M. Brianna Stallings

Through the Night

payal — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

I worked for four years in an independent record store. For those unfamiliar with what said environment might be like day in and day out, I would seriously suggest taking in High Fidelity. Read the novel by Nick Hornby or watch the film starring John Cusack; either way, you’ll get the idea. Like the characters, my co-workers and I did really stand around all day grousing about music—that is, of course, when we weren’t bemoaning our romantic fates and/or scanning the teeming crowd of shoppers for possible thieves.

It was during one such conversation with a highly opinionated co-worker and lifelong musician that the subject of the Shins’ debut album, Oh, Inverted World came up. Said co-worker obstinately resisted the pervasive cultural tide that was singing its praises, instead saying he thought the album was like cotton candy—something light and fluffy that requires a special sleight of hand to make it turn out just right, but entirely without substance. Sadly, this is also an apt description for singer, songwriter, and producer Jesse Harris’ latest release, Through the Night.

Harris’ Achilles heel is revealed right out of the gate: it’s in his delivery. Best known for being the award-winning songwriter behind Norah Jones’ debut album, the runaway success Come Away with Me, Harris has worked with an eclectic assortment of other artists, including Bright Eyes, Lisa Loeb, Madeleine Peyroux, Joshua Radin, and Solomon Burke. He’s a gifted intelligent lyricist and producer with a warm, gently nasal voice, both of which are used to perfectly serviceable effect on this album. Honestly, he seems like the pop musician Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) has always dreamed of being, and might have been, had Cuomo not listened to all that metal in the garage.

Unfortunately, Harris seems to favor high production value over singing with sincerity. He sounds emotionally disconnected from songs that, by their very nature, command some sort of emotional resonance. His is a concentrated polish that, in a perverse twist of musical logic, manages to strip that sought-after emotional connection away with layer upon layer of sound. The end result is schmaltz in favor of soul.

There are exceptions, of course. The lead-in rhythm on “Till You Drop” has a jaunty gallop to it, and the squeaky ape-like noises on the fadeout at the end make this otherwise Beatles-esque pop song sound odd in a good way. “It’s a Long Way Just to Say Hello” and “Dream of the Past” gently skirt poignancy yet still resonates with me. “All Day All Night” has a nice palate-cleansing bossa nova sound.

Overall, though, this is Starbucks music. Through The Night might have been interesting had it been released several decades ago. As it stands now, though, it just sounds like something a baby boomer would put on in the background during brunch, or while dusting the tchotchkes in the living room on cleaning day.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, March 16th 2011

Two

mandy — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By The Chapin Sisters

Lake Bottom Records

I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that the ability to write a catchy pop song is a hereditary trait, in addition to being a skill developed over time. That definitely seems to be the case with Los Angeles sister duo Chapin Sisters. Their lineage is chock full of singer-songwriters, including their father, Tom Chapin, and their more well-known uncle, the late Harry Chapin, who wrote and performed “Cat’s In the Cradle.” With their self-produced second full-length release, fittingly titled Two, the Chapin Sisters prove themselves to be worthy predecessors, albeit ones in need of a bit more practice.

The pair has keen ears and seem to know something about what can make pop music truly transcendent. Remember a couple of years back, when it seemed like every indie artist and her mother was covering the Gnarls Barkley hit “Crazy?” That’s because the song had a great beat with familiar yet poignant lyrics—a winning combination for any pop classic. Similarly, the Chapin Sisters were one of many groups in the mid-aughts to cover a song made famous by Britney Spears. They first garnered a bit of buzz in 2006, with their heavenly slowcore folk version of Spears’ “Toxic.”

Abigail and Lily share duties on songwriting, as well as vocals, guitars, keyboards, and percussion; separately, Lily is on banjo and Abigail plays the flute. The album also features performances from Louis Stephens of Rooney (with whom The Chapin Sisters have recently toured), and Jesse Lee and Josh Diamond of New York experimental band Gang Gang Dance. The lyrics are chock full of sweet deceptively simple language, and often skirt that very fine line between effortlessly crafted enduring pop and too-familiar schmaltz. Every song seems to start out basic, with either just voices or sparse instrumentation, then starts to build up, taller and bigger with more sound – more horns, more percussion, more harmonies. It works well, so long as you choose to block out the fact that almost every song is following that formula.

Despite Two having been recorded in the New Jersey woods, there is a very Fleetwood Mac quality to The Chapin Sisters. Let me explain: Fleetwood Mac started as a British blues/folk band then, with the addition of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, became known as the quintessential California band. As with The Mac, The Chapin Sisters combine tight harmonies, traditional British folk sounds, a vaguely haunted aesthetic and a gentle airiness. Excellent examples include “Sweet Light,” “Paradise,” and “Palm Tree.” Meanwhile, “Digging a Hole” sounds less Nicks-style “Gypsy” and more genuine world-music-style gypsy. The flute is put to good use on this track, which sounds like it should be sung around a campfire.

Overall, the songs on Two are the sort that make you want to stand in a the middle of a field or dark concert hall while wearing a long skirt that you grab at the corners as you swish and sway in place, set adrift on the ocean of sound.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, March 4th 2011

1,000 Years

mandy — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:00:00 +0000

By The Corin Tucker Band

Kill Rock Stars

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Corin Tucker has been actively involved in music since the early 1990s when, as a teenager, she launched the riot grrrl band Heavens to Betsy. Around the same time, Carrie Brownstein was heading up queercore outfit Excuse 17. Eventually the two joined forces to form Sleater-Kinney in 1994.

Drummer Janet Weiss (Quasi) jumped on board with the 1997 album Dig Me Out. During their career, Sleater-Kinney released seven albums to ever-increasing critical acclaim—they were named “America’s best rock band in 2001 by “Time” Magazine—before it all came to a screeching halt with their declaration of an “indefinite hiatus” in 2006. I was one of the many fortunate souls to attend one of their last two concerts at McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom in Portland, OR that August; it was easily the best show of my life.

Since then, we die-hard Sleater-Kinney fans have gobbled up whatever scraps these three have tossed our way. Weiss continues to work with Quasi, and has also been behind the drum kit of Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks. Brownstein has been all over the place. She wrote the NPR music blog Monitor Mix and joined up with Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) to form the comedy duo Thunder.Ant; the two will star in the IFC original series Portlandia, starting this month. She and Weiss have also hooked up with Mary Timony (Helium) and Rebecca Cole (The Minders) to form the band Wild Flag.

