Vegemite Bomb--What's Halloween in Australian? Scientists--Blood Red River 1982-1984

If You Want To Be Sad
Do It Somewhere Else

I've been putting up these posts for a little while now, and it just occurred to me that it has until now been a Scientists-free blog. That is about to change. I just found out that the reunited band performed at All Tomorrow's Parties in Monticello New York, their first New York gig ever only last month. I bet that they are still an awesome live band.
Originally the Scientists were a punk band from Perth, Australia that played a form of pop-punk. Some people are pretty dismissive of this lineup, possibly because of the contrast with their future musical directions. But I would disagree with the naysayers. That music of their first incarnation is compiled on the Pissed On Another Planet Cd, and I think the music is very good, in most cases great. In any event the band was not particularly well received and they split up in early 1981.

Later in the year things got interesting, as a new Scientists formed with a radically different sound. This was the celebrated classic lineup of Kim Salmon (vocals,guitar), Brett Rixon (drums), Boris Sujdovic (Bass),Tony Thewlis (guitar). This is an album more informed by bands like the Stooges and the Cramps. The music is sludgy swampy blues stomp, with Kim Salmon chanting like a demented preacher. There is a certain tendency I like about some of these great Australian Bands. I'm not sure if you call it having a chip on your shoulder, but it certainly may have been a response to swimming upstream, having to deal with people who had preconceived ideas about music. It's combative, like the Sex Pistols; don't like us? sod off. like us? ah, you, sod off too. We like what we do, and we don't care what anybody thinks. Punks have short hair? Well, then we'll grow our hair long and play punk. Like your music fast? Well we'll chug along at our own pace, thank you. Let's alienate everyone--maybe they'll get it someday. There is so many instances of pandering to tastes in the music industry; it's nice when you see people take risks, toss a few sacred cows in the blender. You can also witness this musical defiance with bands like The Saints and the Birthday Party. But these bands stuck to their guns and changed music forever.

Blood Red River is the first disc of a two disc Scientists anthology. For a long time this music was only available on vinyl. There was a greatest hits collection on long defunct Big Time Records called Weird Love, where they rerecorded their songs for the album. There was also a greatest hits collection, Absolute, which was released by Sub Pop in the US. But it was Sympathy For The Record Industry who did the job right, 29 songs all told. Because these guys are stylistically in the neighborhood of bands like the Detroit proto-punk bands, but musically and vocally, they are just to idiosyncratic to be anything but their own creature. For one thing, there is a tendency for bands to get more melodious as they mature, you play your instruments better and learn new tricks. But these guys got noisier and more abrasive, to the point where they made even the Stooges sound baroque in their later period. When I hear Kim Salmon croon and shout, I am reminded of Jim Thompson pulp novels, and 50's culture themes, dancing around a bonfire. And there is no kitsch factor here--it's all done with complete conviction, purposeful.

This collection start off with the electric anarchic Set It On Fire and proceeds off road from there into the remote wilderness. I feel like I'm driving down back roads when I hear this stuff--it's great music to drive around to. And in fact a lot of the songs have hot rod themes to them. They seem to have created their own Australian mythology here. Swampland is one of the monster tracks on this anthology. "In my heart, is a place called Swampland, nine parts water, one part sand..." Equally powerful is the bluesy testimony of When Fate Meets Its Mortal Blow. Nitro is like Bo Diddly meeting the Night Of The Living Dead.

We Had Love is another great Australian classic song, a truly manic love anthem with great riffs. A true antecedent to the Seattle grunge movement. Clear Spot is Scientist styled send up of a Captain Beefheart song. Revhead is an energetic high speed car chase of song, with a kinetic bassline. My personal favorite is This Is My Happy Hour, a grim Australian version of the Stooges No Fun. It always feels appropriate to listen to when I've had a less than pleasant day. The collection ends with the Crampsy Demolition Derby which is another exhilaratingly grinding lo-fi ranting mess.

