One Thousand Apologies

Le Review Revue will be on a bit of a hiatus while I attempt to solicit a federal bailout of my own. *coughfuckyouwamucough* If you would like to purchase the Catfish Adams brand and take over its debts, please send an e-mail. What you do with all the pre-printed letterhead is up to you...

Overheard on the Bus: Metallica, "Death Magnetic"

Being a simple folksy fellow, a "Joe Sixpack" if you will, I do my best to avoid the elitists and their corresponding ideas; I steer clear of libraries and refuse to look beyond the celebrity gossip section of the newsstand. But sometimes a person can't hide from genius because sometimes a person rides the bus. The public bus, as in open to the public bus, i.e. anybody can ride if they have a buck or a smokin' hot bod that the bus driver appreciates. Nobody got on for free that day.

As I boarded the #34, there were several things I expected to witness: a gaggle of teenagers being depressed, a gaggle of teenagers being morons, a gaggle of teenagers being depressed morons, three veterans with a combined total of nine and a half limbs, and an elderly Hispanic woman trying to perform an exorcism on the bus itself. I never expected to hear a sage statement like the following:

"Two Words; [sic] Hell Yeah."

I frantically turned around to try and determine the erudite source. Instead I found the Hispanic woman's silver crucifix in my face. Could she be the one?

"For the first time in twenty years, Metallica has a great album. I listened to it three times in full today alone. It comes really fast, well wrapped and really coooooooool. I've never seen this album in this price!! excellent."

No, the proclamation came from behind her. Settled in the molded plastic seat was an unassuming twenty-something male. From the visible absence of a collection of Pavement original pressing albums, and his admiration for an album being "well-wrapped," I could tell that this man was not a professional music critic. His capacity to hold my attention by way of mouth was even more amazing considering his abcedarian status. Even more extraordinary was that he appeared to be talking to no one in particular. He sat alone, leaning his head against the bus window and watching the potholes pass us by. He continued,

"It certainly is not nearly as good as the 'black album'. It's not as bad as St. Anger. Yet unlike Toby Keith, they're not as good once, as they once were. A recurrent problem for me is thinking that I'm buying into a group at the zenith of their appeal to me. Metallica apparently is well past that. I can listen to this but all the cuts in a row is harder to take than it should be. Repetition tends to bore me and bored I am if I don't just listen to a select couple of tracks."

I dug through my man-purse, desperate to find a pen and paper so as to record everything this public-transit prophet had to say, but as I did so, the modest vaticinator quietly slipped off the bus. The world would only be allowed to hear the stream of splendor I was able to commit to memory.

Professional music critics beware: our savior is amongst us! He will cleanse the back pages of music magazines of posturing and pretension, leaving only ads for recording arts institutions and sex cushions.

There is nothing that I could give to this review, only what the review gave to me: hope.

Mark Kemp: B.B. King, "One Kind Favor

It ain’t easy being a bluesman. Need proof? Go listen to a blues song--any one of them, even the upbeat ones--and you’ll see that the life of a bluesman is filled with nothing but crises, predicaments, and quandaries. And what is the origin of the bluesman’s pain? More often than not, a trifling woman.

Broken hearted? That trifling woman!

Stuck at the bottom of the bottle? That trifling woman!

Broke and busted? That trifling woman!

A spotty discography, despite having incredible talent? That trifling woman!

Too often, though, there is another source of grief that is often overlooked: the music critic. Their sharp, forked tongues offer up a vitriol that, at times, can be comparable to an affable woman. (Of course nothing compares to the ire of the dreaded average-to-cold-hearted woman)

In his review of B.B. King’s most recent release, “One Kind Favor,” reviewer Mark Kemp offers up an asteism for King: your album is good, if only because there was a lot of crap that came before it. More insulting than this is the fact that Kemp uses his review of King’s album as a soapbox to promote the Southern agenda against Eric Clapton.

“For too long, King has drowned in slick production, propped up by stiff duets with the likes of Eric Clapton.”

Oh? You haven't heard about the collective Southern hatred for the English guitarist? Not surprising if you live outside of Dixie. Allow me to boil down the delusions and give you the condensed version of the theory. WARNING: If this makes absolutely no sense to you, keep in mind that you are not alone.

Like all other Southerners, Mark Kemp, a native North Carolingian, strongly holds to the idea that the untimely death of guitarist Duane Allman was intentionally caused by Eric Clapton. Supposedly Clapton first heard Duane Allman’s playing on Wilson Pickett’s rendition of “Hey Jude.” It was then that Clapton, overcome with jealousy, decided that Duane Allman must die(!!!). Clapton invited Allman to play on his "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" LP, a ploy to garner the trust of the Southerner. His scheme worked, and an apparent friendship was formed between the two guitarists.