And Corin Tucker? In the midst of Sleater-Kinney, she married filmmaker Lance Bangs and had her first child. Post-band-breakup, she had a second child, then started working on new songs. This led to the formation of The Corin Tucker Band and the release of 1,000 Years on Kill Rock Stars, one of her alma mater labels. Tucker claims that 1,000 Years is a “middle-aged mom record.” In my opinion, it both isn’t and is.

It’s not an overt “mother album,” replete with songs about the transformative power of motherhood. There are hints at that, with lyrics on the title track like “who is that zombie/that is wearing Mama’s clothes?” Still, this is musical territory that has already been well-covered by other artists (including Sleater-Kinney, with album tracks and B-sides from 2002’s One Beat). Conversely, this is a “mom record,” insofar as it reflects the stereotypically more mellow—or at least more exhausted—stance of the middle-aged working mother.

Tucker is notorious for her astounding voice, known in operatic terms as a “spinto soprano” or a “dramatic soprano.” It was put to ferocious use in Sleater-Kinney, a band whose music addressed such topics as domestic violence, music industry sexism, and American politics. That vocal power rears its head only once on 1,000 Years, smack-dab in the middle of the album with the single “Doubt.” When Tucker belts out the line “Break up with the boogie/break up with the beat/but I just can't forget what it means to me/I tried, I tried/but I couldn't leave,” we hear that passionate devotion to her craft, and for a split second, share in what feels like her triumphant return.

Prior to and after that moment, however, a kinder gentler Tucker prevails. Overall, her voice could be characterized as a sweetly tamed keening. These songs exemplify lush, folksy, indie rock, full of handclaps and woodblocks, sleigh bells and string sections, with just a hint of psychedelia in the guitars. Personal favorites include “Half A World Away,” with a rhythm that sounds like Cut-era Slits, mid-career Raincoats, or The English Beat; and “Pulling Pieces,” perhaps the most telling track on the album aside from “Doubt.” There’s a bittersweetness to “Pulling Pieces,” especially with lyrics like “Tell me why did you close the door?/I can’t get in to where I’m supposed to go/I’m just a shadow of what I used to be.” I really wish I didn’t agree.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, January 10th 2011

Raise Your Glass

brittany — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Pink

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

It's one of the most famous film quotes in history, delivered with maudlin aplomb by Ali MacGraw's character Jennifer in the 1970 tearjerker Love Story. Millions of people made that film (and the novel upon which it was based) a tremendous success, and millions of people ate up that saccharine platitude. Well, y'know what? I am calling bullshit. To me, love does not mean never having to say you're sorry. It means seeing clearly the flaws inherent in the object of your affection—and still embracing them, precisely because of those flaws.

With all of this in mind, I love the music of Alecia Moore, better known as pop singer Pink. Specifically, I love Pink's stripe of brand-name braggadocio and the many pitfalls inherent in such a mixed bag. Her schizophrenic "non-pop star pop star" shtick is so integral to her image that she should trademark it. Music journalist Sasha Frere-Jones directly addresses this conundrum in "Sass and Cadence," an incisive (at times scathingly so) piece from the Nov. 24, 2008 issue of The New Yorker: "Pink’s being Pink depends on our believing that she has escaped some sort of assembly-line purgatory." She is a safe provocateur, a radio-friendly rebel, a vicious viper stripped of venom.

This attitude is exemplified in Pink's latest single, "Raise Your Glass," an anthemic Billboard Top 10 hit from the collection Greatest Hits... So Far!!! The single was released on Pink's website October 6, and made available for download the next day. It's been all over Top 40 radio, hypnotizing listeners with its ridiculously catchy lyrics: "So raise your glass if you are wrong/in all the right ways/All my underdogs/we will never be never be/anything but loud/and nitty gritty dirty little freaks."

The video soon followed, released November 2nd on MTV. In keeping with her well-established video aesthetic, "Raise Your Glass" is fairly illustrative of the song lyrics, laced with Pink's self-deprecating sense of humor, and full of imagery the mainstream media is all too happy to characterize as "shocking" and "controversial." Normally, I would scoff at such labeling, thinking it an oversimplification. However, that's not the case this time out. "Raise Your Glass" is a highly contentious video, and I have a tremendously complicated response to it.

Some of the vignettes in the video ring true. For example, Pink performs at a gay wedding. Pink is a proud LGBT ally who has spoken openly of her gay following, her youthful days spent dancing at gay bars, and her own queer experiences. I can also buy her taking down a matador the same way matadors kill a bull, with multiple swords brutally jabbed into the body. Pink is a vegetarian and an animal rights activist who has lent her voice and/or visage to a variety of PETA campaigns. Some of the video's images are even touching, such as a fat girl knocking over a cardboard cutout of a judgmental woman, then chowing down on a corn dog, and a tearful woman of color decked out in a cap and gown on her graduation day. I cry every time I see this.

The most intentionally controversial scene starts with Pink in a bed with a holy man, her goblet empty as she holds a sheet over her breasts and waits for the next cleric (among many in line) to join her in the sack. Get it? She's getting endlessly screwed by organized religion—some might argue, like every other woman on the planet. As the video progresses, she is shown weeping after two such gents, then happily thanking Heaven for getting to shag a Catholic nun. I was unperturbed by this scene. If anything, I found it hilarious.

My biggest problem was when Pink tried to present herself as some kind of proletariat warrior, in a sumo match against a stereotypical fat cat robber baron three times her size, facing off in a ring with a dollar sign on the ring's floor. Love her or not, I feel as though a reality check is in order here. Pink is an internationally renowned superstar ranked in the top thirty as one of the most powerful celebrities in the world on the Forbes Magazine's Top 100 Celebrities list. Her reported net worth is over $40 million. Billboard Magazine lists her as the number one Pop Song Artist of the Decade. Pink may come from a working middle class background, but that is most certainly not where she is at now. This image of her as the badass taking on big money is therefore (understandably) a little hard to swallow.

