Moving Day

This is an announcement to those of you who have been keeping up with Beat. First of all, thank you so much for reading my blog. I want to let you know that I'm moving the blog to WordPress and am beginning the process today. I won't delete this one, but I will be bringing in the archives to the new address. Which, for continuity's sake, is count234.wordpress.com. Bear with me while I get this set up. I hope to be more consistent about posting very soon. Thank you to Blogger for hosting me for the last year, and cheers to a new host!

Punk Rock Guilt

There's a line many music snobs draw to mark what they feel is an acceptable level of fame for a musician. Once you cross it, you're considered a sell-out. Once you’ve sold out, you’re no longer welcome in their lair of hip-ness. So, as a musician gains a following, they lose many of their original fans. Caleb Follwill touched on this conundrum when reflecting on KOL’s big year, and Jack White recently talked about it when Rolling Stone asked if he worries about the scene he came from:

I never stopped thinking what I wanted to do for their [fans from his original “underground” scene] sake. I always considered it and thought about it and at times felt guilty about it, but it wasn't until maybe about Get Behind Me Satan when I finally said, "I can't stand even thinking about anyone else's reaction to how this goes down. It doesn't matter to me anymore. I can't win either way." So I finally released myself from any of that... I don't know how to word it exactly. Some of the grunge bands used to say it was punk-rock guilt.

Punk Rock Guilt. It's the musicians’ awareness of their original fans’ repudiation. And shame on those fans for such arbitrary judgment.

To reject a band whose music you love merely because they start selling out venues and selling more albums isn't really fair, is it? If you love a band, you should theoretically want them to succeed. And, since success, for a musician, means gaining more recognition and thereby selling more records, shouldn't you be happy for them once they start doing that? Most of the musicians plagued by Punk Rock Guilt didn’t set out to be famous for the sake of it, but fame and success go hand in hand for them. Fame means more people know about them, and if more people know about them, more people will listen to their music. If more people listen to their music, they get to keep doing what they love without having to bus tables on the side. We all want to make a living doing what we love. When a musician reaches that point, how selfish are we to shun them, merely because we can no longer claim them as our little secret. White's right to release himself from the guilt.

If you’re ready to walk away from a band you once loved, fine. Music is fluid and subjective. But give the musicians a break when they catch theirs, and come up with a better reason to turn your back.

Assessing 2009...Not In List Form

In December of 2009, as happens every December, we were bombarded by lists assessing the year's best, worst and everything in between. And, since the end of this year marked the end of a decade, there were even more lists than usual, with each one more specific and comprehensive than the one before it. Halfway through December, The List lost its novelty and became more of a nuisance. At some point, declarations of the decade's most interesting, titillating, influential, offensive and creative began to blend together and lose significance.

So, instead of giving you another list, I'll give you my overall impression of this year in music: 2009 was all about reinvention. I enjoyed a handful of novel and exciting albums, but none of them came from novel and exciting talent. The most interesting and sincere music came from artists who were already established. The musicians remained same, but the music they put out in 2009 certainly did not.

This is because they all stepped outside of their comfort zones. Many joined new company, most tried on new styles and all tapped into different emotions. Jack White and Dave Grohl took up with new groups in which they reclaimed the drummer's seat (both started out on drums). The Yeah Yeah Yeahs tried Pop on for size. Ben Harper rocked out with a more bluesy band to create more bluesy Blues. And the Black Keys decided to break from the Blues and collaborate with several Hip Hop greats.

Reliable acts gave us none of the same, and the results were thrilling. This year, the cream rose to the top, and anything else...well, you can probably find them on somebody else's list.

If I See Yellow One More Time

It's that time of year—and that time of decade—when lists are aplenty. I'll have my own in the upcoming weeks, but, for now, I do have to comment on what other people and publications have come up with thus far. Specifically, the prevalence of the song "Yellow" by Coldplay. Really? Listen to it again. This is one of your favorite/most definitive/trailblazing/[pick your adjective of praise] song of the last decade? My apologies to Mr. Martin, but on my list, Coldplay is first among the most overrated bands of the last decade.

They Pulled Me Back In...Maybe

Just when I'd given up on Kings of Leon, having begrudgingly written them off as sell-outs who've become way too big for their own good, Caleb gives us evidence that there's hope for them yet. Somewhere beneath the media-whoring, Top 40, arena rock band shell of what KOL once was, there may still exist the no-frills southern rockers I came to love. From Spin Magazine:

"We definitely got bigger than we wanted to be," Caleb tells SPIN. "You feel like you've done something wrong. That woman in mom jeans who'd never let me date her daughter? She likes my music. That's fucking not cool. You almost start doing damage control: When people ask you to do stuff, you're like, 'No, because I can already tell this record is going to get to a level where people will fucking hate us.'"

