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- Review count6
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- First reviewSeptember 14, 2007
- Last reviewSeptember 22, 2007
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JimmyEightCats's Reviews
![The Forgotten Arm [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7147/7147081_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Gorgeous and Compelling
on September 22, 2007
Posted by: JimmyEightCats
from New Haven,CT
Remember that great soundtrack that the guy from Flock of Seagulls did for that Sofia Coppola movie? How about when Kajagoogoo’s Lamahl self released album turned him into a critic’s darling? Don’t remember how those eighties MTV staples reinvented themselves? That’s because they didn’t. They had their one or two hits and are probably playing on a makeshift stage before some “Totally Eighties” dance party as you read this. Brake out the deely bobbers, kids.
Not Aimee Mann: out of all the artists whose haircuts inspired yearbook photos that could only have been taken when Steve Guttenberg was “A” list, she alone has had an artistically worthwhile career. Trained at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Mann not only fronted “Til Tuesday, but played bass and wrote the majority of the band’s songs as well. She even collaborated with Elvis Costello and one time boyfriend Jules Shear. These well respected songwriters certainly never worked with the likes of oh, say, Berlin.
Since then she’s released a series of critically acclaimed solo albums and battled so much record company bull that she and husband Michael Penn formed their own label.
She’s worked closely with wunderkind producer/composer/musician Jon Brion, a onetime fixture of the New Haven, Connecticut music scene.(Hey, I'm from there). Their work on the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia netted Mann an Oscar nomination.
Her latest, “The Forgotten Arm” is a lyrically dark, melodically gorgeous tale of a drug addicted boxer’s return from Viet Nam. Get this: it works-the songs hold up individually and the drama is compelling. Mann had some experience in using music to tell to tell a story: the characters in “Magnolia” sang her songs straight into the camera. It isn’t until you look at the lyrics that you realize how wordy(in the best sense) they are. This literate approach is highlighted by the CD being packaged like a 1940s book, with drawings illustrating each chapter(song).
To be honest, I never followed Mann’s career until a friend of mine gave me a ticket to see her as birthday present. I expected nothing and figured I’d spend most of the night in the bar. I was wrong. She was mesmerizing, one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. And I didn’t know a single song. Gorgeous songs and a band so perfect that I bought both of her guitar player’s CDs. One show made me an instant fan.
Not Aimee Mann: out of all the artists whose haircuts inspired yearbook photos that could only have been taken when Steve Guttenberg was “A” list, she alone has had an artistically worthwhile career. Trained at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Mann not only fronted “Til Tuesday, but played bass and wrote the majority of the band’s songs as well. She even collaborated with Elvis Costello and one time boyfriend Jules Shear. These well respected songwriters certainly never worked with the likes of oh, say, Berlin.
Since then she’s released a series of critically acclaimed solo albums and battled so much record company bull that she and husband Michael Penn formed their own label.
She’s worked closely with wunderkind producer/composer/musician Jon Brion, a onetime fixture of the New Haven, Connecticut music scene.(Hey, I'm from there). Their work on the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia netted Mann an Oscar nomination.
Her latest, “The Forgotten Arm” is a lyrically dark, melodically gorgeous tale of a drug addicted boxer’s return from Viet Nam. Get this: it works-the songs hold up individually and the drama is compelling. Mann had some experience in using music to tell to tell a story: the characters in “Magnolia” sang her songs straight into the camera. It isn’t until you look at the lyrics that you realize how wordy(in the best sense) they are. This literate approach is highlighted by the CD being packaged like a 1940s book, with drawings illustrating each chapter(song).
To be honest, I never followed Mann’s career until a friend of mine gave me a ticket to see her as birthday present. I expected nothing and figured I’d spend most of the night in the bar. I was wrong. She was mesmerizing, one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. And I didn’t know a single song. Gorgeous songs and a band so perfect that I bought both of her guitar player’s CDs. One show made me an instant fan.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Weird Tales of the Ramones (1976-1996) [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7295/7295651_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
A Great Package for Fans
on September 20, 2007
Posted by: JimmyEightCats
from New Haven,CT
In 1988 I saw the Ramones more times than I saw my relatives. My family would get together three times a year for holidays. The Ramones would play my town every April, August and December. That summer my friends and I decided to catch an extra show in New York. God only knows why, since it’s not like the set list was going to change.
The strange thing is I expected my grandparents to be gone by now, but not the Ramones.