The first ten years of the twenty-first century seem to have been devoted to the exploration—and exploitation—of difference. The slogan of years 2000-2010 should be "I'm a unique rebellious individual... just like everyone else." A discussion of the commodification of dissent is passé at this point. Savvy consumers know it's happening, every second of every day, in American culture. They watch as every possible aspect of their identity is meticulously lifted from—and then sold back to—them. In her supposed celebration of the weirdo, the outsider, and the underdog, is Pink really just using them? Is this a calculated attempt to cash in on the zeitgeist, or is Pink offering up a heartfelt toast to the "dirty little freaks?"

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, December 11th 2010

Baffled and Beat

caitlin — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Little Fish

Custard/Universal Motown

There must be something in the Oxford water that breeds talent. How else could you explain the abundance of good, great, and truly classic music that has emerged from the southeastern English city over the last twenty-plus years? Need examples? Ride, Supergrass, and Radiohead all hail from there. I say it is not an overstatement to also count raucous duo Little Fish among these ranks.

This wouldn't be the first time I've sung their praises; earlier in February I wrote a glowing review of their “Darling Dear” three-song maxi-single for Elevate Difference. Little Fish's particular brand of intense swaggering rock, which has drawn comparisons to fellow garage punk group The Kills, has landed them on the video game “Rock Band” and helped to earn the duo opening spots on tours with Placebo and Courtney Love's latest incarnation of Hole. Now there's Baffled and Beat, Little Fish's highly anticipated full-length debut engineered and produced by Linda Perry, and released on Perry's Custard Records.

Perry's handiwork is as visible on these tracks as fingerprints on a cell phone touch screen. In keeping with her well-established professional reputation as a singer, songwriter, and producer, these twelve songs are the perfect blend of radio-friendly and rock-tastic. That's not to say that Little Fish sound like hapless puppets under the sway of some Svengali. Quite the contrary, singer/guitarist Juju and drummer Nez came to the party prepared, with their own fine-tuned ferocity at full throttle. Juju bellows, growls, and pleads her way through a barrage of breathless sweaty angst, while Nez pounds the ever-loving daylights out of his drum kit. Perry just happened to come along and give it all a little spit shine.

Sometimes, a band can crank out a smattering of quality tunes to attract the attention of radio and record folks, but are then incapable of sustaining said quality for a whole record. It would seem as though they had only those singles in them, and that was it. Unfortunately, many tantalized listeners don't figure this out until they dive in for more, only to come up thoroughly disappointed. Happily, that's not the case with Little Fish.

The three songs from the “Darling Dear” MP3 single—“Darling Dear,” “Sweat & Shiver,” and “Whiplash”—each find their passion and intensity put to good use within the overall context of a full-length release, and most of the album's other nine tracks are just as stellar. Stand-out songs include wailing banshee love song "Am I Crazy?," night-on-the-town rocker "Bang Bang," and proletariat anthem "Hallelujah," as well as the astoundingly sexy, self-destructive swagger of "Die Young."

Sadly, not every song can be a winner. "Luck's Run Out" practically implodes under the weight of its own tragicomic pathos. The lyrics "My records are old/My cat’s dead/I’m bored of the radio/I’m waiting for promises/Of something that never came/Don’t push me now/I am the life of the party" sound as though they were lifted straight out of some mournful "tear in my beer" country ballad. There's also the final song, "Sorry State," which features the following chorus: "Why does misery like company?/You’re such a sorry state/Throw your anchor out at me." Downright maudlin, it's an anti-climactic note on which to end an otherwise outstanding debut.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, December 3rd 2010

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modern Bestiary

priyanka — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Ian Falconer, David Sedaris

Little, Brown and Company

I met bestselling author David Sedaris in 2008 at a Barnes and Noble book-signing event for When You Are Engulfed In Flames. While he seemed more than a little uncomfortable with the kind of feigned intimacy such an event requires, he was still charming, professional, and idiosyncratic throughout our brief encounter.

He asked me if I liked turtles, as he set about doodling a smiling cartoon turtle on the title page. I nervously replied that well, I'd never eaten one, so I didn't know if I liked them or not.

“Why would you say that?” he asked.

I went on to tell him about a short online video I'd seen earlier that week. In it, an ancient tortoise was filmed trying to eat the boot of some Australian hiker, who still happened to be wearing said boot at the time. For some reason, I explained, that made me think of eating turtles. Quick as you please, Sedaris drew a jaunty pointy-toed boot just above his byline.

“You see that? That's the shoe where Mother Hubbard lives. And you see that turtle down there? He's going to murder Mother Hubbard.”

My eyes lit up like a little girl on Christmas morning. “Oooh! And the children?,” I asked excitedly, clapping my hands together.

“AND the children,” he replied with a tiny smirk, before sliding my newly signed book back to me across the table.

Based on that interaction, it seems safe to assume that Sedaris had been thinking for quite some time about the many (humorous) perils of viewing beasts through a humanizing lens. Indeed, with “April In Paris,” one of the stories featured in When You Are Engulfed In Flames, Sedaris writes:

I've often heard that anthropomorphizing an animal is the worst justice you can do it. That said, I'm as guilty as anyone. In childhood stories, the snail grabs her purse and dashes out the door to put money in the meter. The rabbit cries when the blue jay makes fun of her buck teeth. The mouse loves his sister but not that way. And we think, *They're just like us!”

Sedaris tackles the multifaceted human experience via anthropomorphized animals, to hilarious effect, in his latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. Sedaris' stories are punctuated by illustrations from Ian Falconer, who is best known as the creator of “Olivia,” the Caldecott Honor-winning series of children's books about an adorable anthropomorphic piggy. These sixteen stories almost sit like a challenge to our instinct to see animals as being “just like us.” The book also calls into question that parallel inclination by humans to pretend that somehow we're not animals. With every story, I could practically hear Sedaris' feisty voice defiantly shouting, “So, you want to see animals act like people? Here you go. Just be careful what you wish for. You might not like everything you see.”