You might get this album and think, what's so special about this? Well, this music came out 25 years ago and a lot of bands have followed in their footsteps. At the time, there was nothing to compare it to, really. If you are a fan of Grunge bands like Mudhoney or Green River, there is a whole lot to recommend here. Certainly comparisons can also be made with the Cramps and the mighty Gun Club. But this is music that has its own special style, its own singular lunacy, a mudslide trapped in a bottle. They seem to take that aesthetic to even greater extremes.One of my favorite Australian bands of all time. And I haven't even covered the second anthology The Human Jukebox 1984-1986 here, where things get even messier.

I Can't Help It; I'm The King!! Ambitious Lovers---Greed: No Não York

I love it when a plan comes together... Those were the inspirational words of Hannibal Smith the charismatic  leader of America's lovable 70's TV mercenaries the A-Team.

You Know The Damage You Do

I don't know if you have been to the phenomenon of a fusion restaurant. In America there have been a profusion of Pan-Asian Restaurants, where you can get some Chinese, Sushi & Hibachi, some Thai, maybe if you are lucky a few other things. They may be happening because restaurateurs think that a place serving solely Vietnamese or Thai cuisine would get not enough traffic from the locals to stay open. Or maybe the places are just too unfamiliar (Americans stink at geography) and they are worried they will have to eat armadillo brains or cockroaches. In any event, I find most of these lacking because they give you a little of this and that and it doesn't add up to much. Sometime I have been to restaurants that serve Mediterranean cuisine from Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, etc, and these seem to work a little better.

As long as they don't try to blend things together. As appetizing as it may sound on paper, when you try to mix and match different cuisines in one dish, there is usually a lot of failure. I think you need a true culinary genius as a chef to pull this off. The same principle goes for music, so when you see musical traditions blended together seamlessly in a unique and compelling way, you need to grab on to it. And The Ambitious Lovers pulled this ambitious feat off with a lot of panache. Greed, their second album has been a long time favorite in my household and is a wonderful blend of Brazilian pop music, punk rock, funk, and experimental noise courtesy of the duo of Arto Lindsay (vocal,guitar) and Peter Scherer (keyboards), with a panoply of guest musicians.

My personal view is that this was a visionary album, at the least ahead of its time, and is long overdue for rerelease in the US. When Ambitious Lovers were together I don't think there was much of a market for an album like this (1990), but today with the recognition and growing popularity of Brazilian music, I think our country is more than ready. It seems on this album Arto combined his collective experiences together and it all somehow melded together. He spent his formative years in Brazil during the time of the Tropicalia movement. Eventually he wound up in New York and was a guitarist in DNA, an experimental noise band that was included on the influential album No New York.

The first song Copy Me is a super funky jam that should have been a hit. Melodious and upbeat, but skronky noise interspersed throughout. The super bass playing of Melvin Gibbs (Rollins Band,Defunkt) propels this song along. Guitar polymath Vernon Reid plays rhythm on this little number. In a way on the uptempo numbers Arto Lindsay comes off like a cross between James Brown and Don Knotts and he sounds great. On the quiet numbers he has all the nuance and cadences of a great Brazilian singer, whether he is singing in Portuguese or not. But when he sings in Portuguese, it is simply sublime and sexy. Portuguese to me is one of the most beautiful languages, and in Brazil the use of space and rhythm sends it to another level entirely. When I first heard Brazilian music, I just didn't understand it at all, it was something that was completely alien to my background. Now I appreciate all its magic and beauty.

These qualities are in abundance on this album. Admit It is funky, erotic and flirtatious--It sounds like it was written in Portuguese and translated into English. It has that Brazilian feel to it. On some of the tracks there are massive amount of percussion, like the cocky booty shaking bounce of King. Arto crows on and on about being the master of the universe, but like in chess "A King can't beat a Queen". Then you have the beautiful ballad Para Nao Contririar Voce. Arto makes this sound deceptively simple, but I know that is surely impossible. The kinetic keyboard driven Quasi You is another high point on the album, with Lindsay testifying over the dance beat. Nana Vasconcelos is featured on percussion here and on many other tracks here.

