Landing a cool 10 months after the release of Volume I of Yo Gabba Gabba’s Music Is…Awesome! series, this set rights some of the wrongs of that first album by including some of the bands they overlooked the last time (Jimmy Eat World, MGMT, Datarock, and thank God they finally released the Ting Tings’ cover of “Happy Birthday”). The catch with this set is that the songs by the contributing rock bands are much better, but the songs from the show are, well, not. Yes, “Hold Still” finally makes an appearance, but it’s the lesser of the two versions that have appeared on the show. Meanwhile, the “Freeze Game” song here does not measure up to the ‘you can’t catch us!’ ‘Freeze’ song from another episode. (Perhaps they chose the version they did so they didn’t have two songs that featured Brobee whining about not being able to keep up.) Alas, the Aggrolites’ song “Banana” is still nowhere to be found, nor is GOGO13’s song “Pick It Up” which, years after their debut on the show, are still the two most commonly sung “Yo Gabba Gabba” songs in this writer’s household. Their exclusion from these sets is bordering on comical, if it weren’t so tragic. Still, the Weezer song (”All My Friends Are Insects”) is great, as are the songs by Hot Hot Heat (”Time to Go Outdoors”) and the Apples in Stereo (”That’s My Family”). In the end the album, much like the show, has some moments of genius, surrounded by stuff that you merely tolerate for the sake of your kids. No excuses, guys: put “Pick It Up” and “Banana” on the next set, or there will be hell to pay. (Filter 2010)
When Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers entered the studio to record their important third album, 1979’s Damn the Torpedoes, they hired Jimmy Iovine, the brash New Yorker who had been involved with several other important third records, like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run (as an engineer) and Patti Smith’s Easter, to co-produce the album. Iovine’s drive and perfectionism were ideal for bringing out the best in the band and capturing the Heartbreakers’ blend of British Invasion rhythms and Byrds-like jangle and help them rise beyond cult favorites to superstar status. The making of Damn the Torpedoes would become an enormous challenge for the band, not only in the studio, as egos clashed, but with their record company, who at one point threatened not to release the album. The story behind this important album, one that is credited with “saving rock ‘n roll” from disco, is laid out in this superb Classic Albums DVD from Eagle Vision, another in their long line of excellent documentaries about important records in rock history.
You know the songs: “Refugee,” “Don’t Do Me Like That,” “Here Comes My Girl,” and “Even the Losers.” To this day, these songs are played constantly on rock radio. What’s fascinating about this DVD is learning how those songs came together, to hear Petty, guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench and Iovine discuss the methods they went about piecing the songs together from riffs, to getting the band to play them just right during the recording process. It’s also nice to hear from the engineer on the record, the legendary Shelly Yakus, on how he came up with some of the record’s signature sounds, including the distinct quality of Stan Lynch’s drums.
The feuds between Lynch and Iovine were constant, with the producer grinding the band’s drummer about the way he played. At one point, Lynch left, was fired or quit. As Tench makes clear, many talented drummers came in to audition, but none of them were right for the Heartbreakers – none of them were Stan Lynch. Unfortunately, Lynch is the only original member of the band who did not provide a current interview for this DVD. As we understand it, he has a “been there done that” attitude about discussing his days with the Heartbreakers (he wouldn’t even get involved with “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” the monumental Peter Bogdanovich-directed documentary from 2008). However, the producers dug up some old interviews with Lynch to insert at the right moments so that the accounts of making this historical album were not one-sided. It was also nice to hear Tench and bassist Ron Blair speak so fondly about Lynch, with Blair even holding out hope that someday he may jam with them again.
In addition to the details about the making of Damn the Torpedoes, getting to watch the band members listen to the original tapes for the first time in years and to have Tench explain how he and Yakus happened upon some of the beautiful textures Tench added to the mix, there is the history of the band’s struggles with their record company. When the band’s original contract with ABC records was sold to MCA, Petty refused to just join the new label (especially a huge corporation) without his consent. At one point he filed for bankruptcy as he battled MCA, who threatened to not let him release Damn the Torpedoes. Fortunately, Danny Bramson’s fledgling label, Backstreet Records, stepped in to help foster a deal between Petty and MCA and things were smoothed out.