Take, for instance, “The Migrating Warblers,” a story of two condescending migratory birds who, with their glib dismissal of other countries as inferior, embody the "ugly American." Meanwhile, “The Mouse and the Snake” directly addresses the perils of trying to claim that an animal is “just like us”—not to mention the willful ignorance it takes to keep exotic/dangerous animals as pets. “The Sick Rat and the Healthy Rat” skewers the smug supposed power of positive thinking, and ends with one of the most morbid limericks I have ever read. In “The Vigilant Rabbit,” vigilance is synonymous with vigilante justice, as one rabbit humorlessly protects the borders of “his” forest with a ruthless ferocity. A few poignant tales also appear, such as the title story, which tackles miscommunication and lost love, and “Hello Kitty,” about the unusual circumstances of a combative alcoholic cat in an inter-species prison

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is for every human whose bosom has swelled—in delight or empathy—when watching a movie featuring CGI-animated talking hamsters, or upon seeing photos of a chihuahua whose people think it's cute to take pictures of the poor creature dressed up in a pink tutu. Sedaris' book reminds us that, just as all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares, all humans are animals—but animals are most decidedly not human.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, November 1st 2010

Grinderman 2

tina — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Grinderman

Anti-/Mute

Being a female Nick Cave fan is perilous. I'd say that it's on par with being a female James Bond fan.

In both instances, women are depicted as vixens, victims, or passive receptors for sexually frustrated man-boys with clear objectives. In the case of James Bond, his objective has always been to triumph over various manifestations of Cold War-style evil in the name of God (or God's emissary, the Queen), gold, and glory. As a feminist, I know logically that Bond is misogynist tripe. Yet as an Anglophile and Cold War wonk, I simply cannot get enough of 007. Similarly, in the case of Nick Cave, his decades-long objective has been to triumph over the evil mediocrity of sub-par music in the name of God, girls, and (noisy) genius. As a feminist, I know logically that women are props in Cave's literate songs, propelling him along from one metaphor to the next. Yet as a discerning music fan with a penchant for the seedy and unseemly, I simply cannot get enough of him.

Aussie Cave started his music career in Melbourne as the front man for the Birthday Party. That group's badgering frenetic dissonance was difficult to sustain and they soon imploded under the weight. Before long, Cave launched Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, by far his most successful venture. Since The Bad Seeds, Cave has written books, screenplays, and scored a couple of searing Western films, including The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Now he's fronting yet another band, the frightening, reverently shambolic Grinderman.

The first eponymous Grinderman release came out in 2007. Comprised of eleven gloriously cacophonous songs that could dislodge fillings if played loudly enough, Grinderman was a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the insecurities of the aging male rock star—one that could easily be mistaken for sexist noise. Example: “No Pussy Blues,” which starts with a clacking typewriter and the words "My face is finished/My body's gone/And I can't help but think/Standing up here in all this applause/And gazing down at all the young and the beautiful/With their questioning eyes/That I must above all things love myself." It then leads into the tale of one man's desperate attempt to get the attention of one such beautiful young coquette.

Now there's the sequel: Grinderman 2. The deluxe edition comes with an illustrated sixty-page booklet, as well as a fold-out poster. The poster depicts the band looking blasé while dressed in plastic gladiator costumes and lounging about on what appears to be a high school cafeteria stage. We clearly see them here as elevated men who have grown weary of the unrealistic expectation that they be deities.

The men in these songs are fed up with what they perceive as lives wasted on empty pursuits (cited as “booze, drugs, husbands, wives, and making money” on “When My Baby Comes”), especially in light of the crazed chaos being created by the ubiquitous and wicked “they.” The women in these songs have no names. They are all “her,” or are spoken of in a possessive context: “my girl,” “my baby”—relevant only in relation to each song's male protagonist. We are never made aware of the women’s responses to the questions posed/actions taken by the men addressing them.

This album’s nine songs act as a different manifestation of the midlife crisis shown on the first album. Where Grinderman was all sweaty frustrated id, Grinderman 2 teeters back and forth between the realism of ego and the moralizing of super-ego. Here be monsters—noisy apocalyptic crypto-zoological monsters, like the Loch Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman—as depicted to great tragicomic effect with the song “Worm Tamer.” From its snarling wolf on the cover and its songs about “Evil” and a “Heathen Child,” Grinderman 2 feels vicious, choked with a brutish fatalistic beauty.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, October 31st 2010

Cats & Dogs

gwen — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Royal Trux

Drag City

I did not see Star Wars until I was nineteen years old. I was even older the first time I saw Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist. In both cases, I hated them. And in both cases, I was told by the films' loyal fans that, when they'd watched these movies at X years old, the scares or the special effects “were really great for their time.” To which I would invariably respond, “I did not experience them at said age in 'their time'; I did so now, as a discerning adult—and I didn't like them. So there.”

Coming of age as a curious young lady during the era of grunge and heroin chic meant that music doubled as both a skeleton key and a gateway drug. With one artist, I could unlock a multitude of doors. Through those doors I found (and get hooked to) progressively grittier, more ferocious music. It's odd, then, that all of those never led me to the sloppy smack-soaked noise rock of Royal Trux. Oh sure, I was aware of them then, but I'm always aware of something; I've got my feelers out in all sorts of directions at all times. But awareness is not the same as appreciation, and it is certainly not the same as fandom.

Had I fully immersed myself in Royal Trux back then, in the same way that I did with other bands of that time, I might get a nice, warm, tingly, nostalgic feeling in my chest when cranking up this year's re-issue of their 1993 album, Cats & Dogs. As it is, though, I just feel kinda bummed.

Please don't misunderstand me. It's not that Royal Trux didn't make worthwhile music; they did. In fact, the eleven tracks that comprise Cats & Dogs embody the many qualities I value in music: swirling screechy guitars, passion that's at once bratty and indolent, and a well-honed messy agility that could easily be confused with slapdash noise.

Royal Trux was formed in Washington, D.C., by Neil Michael Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema, shortly before the demise of their previous group, the Jon Spencer-fronted noise punk band Pussy Galore. In 1989 the duo's first single, “Hero Zero,” was also the first release from notorious Chicago experimental indie label Drag City. In his AllMusic.com biography of Royal Trux, writer John Dougan aptly characterized the duo as a “dissonant junkie nightmare.”

Cats & Dogs was the turning point from extreme to, if not sonorous, at least more tolerable. It's loud and scratchy and, as stated previously, was first released in 1993. But see, there's the rub. Unfortunately for Royal Trux, it sounds like it was released in 1993—at the height of heroin chic. It's kind of a soundtrack to smack. Both Hagerty and Herrema were unabashed junkies. Vocally, they remind me of two very drunk people who have decided to sing a duet together, but the booze is slowing down their response times so that one voice is always lagging behind the other.