Vernon Reid is prominent on another great track Love Overlap, which should have been the 2nd single in the US. The song is much in the style of Copy Me but with more synth, and it is another killer. Caso is another exquisite Portuguese ballad languidly crooned to perfection. Privacy is noise funk with rap vocals and a sweet screechy sax cameo by down jazz veteran John Zorn. "Privacy is My Poverty", Arto offers. The lyrics are fantastic on this album, at times so descriptive, at other times full of emotion, and more often than not wonderfully surreal. He is "working on a tan, in my fireplace" during Privacy. On Admit It, he croons "You're no exception, to the laws of symmetry". Tres Sexy.

And speaking of sexy....It Only Has To Happen Once is one of the sexiest songs ever. When you hear this song, the humidity in the room approaches 100%. "All it takes, is a quick constellation, of shadows, lashes and implication...", Wow. Definitely one of my personal favorites. Great lyrics, equally great delivery with a heartbeat rhythm. I originally bought this on vinyl and I taped this album onto cassette for my car. I think I accidently stepped on a cord during this song as I was recording and the heartbeat cuts out for a fraction of a second. And it gives the song an eerie yet amazing moment, one that registers with us as humans, like when you hear the vibrato of a violin in a live setting. It's not easy to describe.

I can't be more adament in my esteem for this record. On so many levels this is great. It's one thing to admire a band like the Len Price 3--I mean wouldn't it be great if they found another Who album from the 60's in the vaults that nobody knew about? But this kind of album walks a tightrope of styles and is on a completely different level artistically. If you are someone like me, who appreciates a gamut of musical styles and gets real pleasure out of inventiveness and creativity, you need music like this. Americans are driving hybrids these days, why not listen to one?

This video is for my buddy, also known as The Man Who Would Be King...Of Brazil!! It's his imaginary theme song, he just doesn't realize it yet. 

Stay Thirsty My Yankees



Ken Nordine on a Bender??10 Days Until Halloween--Dead Bolt---Shrunken Head--

Some People Try To Know Us.......

Deadbolt is one macabre band. I found out about them by accident. I was in Phoenix Az browsing through the bins at a Zia Music branch. The store clerk obviously was a big fan of San Diego's "Scariest Band in the World," as I got to hear a lot of Deadbolt. Finally I went up to him and asked, "what the hell is this stuff?" So the clerk clued me in. I had never heard music quite like this. It was quite odd. I guess Deadbolt calls this music "Voodoobilly". I can't help but reference Ken Nordine's Word Jazz as a musical template when I hear this. But with crazy shit instead of whimsical humorous reflections.
So I picked up one of their albums, probably Hobo Babylon. Today however, I am featuring Shrunken Head. This is pretty darkly humorous stuff. Singing and on Bass is Harley Davidson. RA Maclean plays bass and Les Vegas is the drummer. Singing is probably exaggerating--Davidson is more of a narrator or tale spinner over a backdrop of a variety of musical genres. The songs are heavily influenced by old B-movies and horror films. Some songs are dark surf, like Shrunken Head or El Sadistico. The music is almost a loungier version of the Dead Kennedys. Some of the songs are bluesier like Voodoo Doll. You Don't Know Me is psychotic rockabilly. Some songs sound like a 50's educational film gone wrong, like the gone-postal tale Zip Code.

This is a good Halloween album, but it has its drawbacks. There isn't a lot of variety of songs, the songs sort of lurch into one another and there isn't much variation in tempo or volume. But if you are into what they do, or are a fan of The Gun Club, or The Cramps, their music could become pretty addictive. And luckily for Deadbolt fans, there is no shortage of material for them to check out. And as they are currently on tour, you might even have the opportunity to check them out live.

It Was Seven Years Ago Today....Elliott Smith--Roman Candle remastered

You Cast Your Shadow Everywhere

One morning I was at work, tapping away at a computer. My friend Paul sits down across from me and says, "too bad about Elliott Smith".

"What?" was my confused reply.

"Didn't you hear? He died yesterday."

I almost keeled over--what a terrible shame. It felt like a kick to the stomach. This was a musician who was only beginning to show his talents to the world. I knew that he had his share of demons, but this was just so premature, so wrong.