While the rest of the country (and world [and universe]) accepts that Duane Allman’s death was the result of an unfortunate accident after he was thrown from his motorcycle while trying to avoid hitting a truck that stopped suddenly ahead of him, the South grew suspicious. The idea that a truck driving anywhere near Macon, Georgia would stop unexpectedly is suspect enough, but a truck that had the honor of driving ahead of Duane Allman? Not only improbable, but impossible as well.

The explanation offered up by Rebels everywhere, including Mark Kemp, is simple enough: Eric Clapton was the driver of the truck!

Shame on you, Mr. Kemp! You've invoked B.B. King's name in vain, just so that you could try to convince the world that Eric Clapton is a real sonuvabitch. Sure, he can never be forgiven for that song he did with Babyface, but accusing him of murder? You're supposed to be a professional, not some merchant of paranoid delusions. For betraying the venerable trade of music criticism, your review of B.B. King's "One Kind Favor" is awarded the causes of acute renal failure.

Jeffrey Morgan, "Jeffrey Morgan's Media Blackout: Fast, live and in concert"

There are so many people singing the praises of the written word that, at times, it can appear as though the written word is infallible--kind of like the Pope, or Radiohead. But I am here to tell you that the written word is not without fault. Above all , its ease of access allows anyone, however untalented they might be, an avenue to express their ideas and opinions. No longer can we rest assured that anytime we are about to read a book, essay, story, or dirty joke that it will be of quality and substance.

Enter Jeffrey Morgan.

According to an unnamed female source, Jeffrey Morgan is either the uncredited Canadian editor of Creem magazine since 1975, or the OB/GYN with a practice in Mansfield, Texas. Although it is possible that Morgan does both: juggling cervices with one hand and Lester Bangs' balls with the other. Bangs' death in 1982 would definitely have allowed for more cervix juggling.

I haven't read any of Jeffrey Morgan's earlier writings, so I can't say what kind of reviewer he was before his focus shifted to gynecology. But if his current writing is any indicator, he has either fallen into an abyss of mediocrity, or there is a deep imprint of his butt left behind on the couch of mediocrity.

Jeffrey Morgan's "Jeffrey Morgan's Media Blackout" #184 takes a look at several live performance DVD releases, including Dead Boys — Return of the Living Dead Boys: Halloween Night 1986, Quincy Jones — Live at Montreux 1996, and Gillan — The Glory Years. In all, Morgan reviews 11 DVDs, eight of which are releases from the Eagle Vision label. Obviously this means that Morgan is a shill for Eagle Vision and, therefore, can be trusted even less.

Currently Morgan presents himself as the type of reviewer who goes out of his way to let readers know just how atypical and obscure his tastes are, along with how witty he thinks he is. Example: "America — Live in Central Park 1979 (Eagle Vision) :: Need proof that they’re better than Neil Young?" What kind of people actually believe that America (the band, not the country) is better than Neil Young? Only subterranean molemen and subscribers to Lester Bangs' philosophy of antagonistic music fandom.

It's only fitting then that Jeffrey Morgan's "Jeffrey Morgan's Media Blackout: Fast, live and in concert" be awarded Kansas (the band, not the state).

Steven Hyden: U2, "War" (Reissue), "October" (Reissue), "Boy" (Reissue)

When any album is reissued, but especially those by extremely well-liked artists, there are several dangerous outcomes which could potentially occur. They include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Longtime fans will accuse the band of selling out ("They're only doing it for the money, man.")
2. Music critics will review the rerelease and speak of how great they thought the album was when it was originally released ("I thought this album was really great when it was originally released, man.")
3. The earth will fuckin' explode, man (". . .")

Of course, the problem with each of these is obvious:

1. Alienating longtime fans will ultimately become a financial hindrance to the artist's cloak-and-dagger presbyopic goal of selling out.
   
2. When looking back into the past, it becomes too tempting to revise what one was thinking at that given time. Suddenly you always knew how awesome U2 was (even if Bono is a little too political--OMG, how could you have even known, dude?!), and surely whatever topical fad you were following in the past was only done so ironically; like you would ever genuinely try to record the audio from a New Kids on the Block televised concert onto your tape deck.
3. Uhh. . .