Of course, the album was released to great critical acclaim, it spawned numerous hits, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers broke through to the mainstream. The DVD captures all of the joy and excitement of the band’s success and is a must-see for any fan of the Heartbreakers and good music in general. (Eagle Vision 2010)
If Drew Barrymore and Justin Long make a movie together, you better believe that they are going to see to it that the soundtrack is stuffed with bands so hip it hurts, and that is exactly what Going the Distance is. Indeed, some people may view a band’s inclusion on this soundtrack as a sign that said band or artist is no longer cool, and it’s officially time to stop listening to them. If you’re friends with one of those people, do yourself a favor: stop being friends with them.
All kidding aside (Psssst! We weren’t kidding), the soundtrack plays out much like the one for “500 Days of Summer,” blending cutting-edge indie acts like the Boxer Rebellion (they’re here a whopping three times, but there’s a reason for that – they’re a key piece to the movie’s plot) with first-gen alt-rock bands like the Cure, the Pretenders and the Replacements. The end result is a more enjoyable experience than the movie itself, consistently engaging and high-brow. (Don’t get us started on the spray tanning scene.) It’s most likely to appeal to alt-rock suburbanites in their 30s and 40s, and that might sound like a death knell on paper, but here’s the thing: there are tons of people who fit that description, and while they may no longer be the hippest demographic in the world, they’re one of the most passionate groups of music fans left that actually still pay for music. And they love stuff that makes them feel cool again. Well played. (Water Tower Music 2010)
Their new album Butterfly House is still one of the top ‘holy shit, we didn’t see that one coming’ moments of the year, and the love parade keeps rolling on with second single and Butterfly House opening track “More Than a Lover.” The video’s another ’60s-ish pastiche of quick cuts, backwards film, and silhouette shots of singer James Skelly against the mooon. And check out that chorus – does anyone else hear America when that comes up?
Made the mistake of taking the week off after finishing the Lollapalooza recap. 200 press releases later (actually, there are still over 100 to go), here we are. The lesson appears to be ‘never go on vacation.’ Yeah, that’s just not happening.
Chromeo – Don’t Turn the Lights On (Christian Martin Remix)
We are positively dying to hear Business Casual, the new album by funk poppers Chromeo, but until then this (killer) single will have to do. This remix of the track doesn’t quite kill it like the album version, but hey, it’s free. And speaking of having the lights on…
Lights On – Red Lights Flashing
…and that’s all these bands have in common. This is more driving alt-rock a la the Killers and Airborne Toxic Event.
Ursula – Hey You! (Shake Edit)
We’d post an mp3 of Fred Schneider reading soup recipes if we had ‘em, but this guest vocal, mashed up with “Shake” by ’60s band the Shadows of Knight, will have to do.
The Gay Blades – Try to Understand
Gay as in merry, and happy. Truth be told, we don’t know if anyone in the Gay Blades is actually gay, nor do we care. As long as they churn out catchy pop rock like this, it’s all good.
Tamaryn – Love Fade
The name alone suggested some diva R&B singer, but this is anything but. More like Mazzy Star, with a pulse.
The Black Ryder – Let It Go
And while we’re in the swirly-rock groove (not sure what else to call that. Shoegazer doesn’t seem quite fitting, nor does psych rock), here’s another slow, slightly noisy tune from a band that just got a slot opening for the Cult. Huh. Can’t say I would have seen that coming based on this tune.
Brad Laner – Eyes Close
We always try to support those dedicated, sorry bastards who still believe in power pop. By all rights, this tune, with vocals that Elliott Smith would have killed for (too soon?), should find an audience. Here you go, audience. Find this, please.
