Pages tagged “issue 21”

Latest installment from graphic novelist appropriately splendorous

Harvey Pekar earned cult-hero status by telling his own story without flinching from the less-flattering details. He could hardly have found a better subject for this—his first longform book not telling his own story—than Michael Malice, the central character in Ego & Hubris.

Malice is a tough sell. He puts one teacher through mental torture, but finds it cruel when another spanks a child. He’s a conservative anarchist who can’t stand the religious right. And though he fights with just about everybody he meets, he believes the future is bright—or at least it would be if people stopped acting like idiots.

Following the same first-person format he employed so successfully in last year’s The Quitter, Pekar captures Malice’s complexities, getting into his head without bogging down the narrative with inner monologue. With the support of Gary Dumm’s clean, imaginative inking, Pekar’s biography is satisfyingly complete, communicating Malice’s life and philosophy in a succinct 160 pages. And while Malice and Pekar have a certain darkness in common, no one would ever confuse the two if they read The Quitter and Ego & Hubris side by side.

That’s a tremendous achievement, for Pekar and the graphic novel format he’s pioneered for more than 30 years.

Split Personality: Ben Harper juggles ballads and funk on two-disc set

Ben Harper spends a lot of his time recording with well-known friends like Jack Johnson, Beth Orton and Gov’t Mule. And his last studio recording—2004’s There Will Be a Light—found him collaborating with The Blind Boys of Alabama. In fact, the two-disc Both Sides of the Gun is the first studio album filed solely under his name since 2003’s Diamonds on the Inside.

At just over an hour, these 18 tracks would fit easily on one disc, but Harper divides them by mood into Side A and Side B, as if this were a dusty LP. The decision to split up the tracks according to their mood could easily reflect the album’s title. Side A’s rollicking, funky bravado captures the power and control of someone with a loaded weapon, while Side B’s mellow, tender balladry represents the mournful resignation of someone confronting the very real possibility of death.

The album’s title track (on Side A) seems to confirm this theory: amid syncopated Hammond chords and guitar emerges Harper’s impassioned shout, “When you’re trapped, you got no voice!” Later, Harper maintains his high energy without such overwhelming traces of desperation. “Get It Like You Like It” carries the carefree, sing-along jubilation of the Stones’ “It’s Only Rock ’n Roll (But I Like It),” while “The Way You Found Me” is a bluesy love song with a sassy chorus (“Take me as I am / Or leave me the way you found me”).

Both Sides' second disc pursues themes of love from a more amorous standpoint. Harper sets the mood with lush string arrangements: a quartet amplifies the sensuality of “Morning Yearning,” while a single resonant cello grounds the tender “Waiting For You.” Harper’s seduction plot climaxes with the album-closing “Happy Everafter in Your Eyes,” with his overtly emotional voice delivering lyrics that sound like wedding vows (“All that I can give you / Is forever yours to keep”).

While sweet love songs unify Side B, Side A contains the album’s more dramatically pointed tracks. Harper rants about the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina in “Black Rain” (“You don’t fight for us / But expect us to die for you”), with strings adding dramatic accents.

The record’s most intense number is the anti-war “Gather ‘Round the Stone”—its diminished volume sounding out-of-place on the rowdier Side A, but its angry message fitting right in. Harper’s acoustic guitar combined with uplifting backing vocals on the chorus amplifies the protest in the verses (“There’s no freedom to be found / Lying face up in the ground”), making the song sound like an ancient spiritual. Perhaps the album’s sides are the opposite of what they initially seem: even when gripping a weapon in his hand, Harper chooses to sing quiet, pacifistic songs of love, while he finds the courage truly to speak his mind only when staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

Fear of Music Technology: DualDisc format renders meaty set of reissued Talking Heads a dubious investment

In the summer of 1995 I got into a brief, not-so-amicable debate with an indie-rocker friend of mine over the importance of Talking Heads in rock history. Commercialized MTV crap, he sneered; David Byrne is an art-school geek who can’t find his vocal range. Not like my friend’s beloved Radiohead. Radiohead, as in "Radio Head," the sixth track on Talking Heads’ True Stories album, from which Thom Yorke and co. swiped their moniker to begin with. Of course, I know this now, music scribe that I am, and just how I would’ve used this information to twist my Sebadoh-loving, thrift-store-shopping, indie-snob buddy into submission is, to this day, the subject of occasional self-indulgent flights of hypothetical schadenfreude.

But I digress. In fact, my Jaguar-strumming companion’s misconception was partially justified, if only because Talking Heads’ sprawling influence over the rock landscape tends to be obscured by the late-career success of their record Little Creatures, with its hit singles and videos and beguiling hooks. But before this, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the most compelling intellectual frontman since Lou Reed—and the funkiest white rhythm section that never recorded at Muscle Shoals—collaborated with Brian Eno on several groundbreaking albums (without which there would be no Achtung Baby, Odelay or OK Computer). The Talking Heads not only occupy a prominent seat in rock’s pantheon, it’s hard to imagine the last 25 years in music without them.