But, given that Steven Hyden was reviewing the newest U2 reissues for The Onion's "The A.V. Club," I decided that in reviewing his review, I would, first, read Hyden's musings, then later go back and reread the surely brilliant review before launching into my own misguided ramblings. You'll now excuse me while I once again read Steven Hyden's reviews of the U2 reissues of "War," "October," and "Boy."
-----

When I think back on the first time I read Steve Hyden's review of the U2 reissues of their first three albums, I can't help but be reminded about where I was back then. It was a crazy time, and I was a crazy guy. Hell, we were all a little crazy back then, and understandably so. How could we have known how out of control everything would get and how quickly it would get that way?

In those days I felt like I knew everything, and there wasn't a person on this planet that could tell me otherwise, especially not someone older than me. Our parents, man, they just didn't understand. We were trying to say something, and all they wanted us to do was stay quiet so they could hear Wheel of Fortune.

Well you know what, mom? I've got something to say, dad. Fuck. Pat. Sajak. He was only a false prophet leading the way towards an inevitable social collapse. Instead, heed the warnings of the oracle Steven Hyden: "Not since The Who defined itself with 'I Can't Explain' did a band map its career as early as U2 did with 'I Will Follow,' the first track on its staggering 1980 debut, Boy."

U2 didn't change the world accidentally, and neither did Hyden. Genius does not wander these lands drunkenly, stumbling upon whatever washed up vamp they can find. Instead, they plot out their path of devastation, only stopping to rape the truly worthwhile ladies.

Unfortunately Steven Hyden failed to foresee the need to reference Bob Dylan or Radiohead. The absence of Radiohead can be forgiven, as U2 was a predecessor of Radiohead, but the absence of Dylan? That's like showing up to a gunfight sans pistol and with a tubesock on your penis; you just don't do it. But just for showing up to that gunfight, Steven Hyden and his review of the new U2 reissues are going to walk away with Asian puddings.

Tjames Madison: Beck, "Modern Guilt"

Beck did a bad, bad thing. An act so egregious that he has yet to be completely forgiven. For years, though, this betrayal existed only in a penumbra of rumors.

"Did you hear about Beck?"
"Do you think it could be true?"
"Why would he do it? Doesn't he care about us?"

As the gossip increased, it became more and more humiliating to be a fan of Beck. And while in certain social circles it was still acceptable to applaud the musician's work, this appreciation always had to be followed up with a disavowal of his misdeeds, similar to the way your mom talked about her Uncle Mort. He was a good man, but it's a shame about the whole "pedophilia thing."

Beck eventually came forward and admitted that the rumors were true. Hipsters everywhere hung their heads, and music critics began compiling vitriolic barbs to be used against the singer in future album reviews. Off in the distance a baby cried. It was true: Beck had a surname!

"Beck Hansen"

Fans and critics alike responded harshly. It was as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Not since Hitler, had a name aroused so much contempt and ill-will. Answers were demanded. Would Beck's music still be listened to? Could it be enjoyed? What about any future releases? Which name would they be released under? What do we tell the children?

If liveDaily contributor Tjames Madison was affected by Beck's infidelity, he certainly shows no sign of it. In his review of Beck's latest, Modern Guilt, not once does Madison mention the artist's revised moniker. Are we to believe that Madison was unaffected by the whole affair, or that he's simply in denial? As us reviewers are wont to do, I will attempt to remain positive and believe the former.

Madison makes no attempt to reinvent the wheel. He knows what reviewers do well, and sticks to that. Opinions are offered up as facts and comparisons to prior works are made. He describes Modern Guilt as being Beck's "most even outing since 2002's Sea Change." And, of course, no review would be replete without the obligatory Bob Dylan simile. The lyrics to "Profanity Prayers" are described as being "overtly Dylanesque."

Unfortunately, though, neither Radiohead nor Pavement are mentioned. A writer of Madison's stature should know better than that. These shortcomings, while significant, are not enough to take away from the strength of the review. For Tjames Madison's review of Beck's Modern Guilt, I award it a child tableau.

Catfish Adams: Year 25 of My Life

Today is my 26th birthday. This past year started off strong (at a bowling alley, actually); the kind of year anyone could rally behind. I mean, who wouldn't want to go to Memphis and see the shag carpeting on the ceilings of Graceland? Fried chicken at Gus'? Sign me up! But that strength began to fade near the halfway point. Flat tire, anyone? The year ended with a whimper, definitely not the best conclusion to leave audiences wanting more (no bowling, or any other, ball play). The most frustrating thing is that audiences know that the potential for more is there. Let's hope that the inevitable follow-up does what its predecessor could not do.

For the power of year 25's start, I award it a set of folded towels.

