New Pearl Jam Single - "The Fixer"

Give it a listen. This is the first single from the forthcoming Backspacer album, preselling on the band's website [ http://www.pearljam.com ] right now.

Thoughts: it's a new sound, but then, every album from PJ has had a different sound, and the development is really the logical next step forward from the self-titled album released in 2006. This is a group of supremely talented musicians (Vedder's vocal range is one of the most often imitated -- and poorly -- in rock, Cameron's a legendary drummer, and Rolling Stone recently named Gossard & McCready "Pearl Jam's Four-Armed Monster"). I like it... a lot... and I'm looking forward to the album itself.



22 Jul, 2009 | Chris |

No Coasting for NoFX

Review of: NoFX - Coaster
Released: 28 Apr. 2009
Label: Fat Wreck Chords

Counted among the founding fathers of So-Cal punk rock, NoFX haven't stopped since they got started in Berkeley over 25 years ago. Eschewing major labels since their first full length album, most of the band's incredibly long list of EPs, albums, and side projects (Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, anyone?) have appeared on vocalist/bassist Fat Mike's label, Fat Wreck Chords (say it out loud, you'll get the joke). The band's influence is so wide-reaching that it would be nearly impossible to list all of the bands we wouldn't have today without their music, but you can be sure we wouldn't have a Vans Warped Tour, and bands like Green Day, Sum-41, and recently reunited blink-182 would sound quite a bit different.

[Coaster Sampler] Coaster, the band's 16th full length album, and they're still loud, fast, and bear the same feeling of irritated smartasses that they always have. NoFX's musicianship is singularly excellent among punk bands, in that they can not only play fast as hell, but they know how to play in the first place (or they've figured it out over the decades). The first track, "We Called it America," catches you with the most blistering 30 second opener I've heard in years. While they do slow down on a few songs, including "Best God In Show" (the second sample in the track), "Creeping Out Sara", and, most notably, a rare Fat Mike confessional entitled "My Orphan Year," about the days following the deaths of both his parents, the majority of the album is dedicated to drinking, poking fun at religion (the last sample on the track, "Blasphemy (The Victimless Crime)," is a great example, and poking fun at Republicans.

Not much has changed, and it would be hard to classify Coaster as one of NoFX's top records - the size of their discography notwithstanding, classics like White Trash, Two Heebs & a Bean (1992), Punk in Drublic (1994), and Pump Up the Valuum (2000) will always be the touchstone albums that music geeks bring up - it's still a good listen, and worth the 7-10 bucks you'll spend.

11 May, 2009 | Chris |

Pearl Jam - Ten Reissue

In my last entry, I mentioned the recent Pearl Jam reissue of Ten, one of the most notable features of which is a copy as remixed by Brendan O'Brien. There are two CD versions of the album included in the reissue: the "Legacy Edition," which is a necessary remastering of the original disc. When Ten came out originally, audio engineers weren't quite up to the task of mastering audio for a digital environment, to compensating for the "warmth" of vinyl by making certain sounds more clear, more crisp, and increasing the depth of Jeff Ament's incredible bass line. This version sounds much better on CD than the original... other than that, the "Legacy" disc is just a copy of the same Ten that has gone platinum thirteen times.

Alive-Redux Sample-The other disc, Ten Redux, contains not only the Brendan O'Brien remixes of the original songs but also several gems of deleted music, notably "Brother," which has never before been released with lyrics included. As Stone Gossard and Eddie Vedder note in numerous interviews about the release, these remixed songs really do sound as though they belong to the Pearl Jam of every other release. The tracks are outstanding: the overproduction typical to Epic Records releases of the late 1980's is gone completely, and the sound is cleaner, with a few different takes used in place of the classics. Click the link at the head of this paragraph to hear a bit of the remixed version of "Alive," to get a feeling for some of the strength of this new version, the way the band feels it should sound. The guitars are much cleaner, the vocals clearer and - in a way - stronger because of a lack of overdubs.

Oceans Samples-One of the easiest songs in which the casual listener will hear this difference is in "Oceans," Vedder's paean to San Diego and surfing. If you click the file link at the head of this paragraph, you can listen to the difference in brief samples of the song, the first from the original, the second from Redux. About a thirty second sample from the beginning of the track should give you a proper feeling for the remix vs. original. I think what I'm getting at, in the end, is that if you - like most of my generation - ever really loved this record, I really recommend picking up a copy of one of the editions.

08 May, 2009 | Chris |

Rediscovered: Young Fresh Fellows

The Young Fresh Fellows were a witty, punky, pop-rock band before They Might Be Giants popularized a watered down version of the genre. They used everything: fuzz distortion, ska-instrumentation, and a DIY punk rock sensibility that made them heroes of the Seattle music community years before anyone thought of the place as having a "Scene," when the so-called scene was comprised of the Melvins and the Fastbacks. The Fellows formed in 1982, but the two albums I most love were 1987's The Men Who Loved Music and 1991's Electric Bird Digest.

Men Who Loved Music The Men Who Loved Music was their first fully realized album, the one that established their "sound," and was clever and goofy to the oft-compared Replacements' dumb. To be honest, if one listens closely to this album, the beginning of the music evolution that would bring about Weezer's intelligent geek rock become clear. On the sampler file, below, the first two samples, of "TV Dream" and "When the Girls Get Here," will show the range of the Fellows' playing and lyrics. Among my favorite Fellows lyrics are the opening stanzas from the latter, about the extent to which young fresh frat geeks will go to get attention from the fairer sex:

When the girls get here / We'll talk about integrated circuits and things / Show them how smart we are / We'll set our hair on fire / Spill beer all over our t-shirts / We'll show them what kind of guys we are...

Electric Bird Digest - 1991Electric Bird Digest is quite possibly the finest album ever put out by the Fellows. Kurt Bloch & Scott McCaughey's guitars sing, grind, wail, and pluck out some incredible themes, and while they display some of their former goofiness in tracks like "Hillbilly Drummer Girl," the third song on the sampler below, much of the former goofiness has been replaced by a harder, more aggressive sound, likely the result of the recent addition of Bloch (of the Fastbacks) to replace the departed Chuck Carroll. To hear a great example of this latter variety of virtuoso punkiness, the fourth song on the sampler, "Tomorrow's Gone (And So Are You)" is provided. Metallica would be hard pressed to pound out a faster intro.

Young Fresh Fellows SamplerSampler songs: "TV Dream" - Men Who Loved Music, "When The Girls Get Here" - Men Who Loved Music, "Hillbilly Drummer Girl" - Electric Bird Digest, "Tomorrow's Gone (And So Are You)" - Electric Bird Digest.

To purchase Fellows music, go to Amazon's MP3 store - they've got a pretty good selection for such an obscure band.

27 Apr, 2009 | Chris |