So now Rhino has released Talking Heads’ entire studio output, remastered in both stereo and 5.1 surround, eight discs in all, stuffed into a small white “brick.” The packaging is attractive, and the content is a boon for completists and casual fans alike. Each disc is in the DualDisc format: one side is a CD, with bonus tracks, and the other a DVD with the 5.1 mix and a handful of videos. If ever there was an argument for the durability of the Heads’ unique contribution to 20th-century popular music, this is it. But there’s a catch.

The DualDisc format has proven somewhat controversial. The thickness of the disc had to be increased beyond the Philips/Sony CD specifications, and does not carry the official “CD” label. The CD side of the disc is actually unplayable on some systems, particularly PCs and car stereos. Nevertheless, a number of record companies, including—ironically—Sony/BMG, are getting behind the format, with the hopes that such “value-added” products will increase demand for physical discs and mitigate the effects of online piracy. So far the consumer response has been positive, but when considering an investment of nearly $150 for eight separate discs, small caveats become a major concern. One might legitimately question the wisdom of releasing such an important collection on such a young, unproven format.

One might also complain about the little things, if one has a mind to, and the little things pile up a little too fast. The videos average about three per disc, which makes for an inconvenient viewing experience. To enjoy “Burning Down the House,” a live performance of “Once in a Lifetime,” and an excellent early outdoor performance of “Pulled Up,” one must switch discs three times, or else rip the DVD content to a single disc, in which case one has yet another disc to keep track of, assuming a DVD burner is available. In addition, the cases are not labeled across the spine, making it impossible to find a particular title without dumping the contents and shuffling the discs like a deck of cards. The track listings are on the back pages of each insert booklet, the credits are confusing, and the extra copy tells us little beyond the fact that Heads keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Harrison thoroughly enjoyed creating each and every one of these 5.1 mixes.

Which brings us to the main reason most folks will purchase the Brick. I confess I find 5.1 mixes only mildly interesting and mostly superfluous to the enjoyment of music. There’s something inherently solipsistic about a 5.1 mix, an obsessive connoisseurism that runs counter to the raw, communal, celebratory spirit of rock ’n’ roll. But these discs, particularly Fear of Music, Remain in Light and Speaking in Tongues, are peculiarly suited to the surround experience. Brian Eno’s polish and ambience paradoxically enhance the live feel of the tracks. Listening, you get the sense of being thrust among the players in the middle of a performance, and almost feel obligated to pick up an instrument. On tracks like “Burning Down the House” or “Life During Wartime,” it’s just about impossible not to. I recommend the guiro.

With its packaging and format problems, The Brick won’t replace Rhino’s 2003 box set Once in a Lifetime as the definitive Talking Heads collection. And perhaps the biggest caveat of all is the fact that Rhino is going to release each DualDisc separately later this year. If you’re trepidacious about the format, you might wait and purchase one at a time, minimizing your financial risk. That said, the bonus material and 5.1 mixes alone make the discs more than worth the average $18 apiece, and in this era of changing formats and record-industry anxiety, it’s the most any fan could expect.

Metal swoops and fiberglass fins and sails. Perpendicular planes of glass and concrete jutting at 90-degree angles, bordered by tropical plants. A gleaming, skewed canopy painted in primary colors that beckoned diners down the Sunset strip. Although Googie’s—the Los Angeles coffee shop that launched an architectural movement—is a fading memory, its imprint on popular culture lives on.

Googie—a breathtakingly unrestrained architectural style, perfected by 1940s- and ’50s- era architects like John Lautner, Douglas Honnold and Wayne McAllister—flourished in southern California, coastal Florida and Las Vegas, locales where fantasy and escapism provided the fabric of daily life. Whimsical, and occasionally absurd, restaurants such as Pann’s and the Wich Stand, futuristic bowling alleys and drive-in movie theaters, and roadside gas stations, motels and burger stands sprang up virtually overnight. The effect was startling, as if Frank Lloyd Wright had embarked on an Electric Kool-Aid acid trip.

“New York and Miami had Art Deco, but here in southern California, we really excelled at Googie,” boasts Los Angeles-based journalist Chris Nichols.

MEET GEORGE JETSON…
According to Chris Jepsen, an employee of the Orange County Archives and the founder of SpaceAgeCity.com, a website dedicated to Googie history, L.A. provided the perfect incubator for the movement. “First, you had the blurring of indoor and outdoor living spaces, which was typical to mid-century California architecture,” says Jepsen. “There were a lot of contractors doing development for NASA and the U.S. Air Force out here, and workers tightening lug nuts on satellites at Boeing.”