Let me get away from all of that though. It's better to remember the positive things, which is why so many people admire Elliott Smith as an artist. I am not a believer in that musical saw that depression and dependencies create great music. The two things can go hand in hand. In the song Baby Britain he talks about "fighting problems with bigger problems". When you think of all the talented people in the musical world who have become casualties of heroin, you realize how unglamorous and stupid heavy drug abuse can be. It's not funny at all, and it's even sadder when people imitate the vices of their musical idols rather than their great virtues. I suppose it's an easier road for some to follow. But I don't want to stereotype here--we are talking about a thoughtful, smart, funny,gifted person here who accomplished a lot, not a person who was always sad or a 24-7 casualty of the music business. So let's try to remember the artist who brought joy to a lot of peoples lives.

I was first introduced to Elliott Smith's work early on in his career, by another lucky stroke. I was in Portland Oregon, attending a friend's wedding. It was my first time there, and there were a lot of things I liked about the town. Good food, good beer, a lot of parks. The last day in Portland I was wandering around downtown by myself. I wandered into Bookman's massive book store, which was the largest bookstore (it may have been a whole block) I had ever seen in my life. I remember buying Sandro of Chegem, by the Abhazian author Fazil Iskander there that day. I also indulged my musical addictions--I picked up a few items in 2nd Street Records, and then wound up in some nearby music store (whose name escapes me) where they only sold music from the Pacific Northwest--punk,polka, classical, you name it. A very cool type of store that I had randomly walked into.

After some browsing, I went up to the cashier and asked him if there was any local music that he could recommend, and I emphasized that I was interested in finding music that I might not have heard of in New York. I caught him a little by surprise, but he soon recovered and said, "well, there's this new album by Elliot Smith, it's my favorite record right now". And he put their only copy on, and I knew I needed this. It was like a very dark Simon and Garfunkel recorded in somebodies basement. From that moment on, I was a huge proponent of his music. And my regard of his musical ability increased with each subsequent release. He expressed other facets of his muse and explored new ideas along the way, and created ultimately a substantive body of work.

Headlights Burning Bright Ahead Of You

Roman Candle is a lo-fi four track recording recorded in a basement, but that does not detract from the quality of the songs. There is an intimacy and quiet immediacy in these recordings--an obvious musical precedent would be Nick Drake's solo quiet masterpiece Pink Moon. I don't want to make to much of this--my comparison has to do with music, not their unhappy fates. Certainly Elliott had a lot of musical influences, like the Beatles, Kinks, Bob Dylan, Love, The Zombies, but many of them are not so evident to me at this point. Neil Young acoustic work is also a reference point here. But like any real artist, his took his influences and made them his own, just as he did when he performed covers in concert. He was no mere imitator. The music was a gateway for his own singular personality and ideas.

For what was supposedly a series of demos, this is a strong album. Roman Candle was recently remastered and rereleased on the Kill Rock Stars label. Larry Crane of Jackpot! Studios and the found of the amazing TapeOp Magazine (if you are interested in the art of recording music this is a necessary subscription) did the remastering work, which was cleaning up the background noise and sounds of Elliott's fingers sliding up and down the strings. Roman Candle is the opener and it is a brooding reflective song with angry frustration simmering just below the placid surface. It sound like a song he might have used in Heatmiser (the band Elliott was in at the time,) with the grungy guitar on low volume, bleeding out into the background.

By the time I had heard the second song for the first time in Portland, I was hooked. Condor Ave is the song that comes to mind first when this album is mentioned. It reminds me most of Simon and Garfunkel of his songs, but the lyrics are really what makes this song so wonderful. It has a flow like a short story and plenty of evocative imagery. I can see the song while I listen to it. "Someones burning out on Condor Avenue, trying to make a whisper out of you." If anybody thinks this was a formative phase in his songwriting, they really need to look at his lyrics, and take into account that this was not a studio recording. He may have branched into different directions, but his songwriting skills were strong from the start.