After an all-too-brief stay at Astralwerks, where they dropped one of 2008’s finest with their dizzying alt-dance debut Dystopia, Australia’s Midnight Juggernauts return from the desert – or whatever planet houses their recording studio – with The Crystal Axis, currently available in the States as an iTunes exclusive but should see the light of day on CD in September. The band’s philosophy has not changed between albums, though the approach this time around is a bit different. Kicking the four-on-the-floor Daft Punk beats to the curb, The Crystal Axis downplays the Gothic vibe of Dystopia in favor of some technicolor psychedelia. “This New Technology” reimagines Love & Rockets as an electronic act, down to singer Vincent Vendetta’s Daniel Ash-like breathy vocal. Then, just to be perverse, they finish the track with a Moog-kissed breakdown that Air would have killed for circa Moon Safari. “The Great Beyond” has a great honest-to-goodness jam in the outro (always nice to see synth-driven bands put musicianship first), but the album’s clear highlight is “Lara Versus the Savage Pack,” a driving pop track with an explosive finale that will send the club kids climbing up the walls.
The production isn’t as clean as it was on Dystopia (they paid for this one themselves, which might explain why they stopped trying to sound like Daft Punk), and the songs overall are a bit more challenging than instantly accessible Dystopia tracks like “Road to Recovery” and “Into the Galaxy.” But that’s part of growing up, isn’t it? Eventually you’re on your own, and you can’t afford to do the same stuff you could when you still lived with your parents. Think of The Crystal Axis as the Midnight Juggernauts’ first apartment out of school; even the most talented people live in pretty dingy places when they first strike out on their own. It will not be long before the band’s budget catches back up with their talent. (Siberia Records 2010)
Where guitarist Rich Koehler decides to dress up his niece, nephew, and a neighbor kid and form Mini Nico Vega. Man, I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to do this kind of stuff to them.
…is on vacation this week. Catch us next week, when we’ve finished plowing through the press releases that came just before and after Lollapalooza. Until then, here’s a tune for you:
RIYL: Watching people bare their souls for all the world to see, risking abject humiliation in the process
I have not done many interviews in my time as senior editor for Bullz-Eye.com – certainly not in comparison to my good friend and colleague Will Harris, who does roughly six million interviews a year – and yet, there aren’t that many people left that I am dying to talk to. I interviewed boyhood idol John Taylor in 2005 (big story behind that one, which you can find here), and have picked off members of Blur, the Kaiser Chiefs, Hard-Fi and Depeche Mode along the way. The only three big ones left on my list were Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, and Bryan Ferry.
I scratched one of them off the list yesterday. Glenn Tilbrook was doing press to promote Squeeze’s new album Spot the Difference – which the band readily admits was made for licensing purposes so they can rake in a little extra cash from soundtrack supervisors and advertisers – which meant I had the opportunity to tell him something I’ve wanted to tell him for a long time: that Squeeze’s 1991 album Play saved my life.
Here’s the back story: I was involved in a tempestuous relationship with a girl who was under tremendous pressure from her parents to stop seeing me. And, wanting to please her parents and therefore make life easier, she started to listen to them, even after I had moved cross-country to be with her. Finally, I gave up, and made plans to move to Boston with my brother. I was working at a record store before I left, and they had a promo copy of Play. Since the people who frequented the suburban mall that housed the record store had no interest in Squeeze, the manager let me take it home. Home at the time was a flea-infested apartment I shared with some older guy. It was not where the heart is, which is why this album proved to be a massive source of comfort.
There seemed to be a song on the album for each emotion I was feeling at any given moment, with a lyric to match. “Each day’s a hope, each day’s a prayer, that I’ll rebuild and I’ll repair,” from “There Is a Voice,” or the opening lines to “Crying in My Sleep,” which I would sing to myself while busing tables, one of my three jobs after landing in Boston: “Breaking up is breaking my heart and showing me the door / But if I get it open, I’ll discover that there’s much more to life than this.” Even for the songs that weren’t an exact match to my situation, there was a vibe to it that resonated with me. I needed to feel better about myself. Play helped me do that.