Factor in the Disneyland and Hollywood scenes, which were both more comfortable with the fantasy element, and the fact that most Californians weren’t tied to tradition, and the West Coast was a prime breeding ground for Googie.

Alan Hess—author of 1985’s Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, recently updated and republished as Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture—agrees. “The cultural attitude in the West didn’t put so many restrictions on architects,” he notes. “People were willing to break out of cultural conventions and accept a wider range of ideas, and the exuberance of Googie and its willingness to push the envelope while displaying great sensibilities made for some fantastic architecture.”

Facets of the style have permeated pop culture via iconic imagery like Holiday Inn signs, In-N-Out Burger joints, and McDonald’s legendary golden arches (not to mention landmarks like Seattle’s Space Needle and the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport). Movies have also traded on Googie’s retro-future kitsch; the Coen Brother’s cult classic The Big Lebowski being one example among many.

THE ‘CAMERA OF DEATH’
Today, however, authentic Googie sightings are as rare as the ivory-billed woodpecker. Thumb through the pages of Googie Redux, and you’ll notice that most of the listings are annotated as “demolished,” with obituaries for Henry’s Drive-In, a Pomona oasis; Coffee Dan’s, a Hollywood hangout; and Ship’s Coffee Shop, an aerodynamic Westwood breakfast spot, piled up like commuters in L.A.’s infamous rush-hour traffic.

“In 1985, these Googie landmarks were a common presence in the L.A. street scene,” Hess writes in the foreword to his tome, adding that, “two decades later, it seems an urbanistic luxury… So much has been lost; only some have been saved.”

Both Jepsen and Nichols credit Hess’ book with fueling their own interest in Googie architecture. Jepsen was inspired to pick up his camera and begin documenting what remained. But, he quickly discovered, many Googie structures weren’t maintained, and when property values were compounded with deferred maintenance, some of the best examples of the genre were unceremoniously razed. “I was driving around Orange County taking pictures of stuff seconds ahead of the bulldozer,” Jepsen recalls. “At times, I felt like I had the camera of death, and anything I pointed it at was doomed.”

Nichols initially contacted Hess when a McDonald’s restaurant—one of the first franchises, opened in 1954—located in his Los Angeles-suburb hometown of Azusa was shuttered in the ’80s. “His book really changed my life,” Nichols says. “I realized that there were a bunch of these things, and a real order to the species. We ultimately lost the Azusa McDonald’s, but I got involved with saving another one, in Downey, which was a real vindication.”

PRESERVATION: AN UPHILL BATTLE
Hess also guided Nichols to the Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy, which, with 8,500 members, is the largest private preservation organization in the country. The ModCom, as it’s called, serves as a watchdog agency, educational outreach service and resource for construction firms involved in Googie-restoration projects.

“This has totally changed my life,” Nichols raves, “because working in modern preservation, you can possibly meet your idols. I got to be friends with some of the original Googie architects, like Wayne McAllister, who designed the original Bob’s Big Boys and El Rancho Vegas, the first resort casino hotel in Las Vegas. He and guys like Louis Armét and Eldon Davis were the kings. They made the interiors work, and with their exteriors, they made people stop and pay attention.”

Yet, as Jepsen cautions, preserving Googie architecture continues to be an uphill battle. “The tendency is to have this gut instinct that if you can remember a building as new, it can’t be important or historically relevant,” he says. “We’re at the cusp of people realizing the importance of this architecture, and most of it is already gone. Many of the best examples are lost.”

Hess’ book offers a guided tour of more than 100 Googie structures still standing in Los Angeles—places like Rae’s coffee shop in Santa Monica, the Mar Vista Bowl in Culver City and Canter’s Delicatessen on Fairfax Avenue. Thanks to his efforts, and the work of preservationists like Jepsen and Nichols, it’s still possible to gas up your convertible, put on some cool shades (and maybe some Martin Denny or Esquivel), and take a quick trip back to the future.

Sounds of Thunder: Intimate songbird whistles a new tune

Since her 1993 breakout release, Blue Light Til Dawn, vocalist Cassandra Wilson has fused blues, soul, jazz and a handful of other idioms into a unique and powerful amalgam. Unified by her smoky voice and highlighted by her savvy choice of covers, ranging from Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” (done with Afro Cuban accents) to a delightfully dusty take on The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville,” Wilson has spent the last 13 years building a formidable catalog. While her deep voice bears a resemblance to Nina Simone’s, her style shares more in common with the powerfully intimate croons of Shirley Horn. Wilson’s vocal stylings also owe small debts to jazz greats like Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter, but none of these legends possessed the front-porch magnolia sound distinguishing Wilson’s last five discs. On those recordings you expect to hear crickets in the background.