----------------
Now playing: The Mars Volta - Tourniquet Man
via FoxyTunes

Marc Hogan: Weezer, "Weezer (The Red Album)"

Pitchfork has standards. Really high standards. If Pitchfork reviewed mothers, yours would only score a 2.3/10, and she'd probably get punched in her uterus, possibly even causing it to prolapse. So much for that little brother you were hoping to have. Apparently your mom is too well-known and her style "tiresome."

If your own mother, the woman who sacrificed so much so you could receive the education that made you the success you are today, can't even break 3.0, then what hope does Weezer and their new self-titled album have?

Not much, according to reviewer Marc Hogan, although they do fair better than your poor moms (which means you should probably be sending that box of chocolates to Rivers Cuomo on Mother's Day instead).

It's always a bad sign when a review starts off by looking back longingly. "Remember when..." "It used to be..." "I had a girlfriend this one time..." This is what Hogan regales his readers with. Apparently he used to like Weezer, particularly their first two albums, Weezer ("The Blue Album") and Pinkerton. He even calls those two LPs "75 minutes of near-perfect power-pop." You will note that even perfection--a quality, trait, or feature of the highest degree of excellence--only receives a 9.3 in Pitchfork's domain. But after that first 75 minutes,the rest of the band's offerings went to shit, much like Hogan's review. His gaze remains fixed behind him for the rest of his review and fails to ever turn forward.

Readers are tired of reading about what was, and desperately want to read about what will be. What will Weezer's next album sound like? Will Pavement ever reunite? What will knock Pitchfork off their own self-constructed pedestal? These are the types of question that Hogan and all reviewers should be asking.

Marc Hogan's review offers no redeeming value. His review of Weezer's "The Red Album" is thusly awarded a Reiki affirmation.

Annie Zaleski: "Show Review: Radiohead in St. Louis at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, May 14"

Despite what you might have heard, predictability isn't always a bad thing. It can save you the trouble of guessing what's going to happen in the future. In fact, I'd say predictability is the best friend of the impatient man (just man; woman need to learn patience). For example, because I know that all music reviewers are not fans of music, I can expect to read vitriolic attacks based on arbitrary factors including, but not limited to, how much a band sounds like Pavement.

Imagine my surprise when I read a review of a recent Radiohead concert by Annie Zaleski. Annie Zaleski is not a music critic. How can I be so certain? Because she's a fan. A BIG one, if her review Show Review: Radiohead in St. Louis at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, May 14 is any indicator. There are several obvious clues:

- She attended the Radiohead concert she reviewed.
Actual music critics do not need to attend shows, or even listen to albums, in order to write their reviews. If anything, the lack of participation actually makes for a better review. How can you maintain your journalistic objectivity if you get caught up in the frenzy and atmosphere of people actually enjoying listening to music? The answer? You can't. (For the sake of disclosure, I did not actually read Ms. Zaleski's review.)

- She took her own photographs.
What's worse than Zaleski attending the concert? Attending AND taking photographs! So much wasted effort--she might as well have attended the concert twice! Standard protocol for concert reviews is to send the staff photographer to snap some pictures, and then you write your review based on what was captured with the camera. If you don't have a staff photographer, then you just do a Google Image Search and base your review on whatever non-pornographic images come up. If the search yields nothing but porn, then it must not have been that good of a concert (surprise, surprise).

- She took a photo of the back of someone's head and considered it a success.
I may not know much about "composition" or "exposure" or "a lens cap," but I do know that never ever has anyone ever thought that the back of someone's head was interesting (unless the front of their head was actually on the back of their head because their mom was drunk every day of her pregnancy).

- She posted the entire set list (including both encores).
Nobody likes a know-it-all, Annie.

- She wrote sooooo many words.
It's not unusual for a review to be lengthy. What is unusual is when the majority of that lengthy review is actually based on the subject being reviewed. Annie, I understand that the name of the blog is 'A to Z,' but was it really necessary to cover everything about the concert from A to Z? To make matters worse, it wasn't even the standard 26-letter, English alphabet, but one of those weird alphabets with about 4,786 distinctive characters.

I can appreciate your enthusiasm (sort-of), Annie, but let's leave the reviews to us professionals. How about we make a deal? You won't write any more reviews, and us critics won't wait in line for hours to buy an album, or attend a concert unless we're on the comp. list. Sound fair?

Since Ms. Zaleski's review wasn't actually a review, it's hard to decide what kind of rating to give Show Review: Radiohead in St. Louis at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, May 14. So I'll just give it a 1965 Mustang GT Convertible.

