Nashville Skyline



Speant a night in Nashville, saw a little country (rockabilly) on broadway, and speant a lot of time in traffic driving back. Nashville seemed pretty fun, maybe I'll get back some time.

Is NOLA Still Under Water?



Well yes, and no. I last week's brief stay I was only ever in the parts of New Orleans that had never been severely affected by Katrina and her aftermath, that is downtown and the French Quarter. These areas were business as usual. But there was improvement over when I was last in the city last fall. It used to be the case that when you drove over the canal on I-10 (the major highway into the city) you immedeately saw lingering damage in the form of watermarks and strikingly thousands of abandoned cars. The cars have finally been moved and the wtermarks are being painted over. There also used to be huge piles of garbage nearby that are no longer visible. So now you could truly travel into the city, stay a few days and leave without knowing the reckoning that took place.

But it is my understanding that there are still very large areas of the town that appear to be untouched since the storm, which underlines the magnitude of what happened - we are almost a year past the disaster.

I heard an interersting conversation about people buying properties cheap in Lakeview, fixing the houses and selling them at huge profits. I found this bewildering, not on the part of the developers, but that the market would have buyers for exepnsive houses right on a faulty levee. The person talking had a line that went something like this: the government (the administration and the army Corps of engineers who build levees) was so embarrassed by what happened after Katrina that they will build impenatrable levees before the next major storm hits the area. This seems like a dubious proposition. I'm not sure such levees can be built and if they can the government has not yet demonstrated that to the point that that I'd be willing to bet my financial well being on it. But then again, New Orleans attracts a different kind of folks.

till next time.

Let's bring back the blog ok? I will be travelling a lot soon so then this will live up to it's name but for now lets talk about some records.


Bring back O'rourke

The new (ok so it's not that new anymmore) Sonic Youth is a decent record, but doesn't quite live up to the hype. You have to envy a band like SY sometimes because they can put out somthing very basic, that sounds like outtakes from 15 years ago and get good reviews for it. And you also have to admire the way they can get away with really dumb lyrics and still be considered a smart band:

Sleepin around. All over town. What will the neighbors say? ... what you did was wrong... nuthin you did was right. always end up in a fight.

That's just bad. Did I mention I've been reading a lot of reviews? The basic story line goes like this... After a decent string of records following their late 80s brilliance they had definitively lost their way w/ NYC Ghosts and Flowers, a noise and ambiance record that completely jettisoned the pop song format. There was no real singing, no verse/chorus structure and very few riffs. So they were written off, they had after 20 years decended back into the NY experimental noise morrass from whence they came. Then a couple years later they put out Murray St. Now I didn't think it was all that good of a record, they brought the pop songs back but left plenty of noise in. My problem was that the songs weren't that good and that there were only 7 of them (and one of those was a Free Kitten throwaway*). And I thought I remembered the critics at the time not liking it any more than may. But reading them now, I either had a false recollection or they have been rehabbed, because now it is agreed that Murray St. is brilliant. And then comes Sonic Nurse. I loved that one but critcs say it almost lived up to Murray St. It is a real album, it shows growth, there are several new and good sounds that Sonic Youth had never shown before in their 20+ years, like the classic Unmade Bed (a great bass line, Steve Shelley at his best, Thurston's voice actually working) I love You Golden Blue (meaningful ambiance) and even Peace Attack.

But the new record is a "return to rock". One persistent "compliment" is something along the lines of "what it used to take them seven minutes to do they can now do in 3.5" What? Why? This is Sonic Youth we are talking about. Is there some known quantity of songy goodness that a band has to give you and then leave as soon as possible? Should everyone be the Minutemen? So all those songs that were longer than 3.5, that was just amatuer filler that they have finally learned to cut out? I'm a sucker for loving all 4:37 of Schizophrenia? The 6:37 of Teenage Riot**? And those are tight songs, this is leaving aside spacey but good stuff like Expressway to yr Skull or Diamond Sea. Sonic Youth do not get credit for recording short songs.

On top of that several of the songs here have incongrous riffs butted together. it's almost as if SY knew the mad props they would get ofr short songs and cut out all of the stuff that might make the music make sense. But as it is it feels cut and paste.
Take the Nuetral. I love the light and airy opening riff, but then it's butted to this very generic grimey rock riff. It's not helped by embarrasing lyrics: "Close your eyes and lose the rest...close yr mind and feel the best".

What a waste? Exactly.

The only new sound here is Do you believe in Rapture which is cute and all but neither a song that you want to listen to repeatedly nor one that works with the album. And Lee has the worst song here, Rats, which while not the Pearl Jam cover you fear, might leave you wishing it was.

Say something nice? I don't hate it, it's enjoyable. It's Sonic Youth you could play at a non tightly screened barbeque. I like Incinerate and Turqouise Boy a lot.


* I say this as a Free Kitten fan. But you know people could say "tell me the difference between Free Kitten and when Kim sings?" there used to be an easy demonstrable difference, but Plastic Sun just sounds like mediocre Free Kitten.

** I guess you could cut the inro, but I'm keeping it.