The Andrew Extravaganza

Update: Finally finished! And with some audio to bring you back for a second look! It's very easy to bite off more than I can chew with new posts; the execution of an idea is always a struggle if the time requirement is longer than my initial surge of creative excitement can last. Then there's always the struggle of writing for myself versus writing for an audience, since the audience is almost always tiny and seemingly uninterested, most posts are to entertain myself primarily and you secondarily. To throw you, the audience, a bone, I'll add some audio cuts that I hope you'll listen to because they're all awesome, and then maybe you'll see why sharing this shit was worth such and investment of my time. If not, at least I'm content and at least I finished the original post.

About the audio: I figure I'm small-time enough to fly under the radar, but still it's at a low bit rate and I'll take it down at some point in the near future, but it's there for now. End Update. Audio is now gone as of 12/18.

Pulling a paycheck for about four months now, I've been able to spend money on CDs, and goddamn have I missed the feeling. I can't resist consuming as fast I can, almost compulsively, like an addict with a bad jones for tangible music rather than the alternative, be it legal or otherwise. I have a couple years of catching up to do; here's how I started:

	Built To Spill - You in Reverse I don't think they will ever make another album as good as Perfect From Now On or There's Nothing Wrong With Love, but this album is very solid, and still growing on me. The biggest flaw is that they tried to recapture the magic of a live show by jamming in the studio and having each player design his own parts. The effect is a new creative process and a more organic sound, but I kind of liked the way Doug Martsch controlled things before, not to mention the worst part of every Built To Spill concert is the inevitable 17 minute jam at the end. I love the riff on Conventional Wisdom; it's incendiary. Liar is probably my favorite song on the album.
	Cursive - Happy Hollow It's hard to follow an excellent album like The Ugly Organ. Gretta Cohn and her cello are gone, replaced by a horn section that is really used well. The album sounds like Cursive's guitar style dropped into the lush production of Tim's most recent The Good Life output, Album of the Year; it really sounds great. Lyrically, it's the least sad bastardly of Tim's career, but not one of his strongest efforts. The concept is a small town and the problems of its inhabitants; most of the songs touch on religious themes. A couple of the songs make me cringe: Flag and Family (sung by Ted Stevens) and Bad Science (another Ted Stevens track). A few rank among Cursive's best: Bad Sects, Dorothy Dreams of Tornados, and Into the Fold (which is probably my favorite on the album).
	Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat Rilo Kiley has a bunch of songs in their catalogue with obvious country influences. Jenny Lewis stripped the sound down and built from that influence and it was a great touch adding the Wilson Twins on backup vocals. But she stripped a lot of her playfulness away at the same time, which is fine because the tone of the record is much different from a Rilo Kiley album, but I still like a sassy, playful Jenny better. On the whole, the record is excellent and really displays Jenny's great voice. The cover of the Traveling Wilburys song Handle With Care is excellent and fits the record very well; other highlights are Rise Up With Fists!!, Happy, and You Are What You Love, but my favorite is probably Melt Your Heart, down tempo and sparse with some of her best lyrics on the record.
	Spoon - Telefono Spoon - Soft Effects EP I stumbled upon this reissue of Telefono at Best Buy; I had no idea it was available. Telefono is packaged with the Soft Effects EP, an interesting choice because it allows you to see how much Spoon's sound evolved in one year's time. Recorded in early '95, Telefono is at best a set of catchy tunes that let you see how far the band has come; at worst, it's a painful collection of Pixies knock-offs. But still, it has Britt Daniel's name on it, so some tracks can stand up proudly with his later work. I'm talking about Not Turning Off, Cvantez, and Towner. The EP was recorded in the summer of '96 and is more interesting musically as each of the five songs is an attempt to try something different with their sound. I'm not a big fan of Get Out the State, but the other four are worth listening to. Start with I Could See the Dude. Of note, and I've always found this amusing: Britt Daniel references his own song, Mountain to Sound (track one of the EP) on Lines in the Suit from Girls Can Tell.