Sia Michel: Portishead, "Third"

When you hear the name "Sia Michel," two words should come to mind: "bravery" and "cowardice" (I also would have accepted "typographical error"). Bravery, because she had the stones to be editor-in-chief at Spin magazine (do you have any idea how much indie cred you need to run a rag like that?) for five years. Cowardice, because she vacated her position when the magazine was bought out by new owners. Sia, one thing the music world DOESN'T need is fair-weather editor-in-chiefs. You're either with Spin magazine, or you're against Spin magazine.

Bravery and cowardice aside, Michel's recent review of Portishead's Third will come as a shock to fans of her earlier work. Instead of expanding her voice, and growing as a writer, she has reverted to 150-word notes for Blender that end up sandwiched between Fergie's ass and anonymous tits from MTV's The Hills, and read like a writer who knows that she wants to do something, but can't figure out what that something is. Gone now are the epic tales held within her reviews; replaced by a succinctness that Sia so desperately wants to achieve, and at times her fingertips do lightly graze it, but in the end, it ultimately eludes her.

Sia Michel is a lost soul, desperately trying to find out who she is. I believe it will be exciting when it eventually happens. Until then, I award her review of Portishead's Third a matrix logarithm.

Melissa Maerz: The Raconteurs, 'Consolers of the Lonely'

Melissa Maerz's name has graced the pages of numerous publications, including Spin magazine and New York's "Vulture" blog; now her name can be seen at the bottom of reviews in Rolling Stone. Maerz's name still not ringing a bell? That's probably because you know her better as Chuck Klosterman's girlfriend. Is it safe to say that she's riding his coattails? As a journalist, I cannot say with any amount of certainty, but let me ask you this: does Chuck wear a coat?

In her review of The Raconteurs' new offering, Consolers of the Lonely, Maerz starts off with an inquiry ("What separates the blues greats from the legends?"), but never actually answers it. Okay, she does answer it immediately after posing it, but is it a sufficient answer? No, it is not.

Only two paragraphs (out of a whopping six!) in and we begin to see signs of Maerz's dependency on parentheticals. Is she a one-trick pony? Maybe not (or maybe?), but it certainly is her most prominently utilized apparatus. The problem with such an over-use of the "oval brackets" (or "round brackets") is that your audience will begin to see just how much of your review is supplementary. Readers want to know that every word (every, every word) that you put to paper (or word processor) is a necessity, and with an absence of just one of those words (just one!), the whole piece will fall apart.

On the positive side, Maerz acknowledges the majesty of Bob Dylan when she turns his name into an adjective to describe the song "Carolina Drama" as "Dylanesque." It's always a good idea to name-check legendary artists and then proceed to compare a newer artist to said legend. (Bonus points would have been given had she also managed to compare The Raconteurs to either Radiohead or Pavement)

Melissa Maerz obviously has talent, but it's hard to see such talent (or aptitude) when she so heavily relies on one specific punctuation mark (Spice things up! Give us an angle bracket!), and her relationship status.

Because she is Chuck Klosterman's girlfriend, I give Melissa Maerz's review of the new The Raconteurs album (Consolers of the Lonely) a rating of Norm Abram.

Will Hermes: Gnarls Barkley, 'The Odd Couple'

Before Will Hermes' review of the new Gnarls Barkley album begins, readers of Spin Magazine should realize the trouble that is to come. "The dynamic duo of eccentric pop return with polished predictability," Hermes writes. Alliteration? C'mon, Will! Are we writing poems in sophomore English class, or are we writing album reviews?

Things don't get much better. Hermes, instead, goes on to "nitpick" about the things that he doesn't like about The Odd Couple, including the fact that "the title is a little misleading." What would you suggest instead? Gnarls Barkley presents: An Album That Will Hermes Doesn't Think is as Good as Our Previous Album?

Most disappointing is the fact that a writer as talented as Hermes would stoop to making the clichéd Radiohead reference [Editor's note: coincidental alliteration is allowable]. We get it. Music critics really, really like Radiohead, but can't music exist without being constantly compared to Thom Yorke and Co.? Can't a Gnarls Barkley song just be a Gnarls Barkley song? Readers will be thankful for the lack of allusions to Belle and Sebastian, though.

Ironically, Hermes is disappointed in the predictable feel of The Odd Couple. The same predictability that he admonishes Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse for, plagues Hermes' own work. Readers need not go any further than the second paragraph to know just how Hermes feels. A little bit of suspense can go a long way, Will.

Despite his shortcomings, I give Will Hermes' review of Gnarls Barkley's The Odd Couple a castle.

Greetings

...and salutations.