The only song on here that doesn't grab me is Drive All Over Town, it's okay but it falls a little flat. It reminds me of an old folk song where the guy with no conscience dupes the girl. The album has 4 of his "No Name" tunes, and they are all pretty memorable--if the songs had real names they would probably be someones pseudonym. They feel like character portraits of real people. #1 is an upbeat song with a sad undercurrent. The main character seems to be leaving a dead and moving on to a better place with new found hope. #2 is what are doing with your life song (or what aren't you doing), a recurrent theme in Smith's songbook. #3 is an ironic tune, with the quiet acoustic guitar and sweet crooning belying the grim circumstances. The song is quiet because there is secrecy, sweeping problems under the rug. "So, come on night", he sings. #4 sounds pretty autobiographical, thought I don't really know for sure. It's about a bad situation and trying to deal with by excising it from your life, but unfortunately you can never really forget.

The album's last track (the spaghetti western/twangy instrumental Kiwi Maddog 20/20 seems more like a coda), Last Call is an epic angry spiel, yet somehow sympathetic. I think in Elliott's view, people you care for (or don't care for) do stupid things, self-destructive irrational things, but ultimately there isn't anything you can do. They are going to follow their own path. You can only hope they can wise up, get a little clarity, and find a better place. His songs almost seem like watching a car accident in slow motion. Some great lyrics here, "all you aspired to do was endure, you can't ask for more (ask for more)", "I'll sing the praises of my maker's name, like I was as good as she made me."

It ends with great intensity with a mantra, "I wanted her to tell me that she would never wake me", which fades out. It reminds me of Elvis Costello's song I Want You, where the title phrase is chanted over and over to powerfully chilling affect. So, Elliott, I salute you on this sad day. I wish it was not under these circumstances. But ultimately I think that the rest of the world is going to catch on to your artistry. Because as far as modern songwriters go, you had few peers.

On November 2, the compilation An Introduction to Elliott Smith is being released on Kill Rock Stars, a single disc which covers his entire solo career. For people unfamiliar with his music it would probably be the best place to start. Just understand that you would only be scratching the surface.

So I Meet You at the Cemetery Gates---Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book--11 Days until Halloween

Keats and Yeats Are On Your Side

I have been a fan of Neil Gaiman's books since I read his short story collection Smoke and Mirrors. But as Halloween approaches nearer by the minute, I wanted to say a little bit about one of his recent works, the children's novel Graveyard Book. It's a book that I enjoyed reading and one that I already have given to several people as gifts. Last year it was the recipient of the prestigious Newbery Medal for best children's literature.

It makes for a creepy Halloween tale. The story is about Nobody Owens, a boy who is brought up by the denizens of a cemetery after his family was murdered when he was an infant. The idea of the story was based upon Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. In that book, a young boy was raised by jungle animals. In Nobody's case, he is raised by the spirits of the departed. His guardian Silas is able to provide for him in ways the ghosts cannot, as he is a being able to travel between the worlds of the living and the dead. In a lot of ways this book also reminds me of a lot of the boys adventure series' that I read in childhood like Hardy Boys or Robert Louis Stevenson.

Nobody encounters many varied interesting individuals as he grows to adulthood. One of the things that I enjoy about this book is that Nobody gets to meet and have conversations with people from many periods in history, something that almost anyone has wished they could do. And it is ironic that a forbidding and sad place like a graveyard could provide a loving and nurturing environment for a young boy. But the unusual situation works well for him. His adventures in the confines of the cemetery over the years provide him with life lessons, and as he matures, he is increasingly in contact with the world of the living, which at first is a bit of a curiosity to him. After all, ordinary life would seem strange to someone like Nobody. But as he goes beyond the safe confines of his childhood, he becomes ever more visible to the assassin who he evaded as an infant...

Overall, I thought this was a pretty interesting children's book. And with all the ghosts and ghouls, and other fictitious beings inhabiting the pages, I couldn't help but mention this in a Halloween post. The beginning part might be a little hard going for younger children, but it does set the table for the rest of the novel. It is also a good read for grownups. So if you get a chance take a look at the Graveyard Book. Or the terrific Neverwhere, or American Gods, Fragile Things, Anansi Boys, his Sandman series or of course Coraline.