The strange thing is I expected my grandparents to be gone by now, but not the Ramones.
The precise moment that the door slammed shut on my adolescence was April15, 2001, the day Joey Ramone died. I spent that night taking and making calls, spreading the news and reminiscing about the band that changed our lives.
I can remember the day I bought my first Ramones’ albums (“Ramones” and “Rocket to Russia”) used for three bucks. I bought “Animal Boy” the day I got busted, “Too Tough to Die” hours before my friend Jim came out of the closet and “Brain Drain” minutes before I went to tell a girl I loved her. Like the Time-Life “Soundtrack of Our Lives”, but with pinheads, cretins and lobotomies.
I saw them a total of 12.25 times. The first time I saw them (March 1984) was when I watched the tail end of a show through a broken window of a club, my great teen rock and roll moment. We were underage and the doorman wouldn’t take our fake IDs, although some other friends with the same IDs got in, probably because they had a cute girl in tow. Of course, not having a cute girl with us almost certainly meant that we needed to see the Ramones far more than our friends who could get dates, but doormen(then and now) aren’t known for their sense of social equality.
The first time I got to see a whole show was at a college “spring fling” weekend. They were on the same bill as Kool and The Gang. Not since Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees was there such an unlikely double bill. They played outdoors, in daylight. Years later in their final days they did a lot of shows like this, playing for drunken college kids shouting for “I Wanna Be Sedated”, like the Beach Boys in leather jackets.
They played their last show in August1996. The last time I went to see them was Dec. 1989. By that time Dee Dee Ramone had left the band, ostensibly to be a rapper. Let’s just say that the video for his song “Funky Man” proves the title wrong, very wrong. Johnny Ramone was trying to keep pace (literally) with the hardcore bands that followed in the Ramones wake. This is like the Beatles trying to keep up with Gerry and The Pacemakers. The crack that the Ramones’ songs all sounded the same went from myth to reality. Without onetime drummer Ritchie or later on, Dee Dee to counteract Johnny’s “loud fast rules” approach, the live show might have been loud and fast, but it certainly didn’t rule.
Worse than that, after the release of the best of “Ramonesmania” in 1988, they began to attract more and more frat boy and jock types, who thought that moshing was about aggression, not release.
Worse than that, after the release of the best of “Ramonesmania” in 1988, they began to attract more and more frat boy and jock types, who thought that moshing was about aggression, not release.
Johnny died of cancer in 2004. Dee Dee bless his heart, died a rock star death, overdosing in 2002. No old man’s death for him. The core trio of the band is gone.
But sometimes, even now at 39, if I’m feeling out of sorts, I reach for the Pleasant Dreams album and “Come On Now, my 11th grade anthem:
“I’m just a comic book boy
Looking for something scary to enjoy,
Freak admission, stroll inside
I was born on a roller coaster ride”
Looking for something scary to enjoy,
Freak admission, stroll inside
I was born on a roller coaster ride”
Now if only my leather jacket still fit.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Olé! Tarantula [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8002/8002314_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Robyn's Return
on September 18, 2007
Posted by: JimmyEightCats
from New Haven,CT
Geeks hate it when their heroes disappoint them, especially when their heroes sign to major labels.
Robyn Hitchcock had a devoted cult following in the mid-eighties, even though only one of his albums either solo or with his band the Soft Boys had managed to get released in the states. He blended John Lennon, Syd Barrett and Bob Dylan to become a classic English eccentric. Like your favorite uncle, but if he frequently showed up at your home with Prawns and Zucchini. When Creem Magazine ran a Hitchcock cover with the caption “God Walks Among Us”, his fans took it as fact, not hyperbole. Like Springsteen in 1976 and the Hold Steady today, he reminded a lot of people of why they loved rock to begin with. All this fervor get him signed to the major label A&M after years of small indie labels.
And then…
He promptly begins to make the least interesting music of his career culminating in “Perspex Island”, where some amazing songs are ruined by the major label polish.
Since leaving the major labels behind he’s regained his muse recording for the kinds of labels he started off with.
His latest “Ole Tarantula” features a supergroup of sorts with REM’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5 plus appearances from members of the Soft Boys.
It’s easily his best electric album in twenty years. And in “(A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations)Briggs” he someone manages to write a downright moving song based on the Dirty Harry movie “Magnum Force”.
Robyn Hitchcock plus arcane movie references make me one happy music AND movie geek.