And I was starting to. While I did enjoy Only By The Night, my feelings about it were tainted by how blatantly calculated it was. The album was made with the intention of catapulting the band to superstardom in America. (They'd enjoyed it in Britain for years.) I assumed the frenzy that followed had given them such swollen egos (Shortly after the album's release, Caleb bitterly greeted his adoring San Francisco fans, myself included, with "Thanks San Francisco. It's about time y'all finally caught on.") that they were creatively doomed. But they seem to have bitten off more than they could chew. This interview reveals that Caleb hasn't completely turned to mainstream mush. More importantly, he seems aware of the danger in that. With his rebellious streak comes a preference for the freedom that the periphery allows. At this point, it would be hard for them to veer too far from the spotlight, but at least they know when to stop climbing.

Vultures: The Show

I went to see Them Crooked Vultures with conflicting expectations. On the one hand, the band includes Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones, members of truly legendary rock bands, as well as Josh Homme, who fronts a band that isn't so bad either. With those three, how could it be bad?

It’s a Supergroup. That’s how. Characterized by its already famous members, the Supergroup is typically heavily hyped, slightly desperate and tainted by egos and nearsightedness.

Prior to seeing the Vultures, I listened to their album once through and thought it a decent rock album that starts out strong (No One Loves Me & Neither Do I exquisitely combines the styles of Zeppelin, QOTSA and Nirvana) and then slowly loses my attention. I enjoyed it...it just wasn't quite the thrill I'd inevitably anticipated. But I still wanted to see the show.

The thing is, I love Dave Grohl. So much so that I let that whole Foo Fighters thing slide. And this is not to discount the other Vultures band members, but he was the one who convinced me to pay $50 and drive across the Bay Bridge. Famous for power drumming but with an acute sense of timing, he can headbang, beat the crap out of the drums and flirt with the audience...all at the same time. Off the top of my head, I can think of maybe one other example of a drummer who can be that charismatic while drumming (Levon Helm of The Band, in case you were wondering). It's quite a unique and alluring talent. Sadly, I had never seen him live...I'd only learned this from geeking out to old videos of Nirvana and Queens of The Stone Age concerts. So, of course, I wanted the real thing. I was determined to see my favorite drummer behind the drum kit, and the Supergroup cliché wasn't about to stop me.

I must say I was blown away. Grohl shines bright with the gift of John Paul Jones as his rhythmic partner. And JPJ looks like he's having more fun than ever. He always seemed to hide in the shadows at Zeppelin concerts. (Again, old videos...given the blog's name, you shouldn't be surprised.) But he's the veteran in this group, and the confidence that results from this allows him to showcase his musicianship in a way that he never quite could while sharing the stage with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Josh Homme reinforces his strength as a front man. He's cocky and strange and flamboyant, making no effort to hide his love of the spotlight...and this is precisely what makes him so entertaining. He indulged himself in between the rousing rock songs with the trippy Interlude with Ludes, for which he ditched the guitar for a bottle of vodka, popped collars with JPJ and danced around like a drunk Wayne Newton. It was fantastic.

Them Crooked Vultures are indeed a Supergroup...but they are an example of what can happen when the chemistry is just right. Proficiency is a given, and their comfort with the instruments and ease in front of an audience mean they can have some fun with this venture. The result of this collaborative effort is an exemplary and electrifying show.

Indy Highlight: The Heavy

The Heavy are a refreshingly gritty rock band from Noid, England. They draw from musical genres they refer to as “the classics,” blending vintage rock, funk, soul, R&B and blues to create music that sounds vaguely familiar but isn't, because, while it mines from a host of influences, the sound of The Heavy is a beast all its own.

The band has an evident distaste for production technology, declining to put their music in a box and poke, prod and polish it before it reaches your ears.

“Most modern music sounds like computer games. There’s no guts, no rawness, no edge. It just sounds flat,” says guitarist Dan Taylor. “People are kind of listening to music with their eyes rather than their ears,” he says of today's producers.

These fellows see beauty in the imperfections, from brilliantly disgusting guitar sounds to hisses to microphones clunking about the studio. Which is why they love old records: “All the shit, basically, you can hear it. And it’s great,” says drummer Chris Ellul.

This beautiful rawness and soul is, for me, what makes their music so instantly seductive.

On stage and off, there’s a good dynamic between the band members. They sync up easily and play well off one another. They also appear to have complementary personalities, with the biggest one right where he belongs up front.

Evoking, at various times, the likes of Prince, Richard Manuel and James Brown, lead singer Kelvin Swaby’s vocal range is staggering. On stage, he channels scary, dirty blues singers like Howlin’ Wolf and Screamin' Jay Hawkins (the song "Sixteen" is a lift from the famous "I Put A Spell On You") while existing in a funky, sexy, boisterous presence that is completely his own. This man understands what it is to be a front-man, rather than just a lead singer. Swaby gives you a show.

With all the dirty lyrics and on-stage attitude, one may be surprised at how polite and down to earth they are. As they packed up their instruments and carried them to the van, I expressed surprise that they did this themselves. Taylor smiled and, with a shrug, said, "This part...it's so rock 'n' roll, isn't it?"