This Monkey's Gone To Anadolu--Mustafa Okzent Orkestrasi's Genclik Ile Elele--

Operators Are Standing By

This is an interesting 70's album from Turkey, reissued on the amazing collectors label Finders Keepers. If you are looking to hear exotic and eccentric music from all over the world, this is a great label to investigate. They have been reissuing a lot of things like rare psychedelic soundtracks and samplers of obscure music from places like Spain, Hungary and Wales. Check out the website and you'll probably find something to pique your curiosity.

The album I am featuring today is an instrumental album by the Mustafa Ozkent Orkestrasi. When I saw the monkey featured on the cover I knew I had to own this. My rule of thumb is usually if a monkey is on the cover, it's gotta be good. In this case it paid off; I wasn't as lucky with the Grandma's Boy Dvd. Actually the movie was a decent comedy, but when I saw the movie trailer with the kung fu chimpanzee I was pretty stoked. Unfortunately the movie turned out to be a bit of a letdown in the monkey department. Hopefully there will more chimp karate action in the directors cut of the film. But back to Finders Keepers.

There are liner notes, but there isn't a lot to say. The music is like a mix of Booker T and the MGs and a Blaxploitation movie soundtrack, with jazzy organ, clipped rhythm guitar, fuzzed out leads, and a lot of funk. The bass playing is phenomenal. Great breaks to sample for hip hop. It sounds great to me: if I close my eyes when I listen to this I imagine that a 70's detective show like Barretta will be on television when I open them. Definitely a good sound track for a road trip. Apparently prior to this reissue this album was a very rare item. But now it is easily available for you, thanks to the dogged determination of the Finders Keepers group.

For a lot of Americans, Turkish music is not well known. I am listening to some Turkish artists right now like Ersen, Selda, Baris Manco, Edip Bakaryan, Mogollar, Erkin Koray, Bunalim and Fikret Kizilok and I mostly like what I am hearing. There are also comps of 60's and 70's material like Have Narghile and Turkish Freakout. I also have the DVD Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul which is a nice introduction. I would not be surprised if Turkish rock becomes a lot more popular, just as Brazilian music did in the US a while back. While there are elements familiar to the ear, there is definitely a lot going on that is coming from their own cultural heritage. They definitely bring the funk plus a lot of traditional middle eastern song stylings. I can't say I really know very much about the current musical scene there right now. Duman seems like they might be a pretty good alternative band.

But if you like funky instrumental music, Genclik Ile Ellele may be just what you are looking for. For god's sake, there's a monkey on the cover!!!!

The Injustice Of Our Dreams--Calexico--Convict Pool ep and Live In Tarrytown 10/29/2008

Live Skull

About 2 years ago I saw Calexico perform at the Tarrytown Music Hall in New York. I suppose you could lump them under the vague banner "alternative country", but I think that they occupy their own unique space in popular music, in the same way a band like Sigur Ros does. At the last minute I broke down and got a ticket and I was not disappointed. It was one of the better shows I have seen in Tarrytown. The Music Hall is a very nice venue right in the middle of downtown, surrounded by a substantial number of good to excellent choices for a pre-show dinner. They were still renovating the 19th century interior the last time I was there, but the sound quality is always superb there, due to the sound people or the acoustics of the hall--most likely both.

Calexico hail from Tucson, Arizona and their music is basically dreamy Southwestern desert-influenced Soundtrack music. More specifically, their are elements of Mexican mariachi music, Country, Chamber Music, Punk, Polka, Psychedelia, Jazz, Experimental, Fifties music, Folk, French Chanson, Morricone, Dream Pop. You name it, it's probably here. The founding members of the band are Joey Burns on vocals and guitar, and John Convertino on drums/percussion. These days the permanent band includes Paul Niehaus on steel guitar, Jacob Valenzuela and Martin Wenk on trumpet and keyboards, and Volker Zander on bass. Burns and Convertino did stints in Giant Sand and Friends of Dean Martinez prior to their current band. When I saw them in Tarrytown, their most recent album Carried To Dust had recently come out.

