August 2009 Music Log

Third, Big Star (1975) Chilton sounds pretty depressed on this thing. The album emotes the shadow of Syd Barrett without the gnomes and babies in lemonade. Funny how much "Thank You Friends" and "Jesus Christ" (and even "Nightime") are interchangeable pop gems, just nonchalant hooks encrusted with the resin of the Byrds and Beatles. Or just nonchalant. That's how Chilton likes it. Apparently, he always found his songs too "half-baked" to be of much merit, amused by his fans' adulation. This album supports that opinion better than, say, "September Gurls" (arguably the finest pop/rock ever). Here, he's this wino pop/rock fiend whose main accomplishment is walking in a straight line. He can get it done, all right. He can get it done. The cover of "Femme Fatale" is precious. It makes the ethereal quality overt, but that's a consequence of better production? What an aching song that is, filled with an archetype of a woman so realized and true, you have to stop and remember that, beyond his noise-rock innovations, Lou Reed is a classic songwriter as firmly in the school of the 20th Century as any other master. This is a night album, too, in daylight it just won't do. It comes off too hazy; it needs smoke and neon signs and headlights and shot glasses. I mean, listen to "O Dana" and try not want to dance with that redhead in the seedy bar at closing time. When things aren't so rosy, there's the icy "Holocaust" when self-carving confession is the modus operandi. Fortunately, Chilton has either the courage or lack of T.S. Eliot training to make it very personal, and he doesn't mind bringing the rest of us down, perhaps prompting some to call him a louse for not raising the spirits of mankind instead. What's the point of art -- or rock -- if we're just going to give up? But Chilton didn't give up, he always seemed to believe mainstream success was 'round the corner, so there's the silver lining. Or is it? Maybe that's more depressing, a delusional belief carrying one forward. Well he did get to produce the Cramps's gloriously alive debut. And he's this enduring cult figure in the rock pantheon. What I dig most about the guy myself, beyond his romantic follies "Stroke It Noel" or "For You" , is his gentle and whiny voice. When the hooks let go, that thing stays buried within. It sounds so true, so humble, compassionate. You can relate to it, all right. You can. 7.0

Shiny Beast, Captain Beefheart (1978) You will find roughly three types of Captain Beefheart fans. Those who claim that Trout Mask Replica is the best darn album in all of tarnation. Those who are bit unimpressed with music that strays off the beaten path. They cling, for credibility or their own virgin ears, to the fairly conventional blues rock of Safe As Milk. Then there are some peeps who believe that Shiny Beast represents the best of all worlds, something of a neat compromise of accessibility and Beefheart's unique musical vision. But they're all wrong. And no, it's not because The Spotlight Kid is actually Beefheart's best album. That's because the correct answer is that Beefheart's best album was never made and so fans of this imaginary work are the minority, if you will. The best album Beefheart never made would have been an album of variations on the ethos of "Tropical Hot Dog Night", as gloriously perverse as that title, as suggestive as it is obvious, as obvious as it is opaque, as real as it is artificial, and as known as it is unknown. That divine gem is a glorious celebration of the certainty in abstraction that all minds have but few ever really care to share. And, yes, while I know that "Moonlight in Vermont" and "When Big Joan Sets Up" are pretty close neighbors in terms of emotional impact, this guy really deserves his own neighborhood. But, anyway, I like this album enough, even "Harry Irene" and, to confuse even me, "Bat Chain Puller" is probably the best thing on it. 7.0

Double Nickels on the Dime, Minutemen (1984). What a whopper this is. Are there any other albums of 40 songs with such inventiveness and diversity and authentic voice? The last bit of praise is in reference to D Boon and Mike Watt's everyman poetry that sounds best spoken or sung. This is probably the most laidback of all the masterpieces in Scaruffi's collection. Don't get me wrong. It's as emotional as the rest. But it feels like the friend you're kicking back with after work. And those guitar lines and drum rolls. About as close to Trout Mask in technical form as we've seen yet: controlled chaos but a clear picture of reality. 9.0