Robyn Hitchcock had a devoted cult following in the mid-eighties, even though only one of his albums either solo or with his band the Soft Boys had managed to get released in the states. He blended John Lennon, Syd Barrett and Bob Dylan to become a classic English eccentric. Like your favorite uncle, but if he frequently showed up at your home with Prawns and Zucchini. When Creem Magazine ran a Hitchcock cover with the caption “God Walks Among Us”, his fans took it as fact, not hyperbole. Like Springsteen in 1976 and the Hold Steady today, he reminded a lot of people of why they loved rock to begin with. All this fervor get him signed to the major label A&M after years of small indie labels.
And then…
He promptly begins to make the least interesting music of his career culminating in “Perspex Island”, where some amazing songs are ruined by the major label polish.
Since leaving the major labels behind he’s regained his muse recording for the kinds of labels he started off with.
His latest “Ole Tarantula” features a supergroup of sorts with REM’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5 plus appearances from members of the Soft Boys.
It’s easily his best electric album in twenty years. And in “(A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations)Briggs” he someone manages to write a downright moving song based on the Dirty Harry movie “Magnum Force”.
Robyn Hitchcock plus arcane movie references make me one happy music AND movie geek.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![The Dirty South [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/6766/6766564_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Tales From the Dirty South
on September 18, 2007
Posted by: JimmyEightCats
from New Haven,CT
Southern rock is usually panned for the all the beer-swilling, whiskey-chugging, stars and bars waving stuff that followed in the wake of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers. You may as well put down the British Invasion as being all about “Ferry Cross the Mersey” and “I’m Henry the 8th, I Am”. The truth is not only has some of the best, but some of the smartest rock come out of the south, and I’m talking way before R.E.M., Indie boy. Ronnie Van Zant might have sang songs about fishing and juking but he also composed “Mr. Saturday Night Special”, the best song ever written about gun control. And unlike almost every other song about that topic, it’s not didactic and rocks as hard as any “protest” song ever written. Why so much about Skynyrd? Because the Drive-By Truckers got their first national notice with “Southern Rock Opera”, a song cycle (that’s right a song cycle) based on that much misunderstood band. Led by Patterson Hood, son of famed Muscle Shoals bassist David Hood, “The Dirty South” tells tales of stock car racers, moon shiners and tornadoes (not to mention Sun Records) with a journalist’s eye for detail and a literate, even poetic narrative. From the opener “Where The Devil Don’t Stay” and it’s unanswered question “Daddy…Tell me why the ones who have so much make the ones who don’t go mad?” to the wrenching closer “G*****n Lonely Love”, the album plays like a series of taut short stories. Their songs reflect compassion while never veering toward the insufferable strained sensitivity that renders so much “alt.country” singer-songwriter drivel with a twang. There’s a sense of immediacy and realism in these tales of shut down factories and desperate lives that Bruce Springsteen’s much vaunted work never comes close to. “The Buford Stick” points out that Buford Pusser wasn’t much a hero since most of what he did was promote himself and arrest poor people trying to eke out a living. “Puttin’ People on the Moon” is sung by a laid off factory employee who’s wife died of cancer because they had no insurance It’s Southerner’s version of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on The Moon”. Chuck D once called rap the black person’s CNN. The Drive-By Truckers do a much better job of chronicling life below the Mason-Dixon Line than TNN ever will.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Watching the Dark [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/1393/1393940_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
And Hearing the Art
on September 16, 2007
Posted by: JimmyEightCats
from New Haven,CT
I’m a record collector, and an especially obsessive one at that. I once counted 32 different categories in my vinyl collection. Don’t even get me started on the soul vs. R&B vs. jump blues debate. Richard Thompson is my worst nightmare. Since co-founding the definitive British folk rock group Fairport Convention in 1967 he has shown a remarkable diversity unequaled by almost any other artist. He recorded American style folk rock with Fairport before line up changes resulted in the “Liege and Lief” (sic) album which mixed traditional British folk with a rock sound. Consider it the “Sgt. Pepper” of Brit-folk. After leaving Fairport he’s made relatively “straight” rock albums, acoustic recordings, a wholly instrumental album, world influenced music and a series of albums with then wife Linda, culminating in “Shoot Out The Lights”. Made as their marriage disintegrated, and possibly chronicling that dissolution, it’s a remarkably tense work, up there with George Jones and Tammy Wynette’s final recordings. He’s also recorded two albums with art rock “supergroup” French-Frith-Kaiser-Thompson. Should I mention “The Bunch”, a loose collective that recorded early rock classics? How about the traditional British dance music of the “Morris On” group? That’s quite a contrast from his work with “Ashley Hutching’s Big Beat Beat Combo”, a tribute to the Ventures/ Shadows/Duane Eddy guitar style.I suppose that if you’ve read this far you know that he’s revered as both a great songwriter and guitarist and that’s he’s had two tribute albums devoted to him, one by mostly “alternative” artists and the other by mostly folksingers. This three disc set gives a strong overview of his efforts as a solo artist and with ex-wife Linda as well as a smattering of Fairport Convention tracks, although it gives short shrift to his genre exercises. But once you hear it I guarantee you’ll want to see what else the man is capable of, and I doubt you’ll be disappointed. And by the way I just filed all of Thompson’s records under “British Folk Rock”. I’m still not happy about it.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Boys and Girls in America [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8001/8001896_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Album of the Year 2006
on September 14, 2007
Posted by: JimmyEightCats
from New Haven,CT
My friend Sully likes to call me up when he’s wasted and leave long rambling messages. I usually delete them as soon as I figure out that there’s no need to call back, unless I’m really hankering for an involved conversation about Dinosaur Jr. But I’ve listened to the last two, the ones about the Hold Steady.