The show was stellar. I was amazed at how much ground such a small group of musicians could cover, and have the music performed without a hitch. Some of the music is extremely subtle, and at time extremely complex. Joey Burns is a talented guitarist and somewhat of a subtle and enigmatic showman. He can quietly croon, or belt one out of the park. Here in Westchester, patrons to show are polite to a fault, and I think that they were at a loss as to how they should behave. Part of you feels like you should be cheering, clapping along to the music, and another part of you wants to watch the music unfold before you quietly awestruck. I think Burns thought we were a bunch of duds. He started telling some bizarre anecdote as a preface to a song from their new album that had to do with the giant pine tree shaped cell phone towers we have in New York. He anticipated some sort of reaction, either humor or knowing recognition, but everyone was baffled. We didn't know what he was babbling about, and that seemed to piss him off, in a "why am I bothering with you dopes" vein, and then broke off into the song. Despite all that they were wonderful. The band is extremely professional and did amazing musical feats on stage.

John Convertino is one of those special musicians. There a lot of drummers, but a really great one is a game changer. He is like the MacGyver of percussionists. He has a teeny tiny drum set, but he gets it done in a way that another drummer with some ostentatious kit could never accomplish. I think he could probably do a


 yeoman's job with bread sticks and a Dixie cup. He drives the shuttle, in my opinion, like a Levon Helm, George Hurley, or Glenn Kotche, and in doing so makes everything around him that much better and interesting. I am as guilty as anybody of ignoring the merits of percussion, but even I can see that without his steady hand on the beat, Calexico would not be the vibrant dreamy visionary group that uncannily channels and taps into some primal wellspring of our North American collective consciousness. Then again, maybe it's just all about old movies.





Volvierdo El Mar en Infierno!

 
I also wanted to talk about the Convict Pool ep in this post. Calexico albums are consistently superb, but there are some specific reason why I decided to profile this disc. For one thing, it is a less subtle starting point for new listeners. Secondly, the diversity shown on the discs gives you a good idea of who these guys are and what they capable of. The first track is a cover of Love's massive Alone Again Or, from their essential 60's album Forever Changes. They do a nice version here, with a little more emphasis on the horns, and it is an example of where these guys are at, at the confluence of California and Mexico. Bryan MacLean's masterpiece combines pop music and folk with mariachi horns to great effect. Alone Again Or could be a mission statement for Calexico.

The second song is a wistfully cinematic Dustbowl folk ballad Convict Pool. Acoustic guitar playing with a thunderstorn advancing. Si Tu Disais combines Chanson with Ennio Morricone--the song cadence and lyrics actually sounds like it could be an Elliot Smith tune. When I hear a song with this kind of intricate construction I can only imagine how much work went into piecing it all together so seamlessly.

The third song is their version of the Minutemen's classic stomping Mexican Polka, Corona. More commonly identified as Theme To Jackass. And to the uninitiated, yes, there are vocals to this song. And yes, go out right now and buy Double Nickles On The Dime if you don't own it. The Minutemen are definitely on the required syllabus for Punk Rock 101. On this disc, Calexico is taking the song and bringing it back to Mexico, redoing the track in energetic traditional mode.

The penultimate track is a majestic rollicking Eastern European accordion romp, Praskovia. In some ways it reminds me of Raymond Scott or something from a Disney soundtrack. The final song is a hard driving, hip shaking south of the border song Sirena. The most noticeable qualities are the lyrics, they seem to be getting at a translation of a certain type of demeanor, a profound romantic melancholy, which is a common theme in Mexican popular music. Of course the twin trumpet attack here is glorious.

Another great starting off point is the World Drifts In (Live At The Barbican London) DVD, where Calexico starts out as a duo, then moves to a full band, and ultimately is augmented with a french singer and a full Mariachi Orchestra. Much like the celebrated Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads. The sound quality and cinematography are first rate, and you get more songs and a little taste of the live experience. A special treat is the lead mariachi, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ralph Kramden of the Honeymooners televsion series. Even though these guys are not at all under appreciated, I think that people really need to recognize Calexico as one of the most creative groups performing today, musicians who are following their own special muse. Art at the highest level, I say.