Quick Notes

Trial prep keeps me from blogging much, but two albums worth mentioning keep catching my ear on the ipod: Modest Mouse (does anyone hear some Talking Heads in there), and John Doe, he of X fame. A Year in the Wilderness is by far the best record by JD since he left X. Enjoy.

Mid-Year Champeen

My mid-year nominee for Album of the Year is unquestionably Grand Champeen's dial T for this.

This morning I just took the rare step--post kids, job, and ipod--of listening to the whole album all the way through. There's hardly a dud on the record. Indie alt-country rock at its finest.

I first noticed Champeen when they were featured on a album of Elvis Costello covers, where they ripped through No Action. (Loyal listeners heard their version of that Elvis classic on THLS 2003.) I bought a full album at that time and was disappointed at how uneven their music was.

No longer. dial T is one of the most consistent set of fast driving (can't say hard driving with all those hooks) 2:40 songs I have heard in years. Although they are aptly compared to the Replacements and Soul Asylum, there is something bigger/older in this records. I can't quite place it, but there is something of the harmonies, song structures, and low tech production that stimulates the Byrds Beatles Who Monkey's part of my admittedly addled musical brain.

Champeen are reputed to tear it up on stage. Listeners will have little doubt of that fact.

Champeen's web presence also reflects a generational (speaking in web time) shift. Their self-named website is completely out of date, and essentially acts as a referral to their myspace page.

At myspace, you can hear them, and find out that their only scheduled show is at the Hole in the Wall, tonight.

Low Budget Review: Fountains of Wayne

It might be fair to call me a huge Fountains of Wayne fan. Ever since I first heard Leave the Biker, I was hooked on their geek rock unabashed pop janglings. I like them so much I didn't get annoyed at the rampant overexposure of Stacy's Mom.

So it is with some disappointment that I offer this mini-review of their new record. It is well, fine. There is nothing particularly wrong with it. I don't reach for the trackwheel when a song comes on.

Normally lyrics are not the key to a great song for me. It's the hooks, man. I once read a review of the Gourds that said they could make reading the phone book soulful. Exactly. But FOW seems to have gone one step too far in cataloguing the mundane. They have become the mundane. The hooks are there, and a few clever turns of phrase ("ooh, we belong together/like traffic and weather"), but I'm not moved.

Maybe a few more listens will bring me around, but mostly it makes me want to listen to the older stuff. OK, now I sound like every musical curmudgeon, so I'll stop.