Her latest, thunderbird, offers a different sound. Produced by T Bone Burnett and bassist/keyboardist Keefus Ciancia, the recording’s broad, open sound is built around keyboards rather than small percussion instruments and gentle acoustic guitars. A stellar group of sidemen including drummer Jim Keltner and guitarist Marc Ribot flesh out the songs. But the change in music hasn’t altered Wilson’s overall aesthetic; she’s still delving deeply into the roots of the Delta and celebrating its eclectic possibilities. The recording takes its name from the Native American legend about the animal that brought calm and growth to its haunts, and Wilson claims this spirit guided the collaboration.

Wilson’s repertoire still leaps all over the map. She turns Jakob Dylan’s “Closer to You” into a twilight stroll, but she dips into her voice’s lowest registers to wring every drop of sultriness from Willie Dixon’s “I Want to Be Loved.” The traditional “Red River Valley” gets a magisterial arrangement highlighted by dense guitar chords. The record’s centerpiece is Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Easy Rider” which succeeds on the strength of Wilson’s quivering, lament-deepening vocals.

Over the last decade, Wilson—a Mississippi native who lives in New York City—had grown as a songwriter, deftly fusing urban meditations with rural sounds, but on thunderbird her originals seem less fully developed, as if she hasn’t quite figured out how to write for the new band. Burnett’s two contributions, “Lost” and “Strike a Match” resonate more deeply.

Wilson’s new sound may fluster the fans she’s gained in the last 10 years, but that’s been a hallmark of her career. When she arrived in New York, she fell in with the Brooklyn-based M-Base Collective in the ’80s; then in ’88—just when she seemed like the diva of the futuristic-jazz-funk crowd—she released Blue Skies, a collection of jazz standards with a traditional trio accompaniment. The disc became a huge hit. Many of her Blue Skies fans resented her Blue Light... material and the music that followed, deeming it a sell-out. But she eventually won over most doubters. And with thunderbird, she’s poised to do it again.

On the streets of London, gaping holes in the pavement threaten to swallow passers-by, a synchronized swimmer extends her leg from a High Street swimming pool and, in Edinburgh’s City Centre, a globe floats mysteriously. Enter the strange and fascinating world of sidewalk artist/illusionist, Julian Beever. No 3-D glasses needed here—Beever’s unique use of anamorphic illusion can make a flat plane of ground look completely three-dimensional. Though the illusions only work from a certain angle, Beever’s paintings are so convincing he can actually insert himself into them, dipping his toe into the swimming pool; standing precariously on a ledge awaiting rescue from Batman and Robin. He even creates a mirror image of himself—Beever and his chalk-clutching doppelganger kneeling head to head.

To view more of Beever’s mind-boggling artwork, visit his website.

Idyllic song cycle about packing up and starting over… in Spain

The third volume in Rouse’s fruitful collaboration with producer Brad Jones, following 2003 artistic breakthrough 1972 and last year’s Nashville, Subtítulo also represents the first effort from the Nebraska-born former Nashville resident since he moved to Spain, post-divorce. Despite the playful title, there’s nothing overtly Latin about any of the LP’s 10 tracks, not even the instrumental “La Coasta Blanca.” No, the influence of Rouse’s picturesque new locale is subtler than that, bringing a touch of caressing languor to the soul-pop lilt of his last two albums. With its gentle rhythms and 33-minute running time, Subtítulo seems slight at first listen, but the songs eventually marry, suggesting the progression from a dead end to a new start—one that’s clearly romantic in nature, turning on the balmy “It Looks Like Love” and “Wonderful,” both courtship songs of disarming forthrightness. The apparent object of Rouse’s affection, the perfectly named Paz Suay, even makes an appearance, dueting fetchingly on before-and-after tale “The Man Who Doesn’t Know How to Smile.” Only the emotionally petrified could resist such unselfconscious sweetness.

Angry aging rockers wanted for music-and-thought crimes

Special agent Foster adjusted his govt.-issue shades and scribbled thoughtfully in his notebook: Bone-rattling, darker-than-Sabbath, minor-key riff metal. Eastern flourishes. Explosive horn section. Three producers, yet sound remains seamless. Rowdy, Chuck-Berry-through-the-meat-grinder double-stop guitar bends. Venomous lyrics delivered with old-school garage-punk sneer. Hmmm. The clues at the crime scene all pointed to a notorious gang of Seattle ear-drum-rape veterans. Mudhoney. They were back, stirring up trouble as usual. But it wasn’t just noise violations and general lewd behavior this time. Nor was it just knee-jerk social commentary; it was abrasive, apocalyptic rock played by a bunch of Americans both pissed and scared shitless about terrorism, U.S. foreign policy and an unstable world—rock that’s bleak, violent sound aptly soundtracked the kidnappings and roadside bombs taking down soldiers, journalists and civilians in Iraq with such alarming frequency. But suddenly, mid-album, an absurd guitar figure—with a melody approximating Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music”—erupts, and so does a little bit of that oh-well-we’re-all-FUBAR-anyway, grinning-and-shrugging Zen-tinged Mudhoney nihilism, because sometimes the only way to keep your wits is to laugh in the face of impending doom. A song called “Hard-on for War?” Agent Foster could only shake his head.

