by Miné Salkin | Oct 9, 2010 | albums
Vintage guitars. Upright pianos. A sense of ever-cursed fate. These are the things the Walkmen are made of. Though failing to conjure up some kind of sonic reveal of the Portuguese suggestion its title makes, Lisbon is a beautiful redemptive soundtrack for the wretched, the despondent and the woebegotten.
While that description might sound all doom and gloom, it’s precisely what the American indie rock darlings have been perfecting since 2000. Frontman Hamilton Leithauser sings like a wounded beast—with a sad, romantic desperation about him—but retains a New York City hipster sophistication to him that somehow makes it attractive. Through carefully constructed lyrics, the quintet has been able to cultivate a mastery of the paradoxes they so artfully craft.
“Blue as Your Blood” is delicious. A rolling, stripped-down track that delves into existential heartbreak with lyrics like “Life rolled us over like a town car / Bruised up and busted to the ground.” But Lisbon isn’t entirely self-victimizing. Take “Angela Surf City,” a crunchy, raunchy tune that sounds like it’s caught in some idyllic ‘50s malt-serving rock joint. Unlike their previous effort, You & Me, which was decidedly mellow, the Walkmen’s latest offering is both fiercely declarative and defiantly minimalist.
In fact, the entirety of the album seems to struggle between universal opposites, particularly of notions of winning and losing. With titles like “Follow the Leader,” “Victory” and “All My Great Designs” pitted against tracks like “Stranded,” “While I Shovel the Snow” and “Woe is Me,” the theme is clear, leaving it open to decide which feeling is stronger.
by Miné Salkin | Sep 15, 2010 | news, television
I was recently alerted to an exciting new original AMC series by @Cephalopodboy.
The show is based on a series of graphic novels by Robert Kirkman, which have been produced since 2003. The series follows a town stricken by a zombie apocalypse—an ever-clichéd theme—but the television show looks extremely promising. Directed by Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption) and starring Andrew Lincoln (an English actor best known for his role in Love Actually), the series premier will be a 90-minute special following the police chief who awakens from the hospital to discover the world he’s always known has broken into a delicious zombie frenzy.
Check out the trailer here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg46DWI_fCE]
by Miné Salkin | Sep 8, 2010 | news, television
Is it just me or does the world want to see House and Cuddy get it on?
This is my first September in 19 years that I haven’t returned to school. Usually, this was a bittersweet time of the year; with the weather still lovely but spent in a classroom setting, and a new television season upon me.
Here are some shows that are certainly worth watching.
House
This is proof that FOX might not be so incredibly bad after all. If you’re a fan of curmudgeonly, Vicadin-addicted doctors then this is the show for you. English funnyman Hugh Laurie (Blackadder, Jeeves and Wooster) returns to play the genius diagnostician. Season 7 begins September 21, 2010.
Glee
Alright. Make that a second argument for FOX. For someone who completely loathes musicals, this popular comedy/drama grew on me. The next season promises Lady Gaga and the whole Coldplay catalogue. Tune in also on September 21, 2010.
Dexter
A Showtime production. Not too long ago I wrote about this. The previous season was extremely titillating. The serial killing resumes September 26, 2010.
Modern Family
Screenwriter Christopher Lloyd (Frasier, Wings) has saved Ed O’Neill’s career by creating a ten-fold improved version of Married With Children. This mockumentary-style television series is hilarious. Watch the second season sometime this month… I haven’t been able to find an airing date.
by Miné Salkin | Sep 4, 2010 | albums
FOR DISCORDER MAGAZINE
It’s been three years since Neon Bible was released, the most groundbreaking work from the indie rock outfit Arcade Fire. The album was completely electrifying—with hauntingly beautiful riffs and the screams of frontman Win Butler—Montreal certainly made a name for itself on the international scene.
Arcade Fire’s third full-length The Suburbs is extremely different compared to their past work, but is an excellent new chapter for the group. Based on childhood tales of Win and his brother William (who plays keys) growing up in Houston, the songs on the album sound much like a lovelorn letter to naivety and suburban wonder, with just the right amount of tentative diffidence.
The title track opens up with a piano-heavy riff sounding somewhat inspired by Billy Joel, and sets the tone for a mellowed, completely honeyed Arcade Fire experience. With the exception of “Month of May,” which sounds like something Sonic Youth could have written, the album strays away from anything distorted or sonically experimental. One standout track, “Rococo,” is probably the best thing on the record. It’s got crescendo in all the right places, with Win delicately whispering the song’s title in a way that sends shivers right down the spine. With words like “Let’s go downtown and talk to the modern kids/ They will eat right out of your hand/ Using great big words that they don’t understand,” it’s pretty easy to conjure up this kind of imagery when the lyrical component is so universally understood.
For a group that seems like they’re carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, this album is seamless and lacks any kind of undeserved pretension. With BBC critic rightfully describing The Suburbs as their OK Computer, this is without a doubt their masterpiece.
Listen to “Rococo” here.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JB_o1ewrsQ&feature=related]
by Miné Salkin | Sep 1, 2010 | books
FOR DISCORDER MAGAZINE
Jon Savage’s The England’s Dreaming Tapes is the quintessential literary companion to any punk devotee or music zealot prepared to venture into the filth and fury of this genre’s seminal history. The book contains hundreds of hours of interviews that Savage conducted when researching his 1991 book England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond—which has been heralded worldwide as the definite history of the UK punk revolution.
This collection of manuscripts includes interviews with all four original members of the Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer of the Clash, Captain Sensible of the Damned, Adam Ant, Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks and Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees to name a few.
In his introduction, Savage points out that the interviews were taped in the late ’80s, a time when punk was only a decade old, and so “untainted by layers of myth and historiography.” At times the manuscript really drives this home, especially in Glen Matlock’s interview. The Sex Pistols’ bassist recalls first hearing the fast sound of the Ramones, but insists they never tried to follow suit. “That was the difference between us and the other punk bands,” he said. “‘Anarchy’ is strident, but because we weren’t rushing through it, it gives it more power.” Full of pithy, honest one-liners and moments of sober sincerity, the book is riddled with personal confessions and reflections of a time that was incendiary to say the least.
John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, was quite arguably the voice of his generation. The thin, sinewy, yet strangely baby-faced lyricist and frontman of the Sex Pistols publicly denounced authority, insulted the Queen and sang about cunnilingus to a population bent on killing off the conservative sensibilities that had its stronghold on modern society for too long. Growing increasingly controversial in his old age, Rotten is something of a caricature of his former self, but in his interview he’s somewhat immortalized in the way we’d all like to remember him.
Savage notes in the interview’s preface that it took nearly a year of negotiations with Rotten’s agent before a meeting time was established. Sure to find his interview subject stubborn and tight-lipped, Savage’s cool, relatable conversation style opened up even the most difficult and narcissistic of punk characters. Borderline therapeutic in its delivery, Rotten admits the creative difficulties he shared with Matlock. “He wanted that kind of innocence, and I’m sorry, I was completely the other way,” Rotten said. “I saw the Sex Pistols as something completely guilt-ridden. You know, the kids want misery, they want death. They want threatening noises, because that shakes you out of your apathy.”
Savage’s 750+ page book fits nicely in a bag pack, purse or fancy attachée. This is the kind of literary gift that truly reveals not only the music that typified and fuelled a generation of rebels and social dissidents, but it sheds light on the politics, fashion and counter-culture attitude of this time in music history.