Flash-forward 19 years, and I’m having a Skype chat with Tilbrook, who’s vacationing in the south of England after finishing what he calls the best tour of the States he’s ever done. And I lay it all on the line.
BE: On a personal note, you should know that Play basically saved my life.
GT: (Stunned) Wow.
BE: I was going through a hellacious breakup, and that album was extremely comforting to me. I know it didn’t sell a lot of records, but I’m so glad you guys made it.
GT: You know, a man who’s subsequently become my best friend said exactly the same thing to me! He was going through a divorce at that same time, and said, “Play, it just got me through.” Wow, that is really weird. What a weird coincidence. ‘Cause not that many people heard the record anyway, and that’s one of our best records, I think.
Here’s the thing I wanted to mention, but obviously don’t have the data to back up: I find it highly unlikely that Glenn’s friend and I are the only ones who were saved by this album. Is there anyone else out there who found solace, and ultimately rebirth, in these songs? It can’t be only me and this other guy…can it?
Back me up here, people. Does anyone else have the emotional connection to Play that I have? Let’s hear your stories in the comment section.
Lastly, thank you Glenn (and Chris) for writing such moving songs, and for being a great interview. Can’t wait to hear the new material you’re working on. Oh, and as a post-script, I ended up getting back together with the girl in question and dating her for another few years, and in following her to Chicago, I met the woman who would become my wife. It took a little longer than I hoped, but I got that door open after all.
In this final installment of our recap of Lollapalooza 2010, we cover the stars of tomorrow, or what is known in baseball circles as the Futures Game. Well, most of them are potential stars of tomorrow, anyway. One of them was a big time star of the past, and not even one with hipster cred like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, or Roky Erickson. Easily the biggest blemish on the lineup as a whole. Going a bit overboard in bashing the band, you say? Ha. We’re just getting warmed up.
Foxy Shazam, Friday, Sony Bloggie Stage
Our man Eldred is into these wildly ambitious Cincinnati glam rockers a tad more (which is to say, about a million times more) than we are, but after reading Eldred’s amusing interview with Foxy lead singer Eric Sean Nally, where he swore they could win over any crowd, we knew a bet when we saw one. Sadly, we missed the majority of the set thanks to the new reworking of the grounds (enter at Roosevelt? Dude, that’s a mile from here), but once we arrived, we got their appeal, instantly. And if we didn’t, their closing number sealed the deal. Nally leapfrogged onto the guitarist’s shoulders, who didn’t miss a beat on his solo until Nally started kicking his guitar. The keyboardist is literally stomping on the keys, and not Jerry Lee Lewis-style – more like Dance Dance Revolution-style. Nally then took off one of the drummer’s cymbals and chucked it at the drums before walking off the stage. The crowd went absolutely fucking bonkers. Can’t say we blame them.
Photo by Ashley Garmon
Nally also had the best between-song banter of the weekend, where he spoke of how his father knew John Lennon, which we’re pretty sure is bollocks. Either way, this was the best first performance we’ve seen since Hard-Fi in 2005.
HEALTH, Sunday, adidas MEGA Stage
Our boy Eldred was most impressed with this band, claiming that the blew the bad weather away with pure noise. The former sounds nice, the blowing away the weather. The latter, well, it depends. Are we talking Pixies/My Bloody Valentine noise, or, you know, noise noise?
(*hits band’s MySpace page*)
Ooh, My Bloody Valentine noise. Damn. Sorry we missed this one.
Stars, Saturday, Budweiser Stage
As a means of eliminating accidental bias – hey, we’re human, it happens – we tend to listen to bands knowing as little about them as possible. There are drawbacks to this, of course, especially if you cling to your hipster credibility like an oxygen mask. For example, we had no idea until after we were writing up Stars’ performance that they were all members of the much-beloved Broken Social Scene, which has ties to every Canadian band from the last 30 years. If we had, then perhaps we would have felt an urge to find a better superlative to describe their set than ‘pleasant.’ Ah, but hipster credibility means absolutely nothing to us, so here it is: they were fine, and occasionally great. (Their song “We Don’t Want Your Body” is easily the best track on their new album The Five Ghosts.) But at 2:00 in the afternoon on a steamy Saturday, we were perfectly content to lounge in the wake zone between the northern stages and let the mind wander. Read into that what you will.