Unless your idea of a good time is fully immersing yourself in waves of sound that could only stem from an early '90s heroin high, this is pretty much nostalgia listening only.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, October 18th 2010

Secret Transit

mandy — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

By KaiserCartel

Daniel Records

Even the most ramshackle noise requires a hint of skill to be executed effectively. Despite dismissive cries from its many detractors, good pop music requires a precise attention to detail, a keen ear, and a strong awareness of how to strike that delicate balance between catchy and plaintive. That being said, there is also a delicate balance to be struck between polished crystalline pop and overly savvy saccharine songs. It's just this sort of precarious tightrope that Brooklyn indie pop duo KaiserCartel seems to walk with their second full-length album, Secret Transit.

Secret Transit epitomizes a transitional album. It starts out loping and haunted with “Riverboat Dream.” The song is full of shadows and riverbanks, slow tambourine beats and gently lapping water. It sounds like it would be right at home on a mixed CD, preceded by the Raveonettes and followed by Mazzy Star.

Then it's right into “Carroll Street Station,” a bubbly toe-tapper about love and landmarks that takes its title from a subway stop located on a street of the same name located at the border of Carroll Gardens, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Indeed, much of KaiserCartel's musical identity seems inextricably linked with Brooklyn. In fact, two of their songs were used on Season One of the HBO series Bored to Death, a show based in Carroll Gardens and starring Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson, and Zach Galifianakis.

The chipper pop of “Falling” seems strange in the overall context of the album. Something about it just feels off. It sounds like a mid-1980s one-hit wonder. Speaking of '80s pop radio, KaiserCartel cover the John Mellencamp song “Worn Out Nervous Condition,” originally released on Mellencamp's album Cuttin' Heads. For Courtney Kaiser, it's a thoughtful shout out to her former boss; she was a member of Mellencamp's band for three years. It's a nice gesture, but so is a fruit basket and a thank you card—neither of which listeners have to experience.

I consider a song good if, upon my first hearing it, I find myself singing along by the end. I had just this experience with “Minefield.” I think it's the strongest song on the album. It most successfully achieves a fusion of the creepy and the catchy that seems hit-or-miss with the other songs. On the flipside, “Wherever You Go” is a lovely enough track, but what's with the ringing alarm clock in the background? Is someone playing with an egg timer or something? Whatever it is, it detracts from the song and distracts this listener.

Courtney Kaiser and Benajmin Cartel are clearly pop music aficionados with ears attuned to the finer points of pop songwriting: catchy lyrics, ooohs and handclaps, strategically placed harmonies, and (except for “The Wait”) tracks that are under five minutes long. For the most part, theirs are beautiful, well-constructed songs. Yet what they seem to lack on this latest outing is an ability to put together a cohesive setlist. KaiserCartel fare much better with the eerie and the ethereal than they do with the indie pop. It's like they're trying to cram two completely different EPs worth of music into one full-length album—and sell themselves short in the process.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, September 21st 2010

Rockets EP

brittany — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

By Boris Smile

Count Your Lucky Stars Records

Go outside. Look up. What do you see? What do you think (or wish or hope) sees us? At their most basic, those are the questions that have motivated humankind to create, to believe, and to explore since it first dawned on us to look up.

The famous opening phrase of Star Trek is “Space—the final frontier.” With its awe-struck yet determined delivery, the line presents space as the last, most daunting stop on humanity's Manifest Destiny Tour. Space is the only thing that remains to be conquered—at least in the realm of schlocky sci-fi TV.

In the world of music, however, space as an extended metaphor for love, loss, alienation, and the Other is well-traveled territory; it's cliché at this point. Just because something has been done to death, however, doesn't mean that it cannot be tweaked slightly, then polished up and trotted out one more time. Example? Take a listen to the Rockets EP, the latest release from California group Boris Smile.

“Satellites” starts quietly with what sound like recordings of astronauts reporting back to Earth. It then swells to an orchestral crescendo underscored with radio feedback, goes quiet again, then scratches back to loud with radio distortion.

Including Rockets, Boris Smile has four releases under its belt: two albums and two EPs. The song “Adventures With Rockets” has appeared on three of those; here, it's appropriately billed as being “[Revisited].” It also features the touchingly self aware lyric “The stars are in your eyes/and that's just a stupid pick-up line/but I'll use it since there are no planets in sight.”

Lyrically, “Apollo” is a direct descendant of David Bowie's “Space Oddity” or Elton John's “Rocket Man.” The song's narrative depicts an astronaut saying goodbye to his wife and kids before rocketing off to the heavens. It's bittersweet and direct, albeit familiar.

With its simple imagist lyrics written in rhyming couplets, “Are We Alone?” feels spare, despite the horn section tooting in the background. It's all existential angst here: “One small voice in a silent black/scream and shout, but it won't talk back.”

The only song that breaks with the spacey theme is “Aurora,” an extended metaphor for the complementary dynamic of a romantic relationship. It relies less on space similes and more on imagery drawn from the natural world. With its joyous sing-along ending, “Aurora” reminds me of The Polyphonic Spree or Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

Clocking in at over twelve minutes, “8.24.06 (The Humbling of a Planet)” is the longest track on the EP. It includes another version of the third track, “Apollo,” then moves on to an extended metaphor about growing up and sending a mouse into space as an adolescent proxy. I wonder: why repeat “Apollo” when there's little variation between the two versions? Why not make the twee mouse metaphor song its own track?

Rockets is an above-average sampling of expansive indie pop. Despite contagious harmonies and quality wall-of-sound instrumentation, its tired space metaphor, navel-gazing lyrics and lackluster final track renders all that joy just a little cloying in the end.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, September 9th 2010

Hide Your Face(book) in Shame: Facebook and The Censorship of Female Sexuality

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Interview with Self Serve

A lot can happen in ten minutes. You can make your morning commute to work. You can do twenty sit-ups. You can have an orgasm. If you are business owners Molly Adler and Matie Fricker of Albuquerque's Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center, ten minutes can be all the time you need to inform people about the hazards of labiaplasty.

Also known as female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS), labiaplasty is a controversial elective medical procedure that involves the surgical re-shaping of labia in order to make a woman's vulva look more “appealing.” A 2007 statement about FCGS, issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), read as follows: "Women should be informed about the lack of data supporting the efficacy of these procedures and their potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia, adhesions, and scarring."