The Hold Steady is the kind of band that makes fans preach to total strangers. Since I first heard them a year ago, I have hardly had a conversation about music without bringing them up, and I have a lot of conversations about music.
Leader Craig Finn creates the sort of characters Springsteen once did, back in the seventies before he became the frat boy’s Bob Dylan. The songs really are akin to short stories, without ever coming across as pretentious, even with Finn’s verboseness and references to literature. You believe and care about them, even if the whole point of their existence is to get wasted. No wonder Sully loves them.
There are traces of “Greetings” era Springsteen, ”Darkness” era Springsteen, Elliot Murphy and A&M era Soul Asylum. And that’s just the first track. The Thin Lizzy and Stones references come later. “Hot Soft Light” would fit nicely on “Jailbreak”, while “Massive Nights” is simultaneously a paean to partying and a lament for the kids who live their lives for it. “You Can Make Him Like You” is nothing short of heartbreaking:” You don’t have to go the right kind of schools, let your boyfriend go to the right kind of schools. You can wear his old sweatshirt, cover yourself like a bruise”.
In “Chillout Tent”, Finn serves as narrator for the story of a couple who meet at a festival’s med tent, with Dave Pirner and Elizabeth Elmore as the trashed lovers, who never see each other again. What Joni Mitchell’s “ Woodstock ” was to the Aquarian Age, ”Chillout Tent” is to today, except it’s far more accurate.
Why did Sully have to tell me? After I’d left the bar he brought in his iPod and proceeded to play the new album for who ever didn’t get away fast enough. Nobody cared. I never liked that bar much anyway.
The Hold Steady is the kind of band that makes fans preach to total strangers. Since I first heard them a year ago, I have hardly had a conversation about music without bringing them up, and I have a lot of conversations about music.
Leader Craig Finn creates the sort of characters Springsteen once did, back in the seventies before he became the frat boy’s Bob Dylan. The songs really are akin to short stories, without ever coming across as pretentious, even with Finn’s verboseness and references to literature. You believe and care about them, even if the whole point of their existence is to get wasted. No wonder Sully loves them.
There are traces of “Greetings” era Springsteen, ”Darkness” era Springsteen, Elliot Murphy and A&M era Soul Asylum. And that’s just the first track. The Thin Lizzy and Stones references come later. “Hot Soft Light” would fit nicely on “Jailbreak”, while “Massive Nights” is simultaneously a paean to partying and a lament for the kids who live their lives for it. “You Can Make Him Like You” is nothing short of heartbreaking:” You don’t have to go the right kind of schools, let your boyfriend go to the right kind of schools. You can wear his old sweatshirt, cover yourself like a bruise”.
In “Chillout Tent”, Finn serves as narrator for the story of a couple who meet at a festival’s med tent, with Dave Pirner and Elizabeth Elmore as the trashed lovers, who never see each other again. What Joni Mitchell’s “ Woodstock ” was to the Aquarian Age, ”Chillout Tent” is to today, except it’s far more accurate.
Why did Sully have to tell me? After I’d left the bar he brought in his iPod and proceeded to play the new album for who ever didn’t get away fast enough. Nobody cared. I never liked that bar much anyway.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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