Occasional Broken Social Scenester finds voice on new solo album

Part-time Broken Social Scene member Jason Collett is really a solo troubadour at heart—despite the wonderfully messy indie rock he makes with BSS, his inclinations lean more toward country and roots music. Collett’s new disc, on which he’s aided by members of the Montreal collective, travels the dusty paths of heartbreak and late-afternoon drinking via songs that range from droning acoustic-guitar reverie (“Tinsel and Sawdust”) to pointed, driving rock (“I’ll Bring the Sun”). Collett dispenses with the mundane conventions of the singer/songwriter genre as he forges portraits both intimate and worldly over engaging arrangements and lyrics.

(Above: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (far left) and Nora Zehetner (far right) star in Brick.)

Director/Writer: Rian Johnson
Cinematography: Steve Yedlin
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas
Studio info: Focus Features, 110 mins.

Dashiell-Hammett-inspired high-school noir full of stylish surprises

High-school sleuths are popular on TV—Veronica Mars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Hardy Boys, to name a few. Social cliques and hormonal tensions coupled with deceptively blasé suburban backdrops tend to refresh gumshoe maneuvers, even as murderous intrigue adds zap to all the Clearasil melodrama.

Brick, director Rian Johnson’s crackling debut, shakes up a genre that’s grown a bit routine, while indulging our familiarity with it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Mysterious Skin, Third Rock from the Sun) plays Brendan, the smart, loner kid whose broken heart leads him to the local teenage underworld when his ex-girlfriend (Lost’s Emilie de Ravin) goes missing.

The plot springs along on dozens of smaller mysteries, as Brendan chases clues—scraps of paper with cryptic drawings, a cigarette butt tossed from a speeding car, the identity of a shadowy figure called The Pin—and throws a lot of punches at lunky obstacles with names like Dode and Tugger (Johnson deploys beat-downs the way Michael Bay blows up buildings). But Brendan quickly finds himself in over his head.

What compelled a Sundance jury to award Johnson a special prize for “originality of vision” was probably two things: his jittery edits, which tend to juxtapose stationary long shots with sudden close-ups, and his extremely mannered dialogue. The former captures and sustains a knot-in-the-gut feeling, intensified by composer (and cousin) Nathan Johnson’s brilliant abstract score—all throbbing violin and stark piano. The latter evokes the clipped lingo of Phillip Marlowe, cross-wired with David Mamet. Southern California kids who look like they should be in line for a Gwen Stefani show drop slang like “duck soup” (easy pickings) and “bulls” (cops) as if they were studying James Ellroy in English class.

The cast, which includes an impressively demonic Lukas Haas, rattles off these lines so quickly that it’s hard to always know what they’re talking about. Johnson’s habit is to jump to the next scene before the current one is fully complete, which keeps audiences on edge but often in the dark. (Oddly enough, that’s what makes Brick most reminiscent of another Sundance favorite, the kitchen-sink sci-? thriller, Primer.) Still, like those punches that lunge across the screen and send Brendan reeling toward his next clue, it’s a left-field surprise that’s worth the effort.

Youngdahl and Christensen in A Time For Burning

Director: Bill Jersey
Studio information: Docudrama, 58 mins.

Race and religion collide in the Heartland.

Omaha, Neb., isn’t exactly remembered as a key battleground in the civil-rights movement. But this documentary, produced by the Lutheran Church in 1966, captures a small but significant racial upheaval in that city as it unfolded. In an effort to foster dialogue and understanding between races, a white pastor attempted to initiate a modest program of interracial visits with a local black church. The resulting furor nearly tore his congregation apart. Bill Jersey’s verité approach, relying mainly on the narrative of events as they transpired, reflects the documentary school taking flight at the time (best typified by the Maysles brothers in films like the brilliant Salesman [1968]). The immediacy of the approach captures the frustration and anger of the participants. It’s particularly chilling to watch a pious, pipe-smoking church board member mask his bigotry as taking a practical approach, warning that “the timing is bad” for the visits. At the same time another member questions his very faith in light of the intolerance of his fellow congregants. While it’s an important document of the civil-rights struggle that took place 40 years ago, the film is all too relevant today. Bonus material includes commentary by Jersey and a recent interview with the eloquent Ernie Chambers, who was a barber when the film was made and went on to a long career in politics.