Photo by Dave Mead
Skybox, Saturday, BMI Stage
It warms our hearts to see a group of kids play the kind of pop that their parents would have listened to as kids. We can’t imagine that they stand much of a chance in terms of radio success, but they might become soundtrack darlings, and goodness knows that’s a more lucrative career path these days than banking on radio to sell your record. We’re not sure the songwriting is at peak level yet, but they have the right idea, that’s for sure.
Nneka, Sunday, Parkways Foundation Stage
Eldred’s last five words made us glad we skipped her, especially considering she played in the middle of a rain shower with gale-force winds: “Too quiet for a festival.” This same thing plagued Neko Case last year, and we would listen to Neko sing the ingredients to a can of soup. Gorgeous voice, but sometimes the music just can’t measure up to the atmosphere. Props to Perry for trying to inject a little variety (read: color) into the lineup, but he’d be wise to take energy into consideration, especially on a Sunday when everyone is already wiped out.
Ancient Astronauts, Friday, Perry’s
The new Perry’s stage, and the space in front of it, is twice the size of last year’s location, and that’s good because it got really tight there last year, especially when Perry himself made an appearance. We dug the last Ancient Astronauts record, a strange blend of New York hip hop and French sensibility, but what we saw of their DJ set was pretty flat. Aside from a fun mash-up involving “Blitzkrieg Bop,” they seemed trapped in a reggae fugue. We lasted 15 minutes.
Photo by Matthew Taplinger
See that hat he’s wearing? They were inescapable all weekend, and every time we saw one – which was a lot – we thought, “Tool.” Just sayin’. If you own one, put it in the closet. Or better yet, throw it away.
The Soft Pack, Saturday, Budweiser Stage
It’s hard to stand apart from the guitar alt-rock crowd these days, and granted, these guys didn’t do a great job of standing apart themselves, but there was something in their sound that caught our ear. A similarity to Catherine Wheel, perhaps, or perhaps we were just relieved that someone was coming out of the gate bringing the energy, because Lollapalooza isn’t a music festival so much as a grueling three-day death march of music (if you’re over 30, that is). Bands like the Soft Pack at noon on Saturday are the equivalent of a shot of adrenaline to the heart. Once they were finished, we felt kind of bad for them once we saw that they’d be followed by the decidedly softer Wild Beasts. Don’t let the name fool you, they are anything but.
Blues Traveler, Saturday, Parkways Foundation Stage
Blues Traveler has played every even-numbered Chicago Lolla. The only thing we can’t figure out is why.
Modern rock radio hasn’t touched them since 1995. They never played any of the touring Lollas, receiving their first invite in 2006. Granted, much of that was due to the fact that John Popper & Co. were tied up with the traveling jam band H.O.R.D.E. tours until 1998, but doesn’t that alone demonstrate just how much one of these things is not like the others? Yes, there is some crossover between the festivals in terms of artists, but they largely involved the bands that were exceptions to the H.O.R.D.E. philosophy, not the other way around. And since they’ve been playing the festival every other year in the last five years, they haven’t been gone long enough for people to miss them now. For us, Blues Traveler at Lolla is like Homer Simpson reading a Far Side calendar: “I don’t get. I don’t get it. I….don’t get it.”
All right, rant over. Truth be told, we only heard their first two songs, “Runaround” (leading with the hit? Unheard of) and…wait for it…a cover of Sublime’s “What I Got.” Knowing wink, or calculated attempt to wring nostalgia from a moment that doesn’t call for it? You be the judge. We’ve judged enough as it is.