In true sex-positive, DIY spirit, Adler and Fricker, along with Alee Ross-Raymond, put together a YouTube video called You Don't Need Labiaplasty. According to Matie Fricker:

“We created a video that included pictures of vulvas from Betty Dodson’s genital art gallery. So many women have body dysmorphia, and seeing unedited photos of healthy diverse genitalia is important. The video also included an impassioned plea to love your body. We had posted two versions of the video on YouTube. One of the video's start screens had Molly’s face on it, and [the other] was a full frontal vulva in an unaroused state. The video with the vulva on it got ten times as many hits.

“I posted the video on our Facebook page with the vulva because it was clear from our experience on YouTube that people wanted to see the female body. I posted the video on our Facebook page and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Many women thanked us and confessed to insecurities they had long carried.

“One of the comments was negative. Of our 1,300+ fans we lost one. I spoke to Molly about it the next day... and we decided we were going to post our next status update asking what our community felt was appropriate. The only people who saw the video were people who had self-selected to be our fans. We had decided we would ask our fans what they wanted to see and adjust accordingly.”

Before the women could act on their decision, Self Serve’s page and all of their administrative pages had been removed from Facebook.

Molly Adler sent off a message to a representative in Facebook's User Operations department seeking the reactivation of all accounts. On August 2, 2010 Adler was told that all of the personal accounts belong to Self Serve administrators were reactivated, but that the Self Serve page itself would not be reinstated due to terms of use violation.

Would Facebook have banned the Self Serve account had it not used that screen shot, but still used images of vulvas throughout the video? Would Facebook have banned the account had the video been posted completely devoid of any genital images? Why does Facebook consider a vague notion of safety and an honest discussion about the very real hazards of female genital modification to be at odds with one another?

These questions are not just “what-ifs.” Sadly, they're also rhetorical. At the time of this writing—over a month after the banning of Self Serve's page—the administrators of the Self Serve account never heard got a reply to their last e-mail, and their account is still suspended.

Self Serve isn't the only women-owned sexuality boutique to have its Facebook page banned. Chicago's Early2Bed also lost their page. E2B founder Searah Deysach started her feminist sex shop in 2001 because she “love[s] sex toys and wanted to create a safe space for people to buy and explore them.” Deysach started a company Facebook page about two years ago. According to Deysach, while it existed, the page was warmly received with around 500 followers.

And then one day, the Early2Bed Facebook page simply disappeared. “No specific reason was given so I read the rules and the only thing we could have possibly violated was the obscenity clause, but we had... nothing more 'obscene' than the other sex shops that have pages.”

Like Self Serve, E2B was notified about the account's banning by email. Like the owners of Self Serve, Deysach contacted Facebook to find out what could be done. Unlike Self Serve, however, no reasons were given for the E2B account disappearance. Deysach went on to say that she has received “no responses to our many emails.”

So what's the deal with Facebook? Why are they so freaked out by lady parts and the sex-positive women who seek to celebrate them?

In order to get some sort of answer out of Facebook regarding their position on this issue, I went to the source itself—specifically, to the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and to the Facebook Principles. Please keep in mind that Facebook claims that the former is “derived” from the latter.

Section 3 of the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, labeled “Safety,” states: “You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” Here, Facebook lumps sex and violence together, putting them on par with one another. Not only that, but they are apparently also willing to consider nudity synonymous with pornography. Herein lies one of the (many) problems.

Section 4 reads as follows: “If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission.” That's all well and good, but how can a former user get permission to create a new account when representatives stop responding to their emails?

Further along, section 4.5 states that no one under the age of thirteen can have a Facebook account. How can Facebook hide behind the argument of “safety” as a justification for censoring images of women's genitalia? The United States is the company’s biggest market. By age thirteen, most children educated in U.S. public schools are already learning sex education. Granted, it's likely an “abstinence-only” curriculum, but children are still being exposed to anatomical representations of the human genitals by that point in their lives. Furthermore, Facebook has its own “Safety Center,” including a sub-section labeled “Safety For Parents.” The information provided includes ways that an account's privacy settings can be modified to block those profiles that users do not want to see.

Section 5 is “Protecting Other People's Rights.” SRR Secs. 5.3 and 5.4 state that “We will provide you with tools to help you protect your intellectual property rights. If we remove your content for infringing someone else's copyright, and you believe we removed it by mistake, we will provide you with an opportunity to appeal.” I find the language of this section particularly contentious, as it seems that “protection of other people's rights” in the Facebook world extends only to the possibility of intellectual property infringement; it has nothing to do with the right to free speech. In fact, it doesn't just seem that way; it is that way.

Let's move on to selections from the unintentional hilarity that is “The Facebook Principles.” From Principle 3, “Free Flow of Information”: "People should have the freedom to access all of the information made available to them by others. People should also have practical tools that make it easy, quick, and efficient to share and access this information."

Yes, they should. But when people are denied access to that information by: a. dictating what is acceptable speech; and then b. banning accounts belonging to individuals or organizations who try to share important information that you have nonetheless deemed “unacceptable,” a company proves itself to be stunningly ignorant and embarrassingly hypocritical all at once.

From Principle 7, “Fundamental Service”: "People should be able to use Facebook for free to establish a presence, connect with others, and share information with them. Every Person should be able to use the Facebook Service regardless of his or her level of participation or contribution."

Unless Facebook deems that the information you're trying to share is “pornographic” rather than, y'know, informative (not to mention supported by the American medical establishment), in which case you get the boot.

From Prinicple 8, “Common Welfare”: "The rights and responsibilities of Facebook and the People that use it should be described in a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which should not be inconsistent with these Principles."

It would be nice were this the case, but sadly, it's not. The SRR is inconsistent with the supposed Facebook Principles. You can try to spin it otherwise, but the proof is in right there online, plain as day for everyone with the most basic critical analytical skills to evaluate.

From Principle 9, “Transparent Process”: "Facebook should publicly make available information about its purpose, plans, policies, and operations. Facebook should have a town hall process of notice and comment and a system of voting to encourage input and discourse on amendments to these Principles or to the Rights and Responsibilities." Facebook will not, however, respond to e-mail pleas from otherwise conscientious users with noble intentions and loads of supporters.