Life concept and design how-to based on intentional artistic chaos

With the ever-increasing number of home-design TV shows, Josh Amatore Hughes’ tutorial on how to redesign your life and living space is everything these shows aren’t: original, inspiring and funny.

Hughes is the originator of Punk Shui, a philosophy, an aesthetic, “the ancient art of urban survival” and a Vicodin-ditching “coping mechanism” all rolled in one. It’s what emerges when you saw in half all preconceived notions of how to live life and nail them to your wall. This book is both manifesto and manual for injecting Punk Shui into your home, your of?ce, your social scene and your prefab-discarding consciousness.

Those of us who don’t snap spikes around our necks—and those who typically run from books that smack of self-help—shouldn’t be deterred from checking this one out. Although the introduction assumes a distinctly bitter tone, the book itself embraces readers with all different tolerances for chaos.

Even better, the suggestions Hughes provides in sections like “Institutionalize Yourself” make you laugh out loud and, more importantly, don’t make you feel like you’re seeking therapy. Even if you don’t completely share Hughes’ outlook on life, reading Punk Shui will remind you of rules you’ve been meaning to smash.

Dressed To Overkill: Long-awaited followup to career milestone sinks to middle

On paper there was every reason to believe that Ringleader of the Tormentors would be an epochal album. On the heels of the dazzling You Are the Quarry, Morrissey’s triumphant return to the stage and spotlight, he showed signs of a latter-day flowering. Taut and strutting, Quarry had ample doses of Moz’s clever-devil black humor, but on songs like “First of the Gang to Die,” they were delivered with such a sly and ebullient smirk that it no longer seemed like the emotionally defensive maneuver of a tortured melodramatist. Lurking through the songs and the surprisingly non-evasive interviews was a hint that perhaps the man so stereotypically associated with all things teenage-morose was growing ever more comfortable in his own shadow, myth and skin. Quarry introduced Morrissey’s fervent public to his new and endearing incarnation as an elder statesman, a one-man Rat Pack for the post-post-punk set.

And then there’s the matter of producer Tony Visconti. Apparently tapped in lieu of an overbooked Jeff Saltzman, the choice of this particular studio legend seemed all but providential. Throughout his storied work with T. Rex and David Bowie, Visconti has ranked among the foremost practitioners of the art of turning the pugnaciously flamboyant into the sublime. Who knew what fertile rains of alchemistic mutant magic he could bestow upon the second blooming of Stretford’s favorite gladiola? To top it all off, word leaked that the album was to be recorded in Rome, a city that’s mix of classicism and flash seemed the perfect foil for the refined, urbane Moz of the moment. Images of a man in a mauve three-button capering through the alleys of Trastevere humming a deliciously morbid couplet danced in the heads of all who read Visconti’s increasingly breathless blog and waited in rapt anticipation. So?

Unobjectionable, serviceable, occasionally flashing brilliance but never quite delivering, Ringleader of the Tormentors is a musical tug-of-war left permanently unresolved. The problem, sadly, is that the pairing of Morrissey and Visconti itself seems to have been ill-conceived. As a purely technical matter, Visconti’s sonic genius is apparent in sweeping rock symphonics like the Middle Eastern groove of “I Will See You In Far Off Places” (a sound admittedly captured over a decade ago by Morrissey’s Smiths bandmate Johnny Marr in The The) or the rain-soaked “Life Is A Pigsty” (the album’s best entry into the long, wonderful list of snarky Moz song titles).

But more often than not the production seems mired in gimmick or overkill. Whether it’s baldly taking a page from Bob Ezrin’s playbook and using a children’s choir or making the odd choice of occasionally doubling Morrissey’s vocals (which, if you think about it, almost never happens on Moz’s albums—in fact, that absence may be one of the more unique things about his recorded performances), the bombast of Visconti’s sonic layering all but effaces Morrissey’s effort, which is shrinking by his standards. While some arresting lyrical barbs pepper the album, Morrissey’s delivery is often uncharacteristically flat and forced—the sprightly quality that attends his best work seems lost in the pomp and gravitas. While the cutting guitars of Alain Whyte and Jesse Tobias (formerly of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, during their one-guitarist-per-week period) fuel such standouts as “You Have Killed Me” and “The Youngest Was the Most Loved,” and Ennio Morricone’s orchestra lends a curious Spaghetti Western flourish to “At Last I Am Born,” the songs themselves generally strain to fill the lofty, overwrought aural architecture Visconti builds for them—lonely ghosts in crumbling Roman temples of sound.

It’s certainly admirable that Moz and Tony got lost in the moment and went for something classic, but, on balance, Ringleader is strangely underwhelming.

