt are getting more complicated and the tragedy keeps compounding as more details, which I will not go into here so don’t ask, are revealed. So many longtime friends and collaborators of Vic’s have written gorgeous, emotionally bare remembrances and tributes. A few sincerely choked me up.

Unlike a lot of you, I don’t remember the last time I saw Vic Chesnutt. But I do remember the first time I saw him.

And that’s what I want to talk about.

When I first moved to Athens I walked everywhere. I had a car but rarely used it. I was living in the then-all-male Russell Hall up near the peak of Baxter Hill. Wuxtry Records was across the street and Ruthless Records briefly operated a location next door to the bookstore on the same block so there were two record shops within a stones throw of my window. Downtown was quickly accessed by cutting down Finley Street through the Parkview Homes housing project and, once downtown, well, everything was there. The Downstairs, The Rockfish Palace, The 40 Watt on Clayton Street (now The Caledonia), The Potter’s House Thrift Store (now the 40 Watt), Herbie’s, the main locations of Wuxtry and Ruthless, Paul Thomas’s Spend Money Here, the original Go Clothing and a few other places that have slipped into the ether.

My roommate, a burly corn-fed guy named Steve Ritchie who worked in the meat department at the Alps Road Winn-Dixie and hated all my records save Elvis Costello, would regularly tell me “Gordon, you don’t need to be going downtown and seeing those bands every night.” His alternative for me was to stay in the dorm and drink smuggled beer with him and this guy that lived across the hall who played Eagles and Steve Miller records all the time. Now, Mr. Ritchie was a sincerely swell guy (no, for real, he was old-school Alpharetta country boy through and through; The cow-pasture and farmland Alpharetta that really existed once upon a time. The one no one knows about.) and we got along great even though to look at our room, with his Budweiser girl posters on one side and my Siouxsie & The Banshees posters on the other side would seem to witness otherwise. But as much as we got along, we were worlds apart in some ways. I did need to go see those bands every night.

The Mist And The March Of Time

(MP3 link fixed)
Do youremember what Christmas was like when you were a child? Your intangible excitement and its steady restlessness? At some point for me this gave way to cynicism and, many years later, this cynicism melted into thankfulness mixed with a yearning. A desire sprung from a place deeper, and less easily consoled, than seasonal melancholy. A return to the uncomplicated thoughts of childhood isn’t desirable anymore. It is a blessing and burden of adulthood to be charged with seeking meaning and permanence in a world so seemingly short of each. Children don’t need an excuse to wander their world innocently; men rarely have excuses good enough. Each man struggles with his own soul, as he must, and he always fights in private.

Every year John F. Deane’s “Driving To Midnight Mass On Christmas Eve” is imbued with additional meaning for me. I first read it over 20 years ago and, when I consider how much more it means to me now than it did then, I can’t help but feel it was pearls before swine in my teens. I’d like to think it’s not now.

Yes, Dear, But Is It Art?

It’s all manipulation of desire no matter the motivation or result.  What is the morality of manipulation?

The Calendar Year

In the fall of 1997 Kindercore Records was humming along quite nicely. Dan Geller and Ryan Lewis had been steadily putting out records for a little over a year and local enthusiasm for the label was high. While a fair amount of derision was present from the tough-guy, aggro rockers in town concerning K-Core’s self-consciously childlike aesthetic, the backlash from the indie pop crowd that was gradually migrating toward the Elephant 6 collective for its entertainment  had not yet happened. Funnily enough, the E-6 had been going steadily for several years at this point and these same kids (including many of my friends) could have been in on the ground floor with that one but, you know, no one likes to be first at the party. But the point here isn’t what was going to happen; it’s what was happening. So let’s carry on…

Ryan Lewis has always been the most enthusiastic atheist I’ve ever known concerning Christmas. He just loves it. So he had the idea for Kindercore to do a Christmas record and folks jumped at the chance to be on it. Since Ryan had previously been in my band A Mercy Union my first thought was to see if he’d include my proposed cover of Slade’s “Merry Christmas Everybody” but I pretty much knew he wouldn’t because our harder-edged Clash/Husker Du-influenced stuff didn’t mesh with the indie-pop stylings of K-Core. Besides, we didn’t even know the song. It was just an idea.

Ryan and I both worked at Wuxtry Records around this time and one day I asked him if I could do a solo-cover of Big Star’s “Jesus Christ” for the record. Well, he wasn’t gonna have any song mentioning Jesus Christ on his Christmas record so that was out. Then I had the notion to cover The Who’s “Christmas” from Tommy but that was mostly a pipe dream, as I knew I’d never get that done in short order. So I proposed I write and record my own song and he said he’d consider whatever I did. I knew there were gonna be submissions from Of Montreal (really just Dottie and Kevin) and The Olivia Tremor Control (who submitted a sheet of noise instead of an actual song) along with several others including a couple of “all-star” bands that formed just to be on the album.

This was still during the golden-age (my term) of the 4-track recorder. Although these little wonder-machines had been introduced to the consumer electronics market decades earlier the indie scene in the 1990’s was really enjoying their existence. Most of us had already had the experience of forming a band and going into a studio and spending several hundred dollars in order to produce a demo tape. The four-track liberated an entire creative class from this expense, for better and worse.

(Click through for the rest of the story, lyrics and MP3.)