It was extraordinarily savvy of Facebook's PR team/bevy of lawyers/Department of Cognitive Dissonance to start pretty much every sentence of its "Facebook Principles" with the phrase "People should have..." Yes, people (and groups and organizations and businesses, et al) should have all of those things Facebook has delineated among their supposed principles. But a quick perusal of the SRR, combined with the reality of their actions in relation to supposedly "objectionable" content, clearly indicates that this is simply not the case. It's as though they're saying, "You totally should have these things–but you don't. And you won't. Because we're not gonna let you."

The larger question is this: How do sex-positive individuals, businesses, and organizations combat this sort of societal resistance to–and censorship of–female sexuality?

In response, Molly Adler and Matie Fricker at Self Serve told me, “We can continue to try following the rules, terms etc., and challenging this notion that all sexual information and all images of the human body are obscene. That notion is obscene! The more space and voice sex positive feminists are given to speak for shame-free, guilt-free positive sexuality, the more perhaps our culture will steer in that direction.”

Searah Deysach added, “We need to continue to be vocal and fight censorship when we can! We need to band together to be a louder voice. We need to keep promoting sex positive imagery and ideas wherever we can. Facebook is huge, but there are lots of other venues out there.”

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, September 3rd 2010

Flesh Tone

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Kelis

Interscope Records, Will.i.am Music Group

Kelis has always been brazen, unapologetically growling her way onto the music scene in 1999 with the single “Caught Out There,” a vicious tale of heartbreak and revenge. Since then, she's gone on to release four more albums, achieving her greatest success in 2003, with the now-infamous braggadocio of the song “Milkshake.” With her latest release, Flesh Tone, Kelis makes what could be her boldest—and also blandest—career move yet, reinventing herself as a dance diva.

Flesh Tone is Kelis' first album of new material in four years, since the 2006 release Kelis Was Here. It's also important to note that this is Kelis' first album since the birth of her first child (a son named Knight) and the dissolution of her marriage to Knight's dad, hip-hop legend Nas. It could seem logical, then, that the nine songs comprising Flesh Tone gel together to result in the kind of life-affirming album that a lot of female artists release after such major events; think Madonna's Ray of Light. But no matter what phase, Madonna has pretty much always been entrenched in the dance-pop genre. For Kelis, such a transformation seems a little jarring and, sadly, a lot opportunistic.

With The Neptunes at the helm, her first two albums (1999's Kaleidoscope and 2001's Wanderland) were bass-heavy, chock full of oddball blip-bloops, and, lyrically speaking, often inclined toward the extraterrestrial. Yet even after she completely parted ways with the successful producing duo to release Kelis Was Here, there were still hints of wailing ferocious rock in her hip-hop mix. With Flesh Tone, Kelis makes a bold step, trying to stay relevant by shifting from the sound of her earlier career into more radio-friendly dance pop. In doing so, ironically, she sounds like another dime-a-dozen throwaway commercial diva.

The album is a success in that Kelis' usage of spacey imagery, with which she's been toying for years, has coalesced into an album-length idea, instead of sporadic song themes popping up in between other different tracks. Flesh Tone is much more unified than her previous releases. She is growing and all of her parts are coming together into a more cohesive whole. “22nd Century” serves as a good example.

I consider the second half of the album to be much better than the first. The lyrics are personal, more intimate than the hollow dance music that clogs up the first half. “Brave” and “Song For The Baby” most closely addresses Kelis' personal issues. Another excellent track is “Acapella.” As one of the strongest tracks on the album, it was a solid single choice, conveying an endearing sentimentality with the chorus: “Before you, my whole life was a cappella/now our symphony's the only song to sing.” Its amazing beat also makes it a great track for cutting loose at a nightclub.

At the end of the day, I simply cannot make up my mind on Flesh Tone. The girl who just wants to get crazy-sweaty on the dance floor can't get enough of it. The girl who has loyalties to the Kelis she's known and loved for so long has a hard time reconciling this new manifestation of one of her beloved pop stars, because I question the motives and worry that it's all one big sellout move.

Maybe it's cynicism talking. Or maybe, to paraphrase comedian Maria Bamford, I'm just paralyzed with the hope that Kelis was above all this nonsense. Then again, maybe Kelis was just as bored with her signature sound as many of us were enamored of it—which is why we got Flesh Tone.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, July 28th 2010

Hannah Free

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Directed by Wendy Jo Carlton

Wolfe Video

If LOGO and the Hallmark Channel had a baby, they would name her Hannah Free.

The story goes like this: an aging lesbian couple, together for four decades, both now find themselves confined to the same nursing home, but unable to see one another. Free-spirited butch Hannah (Sharon Gless) is paralyzed after falling off a roof, and is denied access to her comatose lover Rachel (Maureen Gallagher) by Rachel's bitter born-again Christian daughter Marge (Taylor Miller of TV's All My Children).

Bedridden and lonely, Hannah spends most of her time napping, journaling, reading mail, and talking to an imagined younger version of Rachel (Ann Hagemann). It is through these (highly contrived) plot devices that the audience is taken back into chapters of Hannah's history: her childhood chasing after little blond Rachel through wheat fields, her Depression-era youth happily roughing it in Alaska, her WWII military service as a pilot in the Women's Army Corps. Her younger version is played by relative unknown Kelli Strickland, who spends the majority of her onscreen time locked in tepid PG-13 sex scenes with Hagemann's Rachel.

One day, following a tense interaction with Marge, a young woman named Greta (Jacqui Jackson) wanders into Hannah's room, all wide eyed and with polite questions. She draws out from Hannah her unfortunate circumstances, and quickly offers to come by at 3 a.m. to take Hannah to see Rachel. We soon learn that Greta is not just motivated by altruism; she is Rachel's great-granddaughter, and herself a lesbian. Hannah and Greta strike up a friendship, and Hannah later shares her journals with Greta; more flashbacks ensue. The third act sees Hannah, Marge, and Greta come together to make a very difficult end-of-life decision on behalf of the woman they all hold dear.

Notice my usage of the term third act? It's a common term in references to films, but it is especially appropriate in the case of Hannah Free, a film adapted for the screen by playwright Claudia Allen. Film buffs are aware that play adaptations fall into two distinct categories: those that successfully make the leap from stage to screen (e.g., Crimes of the Heart and Steel Magnolias) and those that don't. Sadly, Hannah Free just doesn't.