Swedish heartthrob returns with classy '60s homage

We already knew that Nicolai Dunger had a sensitive heart, an ear for perfect melodies, and the husky but wavering voice of a man who’d chop wood for us all afternoon and then pour out his feelings over a roast-quail dinner. And with the U.S. release of Here’s My Song..., he’s back to charm us again. Compared to his last two discs—the exhilarating Soul Rush, and Tranquil Isolation, with its masterful Americana—Here’s My Song... feels more polite and more submissive to its ’60s-pop-folk sources (particularly Van Morrison). It tends to drift in its second half, especially on the endless “The Year of the Love and Hurt Cycle.” But backing band Mercury Rev matches Dunger’s growl whenever he asks, and the mellower arrangements are impeccable and classy. In his case, gruff charm still goes a long way.

Stories for Millions of Us, Everywhere: The damned and the damaged inherit the earth in this long-anticipated story collection

In “Screenwriter,” from Charles D’Ambrosio’s new collection, the narrator describes a young dancer at the mental institution they share:

A white moth fell like a flower petal from the sky, dropped through a link in the fence, and came to light on my hand. The cooling night wind raised gooseflesh on my arms, and a cloud of smoke ripped into the air. The girl’s gown was smoldering. A leading edge of orange flame was chewing up the hem. I rose from my seat to tell the ballerina she was on fire. The moth flew from my hand, a gust fanned the flames, there was a flash, and the girl ignited, lighting up like a paper lantern. She was cloaked in fire. The heat moved in waves across my face and I had to squint against the brightness. The ballerina spread her arms and levitated, sur le pointes, leaving the patio as her legs, ass, and back emerged phoenix-like out of this paper chrysalis, rising up until finally the gown sloughed from her shoulders and sailed away, a tattered black ghost ascending in a column of smoke and ash, and she lowered back down, naked and white, standing there, pretty much unfazed, in first position.

The terrible beauty of this passage typifies D’Ambrosio’s precision about characters detached from love, sanity or both. In “Drummond and Son,” a typewriter repairman’s wife leaves him with his adult, mentally distant son, who explains that he “laughs when he sees something sad.” Depicting characters with weak grasps on reality allows the author to unstick words from their familiar meanings. He often uses surreal language to depict disconnected, sometimes hallucinatory experiences. In the title story, for example, an emigrant from El Salvador struggles with English, calling his refrigerator “the dead fish museum.” In the typewriter-repairman story, he and his mentally disabled son spend their bus ride home reading pages of random, fragmented and nonsensical symbols customers have typed during the day. One reads, “???????????!!!!!!” The clearest statement offered reads, “God is dead.”

Disconnection from God is one of the central themes, depicted largely by the recurrent images of dead fish. For example, in “The High Divide,” the characters walk away from their camping spot and return to find the fish they caught “all burned to hell.” Significantly, it’s during this hiking trip that the father of the narrator’s friend announces he and his wife are getting a divorce. It turns out there’s little to protect these characters from suffering, since the author suggests their faith in prayer and family is about as useful as faith in Sasquatch, a creature the father calls “a myth.” “The Bone Game” concerns a man, Kype, whose self-appointed mission is to find the perfect spot to scatter his grandfather’s ashes. With his road companion, D’Angelo, he drives the grandfather’s Eldorado to an Indian reservation where a deaf woman tells him white men are fish. And, ultimately, he swims and walks along a stream littered with dead fish.

“Blessing” is a story in which the protagonist’s ne’er-do-well brother receives the gift of a large salmon that washes up on the Skagit River’s flooded banks. This is arguably the most hopeful story, as the river ordinarily offers up tree branches and washing machines when it rises and destroys homes along its banks. The salmon feeds the family and an old neighbor, and they’re able to hold back the river with sandbags, at least until the storm returns and dumps more rain. These are fiercely compassionate stories in which people suffer mentally and spiritually, and one type of suffering is analog to the other; one character will lose his mind while another loses his soul.

Despite the sad state of many of the characters, D’Ambrosio depicts them with humor as often as with poignancy. When Kype and D’Angelo pick up a hitchhiking young woman they tell her of Kype’s grandfather’s importance, his impact on people and his fame. Impressed, the woman drinks from a bottle of whiskey and says, “Here’s to Granpa.” “Here is Granpa,” D’Angelo replies, holding up the urn filled with the old man’s ashes.

Although many of the stories in The Dead Fish Museum were originally published in The New Yorker and elsewhere, this collection is more than welcome after the 10-year wait since The Point, D’Ambrosio’s highly acclaimed first collection. It’s most welcome because of the solace it offers. In “Blessing,” for example, the narrator finds a mysterious note written on a Christmas card in the attic of his newly purchased house. The note reads, “I hope these help. Love Milt.”

One imagines D’Ambrosio offering these beautifully written stories with a comparable intent to suffering readers who need help. At the end of “The High Divide,” orphaned Ignatius, his lonely friend Donny and Donny’s troubled father yell across the river and hear their echoing voices, “like there were millions of us everywhere.”