	Mates of State - Bring it Back I had heard only one Mates of State song before jumping in an purchasing this album and I haven't regretted the purchase at all. The vocals of Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel are light and sweet sounding and really play off each other very well. The songs are full of energy and occasionally stray from their formula of strict keys-plus-drums discipline. This album is already among albums contending for a spot in my top five desert island list. It's fun, it's happy, and it's different than almost every other album you've heard. Fraud in the 80's, Like U Crazy, Beautiful Dreamer, and Punchlines are my favorites, but there isn't a miss on the record. It really set me up for disappointment with Team Boo.
	Mates of State - Team Boo I figured this would be a can't miss: produced by Spoon drummer Jim Eno, I love Bring It Back, and a song from this album, Parachutes (Funeral Song), led me to buy Bring It Back. It's not a bad album, Team Boo is eminently listenable and would make swell ambient music, but nothing jumps out at you. Except of course for Parachutes, which is as fine a song as you can write. Jim Eno contributes the subtle hand claps to Parachutes, so his production effort wasn't entirely wasted on me.
	The Replacements - Tim Bought this one without ever hearing a 'Mats song in my life. Jim Rome talked about them enough over the years that I decided to see if his favorite band during his college days was worth a damn. I can see how a kid in the '80s would love The Replacements: plenty of anti-establishment attitude, some sloppy playing and very well crafted songs. Tim only has two bad songs, Lay It Down Clown and Dose of Thunder. The majority are better than filler quality. Bastards of Young, Left of the Dial, and Kiss Me on the Bus are all excellent. Kiss Me on the Bus has a throwback '50s rock feel complete with Paul Westerberg doing his best Buddy Holly hiccup, though sadly he only uses the hiccup once, missing many golden opportunities.
	Drive-By Truckers - Southern Rock Opera This is a rocking two disc concept album that covers a lot of ground, from southern history and social commentary to the legacy of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sonically, the band goes from three guitar rockers like Ronnie and Neal and The Southern Thing to a laid back spoken word history piece, The Three Great Alabama Icons, which deals with Bear Bryant, Ronnie Van Zant and George Wallace. Three of the guys in the band write the songs but two dominate the material: Patterson Hood with the historical perspective, social conscience, and ragged vocals; and Mike Cooley with straight ahead rock songs, straight ahead rock themes and a heavy twang in the vocals. I can't recommend this album highly enough; it's ambitious and cool and did I mention it rocks with three guitars? Song highlights: Zip City by Mike Cooley and Let There Be Rock by Patterson Hood.
	Ben Kweller - Ben Kweller It's the same old Ben Kweller. The same, except this time he plays all the instruments by himself. But the great power pop is still the same and the tunes are all catchy, but with maybe just a tad less silliness. But other than that it's the same Ben Kweller and it's great. Some of the songs are so borderline bubble gummy that it almost feels like a guilty pleasure, but this is as legit as the best of Elton John and Billy Joel and whatever guitar based band is a good comparison, maybe Green Album Weezer fits the bill. My song selection is one of the most power poppy songs, I Gotta Move. Reading this description again, I realize I just repeated myself about 20 times without providing much insight, but I figure by now we all know what BK delivers, so I'll leave it be.
	The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers The obvious background: Jack White and Brendan Benson come together to co-write songs and play with a decent rhythm section. The result is Jack White dominates the music with his blues rock and strong vocals while Benson whispers some of his pop influences into the mix. The album is very, very short, but while it does nothing revolutionary it is still worth the purchase price. The songs are catchy and show us what Jack White sounds like with a little support. The single Steady as She Goes stands out, as does Hands, and Blue Veins, but my selection is the very Zeppelin sounding title cut Broken Boy Soldier. And when I say very Zeppelin, I mean guitar, eastern influence, and Jack White as Robert Plant vocals.

Interesting. I've never even heard of MoS.

WMA??

Nice post though, I'll be sampling everything soon, it just might a few days to appreciate it all.

WMA for two reasons: 1) I never figured out how to get mp3 to play well when someone clicks on a link, they open in a new tab and do this sputter thing that sounds terrible, the WMA files respond much nicer; 2) The quality is decent and the file size is much smaller. Unorthodox, but it's the decision I made when I started putting Smack-Off audio up en masse.

Two thumbs up for The Raconteurs. It's they tamed Jack White a little and added some different pop influences. Good stuff. Still working my way through the rest of the music; it'll take a while.

I guess WMA is pretty accepted now. If it works better than mp3 for you then it makes sense to go with it. I'll still feel a little sick when I click a link though.