I appreciate issues-driven cinema as much as the next bleeding heart liberal. Admittedly, Hannah Free does address a variety of pertinent topics. These include the concepts of a loving versus “legal” family in regard to LGBT relationships and which decisions each partner is allowed to make regarding the other; the general dearth of quality elder care, specifically care for aging LGBT folks; and living openly in rural communities. With its story told by a predominantly female cast, and emphasis placed on both respect for lesbian elders and multi-generational lesbian representation in families with the character of Greta, the film also has a decidedly feminist bent. Still, Hannah Free is heavy-handed—and hokey.

As it relates to issues of health, family, and LGBT equality, Hannah Free is a relevant film. As a worthwhile cinematic experience, however, it falls woefully short.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, July 20th 2010

Success or Suicide

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:58:00 +0000

By Vertigo Venus

In the beginning, there were two: brothers Jeff and Chris Cannon. These Michiganders, transplanted to the Land of Enchantment otherwise known as New Mexico, started a band–a boisterous beast named Vertigo Venus. With their first release in 2004, they commanded (like the bossiest of stage mothers) that we listeners Sing Pretty! Then in 2007 with their second album, new band members came on board and things got a little ominous, as we were told to Run for Your Lives.

Now in 2010, Vertigo Venus' latest five-member incarnation comes at us, teeth bared, as their new album fiercely proclaims Success Or Suicide (also known by the abbreviation S.O.S.). In addition to the Brothers Cannon, the band roster also includes bassist Ken Cornell (also the mastermind behind experimental noise outfit Alchemical Burn); drummer and noted solo electronic artist Brian Botkiller; and lead synth/keyboard player Jessica Crockett.

It's appropriate to refer to this most recent Vertigo Venus album–which features four re-releases, two new original tracks and one cover–by either its full title or the abbreviation; both get the point across. The full title conveys the group's absolute determination to give this rock band thing everything they've got, while S.O.S., better known as the Morse code distress signal, shows a band anxious to be seen, heard, and ultimately rescued by discerning listeners from the miasma of today's musical landscape.

Vertigo Venus is certainly gifted at getting attention, most notably during a 2009 mini-tour of California, and as opening acts performing with such groups as Mindless Self Indulgence and The Birthday Massacre. The accolades have started coming in, too. S.O.S. opening track “Spy Vs. Spy” won a production award at the 2010 New Mexico Music Awards.

As a band, Vertigo Venus defines itself both by who they are (defiant metal-infused synthpunk monsters) and who they hate (phonies, corporate America, and brooding self-indulgent whiners of the goth/emo persuasion). Lead singer/synth player Jeff Cannon cheerfully spits antagonistic vitriol on every song. Highlights include “Monday Mourning” (with the ranting chorus “Shut up and die/ Everybody hates you”) and “Boob Tube” (which smacks apathetic distractable hipsters in the face and reminds us that “you can't say shit without big tits”).

Their most noteworthy song, however, would have to be “Punk Rock Cheerleader,” originally released on Sing Pretty! Described in a press release as a “sing-along-like-you-mean-it” anthem, this scathing indictment of phony mall-bought rebellion is the song for which they are best known. Auto-Tune and vocoder abound in the emo-mocking bridge before transitioning into a rallying cry complete with claps and stomps. There is a certain glorious irony in shining an accusatory spotlight on poseurs with rousing fist-pumping anthems.

Not everybody's going to like Vertigo Venus. They're loud. They're angry. They're bratty. That's okay, though. Vertigo Venus doesn't need–or want–mass approval. Which, in my mind, is exactly what makes them so likable and so deserving of fame.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, July 17th 2010

Fables Of The Reconstruction (25th Anniversary 2-Disc Re-Issue)

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:44:00 +0000

By R.E.M.

EMI/Capitol Records

Call it what you will: alternative rock, guitar pop, college radio. For better or worse, R.E.M. were responsible for making it—and making it big. Even a casual listener knows when they hear an R.E.M. song. Theirs has always been a definitive sound: Bill Berry's frenetic drums, Peter Buck's jangly guitar, those literate stream-of-consciousness lyrics, and, of course, Michael Stipe's vulnerable voice, leaping from plaintive wail to cooing croon to murmur (pun intended), often within the same song.

They started out weird. Pretty, sure, but still weird. Then they got famous and became dogmatic, showing up at award shows with serious faces and message t-shirts. R.E.M. relinquished their indie status long ago, leaving behind I.R.S. Records and signing with Warner Brothers in the late '80s. They're now a renowned cornerstone of contemporary American music. R.E.M. was inducted in the Rock N' Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007, and the 1981 song “Radio Free Europe” was recently added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.

Yet just before super-stardom and the soapbox, there was Fables Of The Reconstruction. R.E.M. originally released Fables Of The Reconstruction in June of 1985. Today, it's back—as a 25th anniversary 2-CD re-issue. R.E.M.'s first two albums, Murmur and Reckoning, have both already received the deluxe treatment. Fables Of The Reconstruction is another shining example of R.E.M.'s early-career aesthetic.

The Athens Demos, included as the second disc on the re-issue, stand on their own as excellent alternates to the (now classic) originals. There's precious little variation from demo to album version, yet still just enough difference to be noticeable. They show a band, confident as a collective, fine-tuning these already well-honed songs. Stand-outs include “Can't Get There From Here,” which felt much more playful than the original; “Green Grow The Rushes,” with demo vocals that sounded warmer and more intimate; “Driver 8,” which, although a little off-key and possessing more prominent background vocals, was still charming.

Of the thirteen tracks on The Athens Demos, three were not on the original release. Two of them, “Bandwagon” and “Hyena,” went on to be released on other albums; “Bandwagon” was also a bonus track on the import version of Fables Of The Reconstruction. Then there's “Throw Those Trolls Away,” the much-hyped previously unreleased track that, sadly, is completely forgettable and altogether expendable. It's also worth noting that the songs on the second disc are both out of album sequence (not that odd), and curiously, listed in alphabetical order.

Over the last several years, re-releases have become standard among bands of R.E.M.'s status; deluxe edition re-releases are to today what box sets were to the '90s. Listeners are granted greater access to a band's oeuvre. Plus, if they're die-hard fans and/or music snobs, they're also granted a sense of collection completion—not to mention bragging rights.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, July 13th 2010