Raphael Saadiq, Friday, Parkways Foundation Stage
This is admittedly another ‘one of these things is not like the other’ situation, but as big fans of Saadiq’s 2008 album The Way I See It, we were thrilled that he brought his pitch-perfect Motown groove to Lolla. (Why they decided to have Mavis Staples play at the same time on the north side, however, was a head-scratcher.) Armed with a crack band – our friend Tim, a drummer, was most impressed with Saadiq’s drummer – Saadiq played a slightly sped-up version of his catalog, and threw everyone for a loop when his all-black band laid down the hardest guitar riff that anyone played all day. Smart move, given the crowd they were playing to were pretty damn white (hey, they were on the stage that Lady Gaga would grace six hours later). We even caught a guy so caught up in the groove that he danced like he didn’t have a care in the world. While our buddy Tim said, “Man, I’m so glad that’s not you,” we were actually moved by his lack of self-awareness. He was completely caught up in the moment; that’s what it’s all about in the end, right?
Landing a cool 10 months after the release of Volume I of Yo Gabba Gabba’s Music Is…Awesome! series, this set rights some of the wrongs of that first album by including some of the bands they overlooked the last time (Jimmy Eat World, MGMT, Datarock, and thank God they finally released the Ting Tings’ cover of “Happy Birthday”). The catch with this set is that the songs by the contributing rock bands are much better, but the songs from the show are, well, not. Yes, “Hold Still” finally makes an appearance, but it’s the lesser of the two versions that have appeared on the show. Meanwhile, the “Freeze Game” song here does not measure up to the ‘you can’t catch us!’ ‘Freeze’ song from another episode. (Perhaps they chose the version they did so they didn’t have two songs that featured Brobee whining about not being able to keep up.) Alas, the Aggrolites’ song “Banana” is still nowhere to be found, nor is GOGO13’s song “Pick It Up” which, years after their debut on the show, are still the two most commonly sung “Yo Gabba Gabba” songs in this writer’s household. Their exclusion from these sets is bordering on comical, if it weren’t so tragic. Still, the Weezer song (”All My Friends Are Insects”) is great, as are the songs by Hot Hot Heat (”Time to Go Outdoors”) and the Apples in Stereo (”That’s My Family”). In the end the album, much like the show, has some moments of genius, surrounded by stuff that you merely tolerate for the sake of your kids. No excuses, guys: put “Pick It Up” and “Banana” on the next set, or there will be hell to pay. (Filter 2010)
When Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers entered the studio to record their important third album, 1979’s Damn the Torpedoes, they hired Jimmy Iovine, the brash New Yorker who had been involved with several other important third records, like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run (as an engineer) and Patti Smith’s Easter, to co-produce the album. Iovine’s drive and perfectionism were ideal for bringing out the best in the band and capturing the Heartbreakers’ blend of British Invasion rhythms and Byrds-like jangle and help them rise beyond cult favorites to superstar status. The making of Damn the Torpedoes would become an enormous challenge for the band, not only in the studio, as egos clashed, but with their record company, who at one point threatened not to release the album. The story behind this important album, one that is credited with “saving rock ‘n roll” from disco, is laid out in this superb Classic Albums DVD from Eagle Vision, another in their long line of excellent documentaries about important records in rock history.
If Drew Barrymore and Justin Long make a movie together, you better believe that they are going to see to it that the soundtrack is stuffed with bands so hip it hurts, and that is exactly what Going the Distance is. Indeed, some people may view a band’s inclusion on this soundtrack as a sign that said band or artist is no longer cool, and it’s officially time to stop listening to them. If you’re friends with one of those people, do yourself a favor: stop being friends with them. 
After an all-too-brief stay at Astralwerks, where they dropped one of 2008’s finest with their dizzying alt-dance debut 
I have not done many interviews in my time as senior editor for Bullz-Eye.com – certainly not in comparison to my good friend and colleague Will Harris, who does roughly six million interviews a year – and yet, there aren’t that many people left that I am dying to talk to. I interviewed boyhood idol John Taylor in 2005 (big story behind that one, which you can find 