Dazzling gallery of the slaughtered and the demons who feast on them

Jon Langford, the Ernest Tubb of troubador artists, waits for daybreak at Tasty Town with the window-booth regulars.

It’s been a long, unbridled wait, through beds and bottles, through Thatcher, Reagan, Bushes, cronies, Mekons and Waco Brothers. Langford has all their numbers, to sing, to paint by. His heart, like Hank’s or Loretta’s, is in the right place, and just as shot through with one-way arrows. His mouth is full of the chicken that crossed to the sunny side of the road, making us laugh ’til our lungs strained. Nashville Radio is a dazzling gallery of the slaughtered and the demons who feast on them; Langford heaves it all into this book—paintings, cocooned fists, autobiographical writing, a companion CD and singalong lyrics—but the chewing sound won’t stop. The campfires fueled by Langford’s country icons, cowboys and cowgirls in flames, caskets chock with contracts—they’re as gorgeous as the sight of one’s own illuminated bones in the mirror.

Crawling out of the wrong end of a nightmare or dancing with death in dollar dress, Nashville Radio spills enough of your mama ’n’ daddy’s blood to make you doubt the West is history—or that this is even close to the end of the line.

[Ed. Note: Jon Langford is a Paste contributor.]

I’m sorry, Bubba… your poodle has heartworms

Sidney Thompson’s depiction of the South will be familiar to many. Sideshow—his new collection of short stories—is filled with hunters, carnival-sideshow freaks and families broken by death and divorce. The twist on the tried-and-true is Thompson’s surprise here—this is the South seen more through the prism of R.E.M. than William Faulkner.

In “The Floater,” Larry is a redneck hunter whose dogs have died in a fire. With his money tight after a recent divorce, he heads to the pound to find a new dog. Much to his surprise, he brings home a poodle… with heartworms.

“The Voyeur” examines the changing face of family. Set in a thoroughly modern South, a teenager, Bruce, finds himself torn between love for his dad and his growing attraction to his mother. A southern woman enjoying her newfound freedom with gusto, she insists that he call her Joyce. Bruce begins to spy on her to see if he can discover the truth of her sexuality—and possibly his own.

Thompson’s prose rings simple and direct, his narrative quick and sure. His real gift, though, is an eye for the subtle emotional connections we universally share. And what this Alabama-based writer finds just below the surface of day-to-day existence is a notable discovery—a South to which we can all relate.

With the DVD release of American Dad, Volume One set for late April, Paste talked to the real star of the show, Roger the Alien, who dishes the dirt about life on the set and in Hollywood.

Congratulations on receiving the DVD treatment. Are you excited at the possibility of invading every television viewer’s home? I figured you might be, especially since your family never even lets you leave the house.

Excited? Honestly Gail—based on your questions, I’ve deduced that your name must be Gail—I’m about to blow an orifice! Roger is about to drop, ya’ll! And the masses have chosen to celebrate me. I’m just tickled to give something back to TV after consuming so so much. I’m television’s Roger! I’m friggin’ famous!

Are you getting out of the house at all these days? Do people recognize you on the street?

Clearly, Captain Obvious, I’m an Actor, playing a Character on Television. In real life Roger gets around. If you had the decency to read the tabloids, you’d know I’m all over this town. “Roger chows down on fro-yo… Just like Us!” “Roger spills sour mash whiskey on his Uggs… Just like Us!” “Roger hits a valet with his Ferrari… Just like us!”

How does it feel being the only alien on the show? I know they’ve hassled you in the past about your weight and your looks. Hell, Stan almost shot you while under CIA pressure that one time, but do you ever feel discriminated against? Perhaps there’s some kind of union you could join for equal rights…

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m in one of those. The NCAACP. The… New Coalition of Alien Actors Coalition Program. I forget what it is. I send them a quarter and they give a kid in Africa a cup of coffee or something. Have I been discriminated against? Yes. Does it bother me? No. Clearly, I’m the breakout star, and the rest of the cast knows it. It’s a real Geisha house in here, jealous bitches! I’m like that black guy that won the Olympics. This role is my spandex jumpsuit and Sunday nights at 9:30 are my Torino!

Something I’ve noticed is that when you get a little down, you tend to turn to the sauce for comfort. Are the pressures of being a celebrity getting to you? Should we be worried?

Look, what can I say? When life gives me lemons, I make lemon cosmotinis. Then I drink them. Then, hopefully, life gives me a Percocet.

Along those same lines, I watched your rant on the American Dad website about the mistreatment of celebrities in society. You said some forward things about how you’re better than the everyday Joe or Jane. Do you really think you deserve better treatment than the rest of us just because you’re on a TV show?

Exsqueeze me? Where’d you get that journalism degree, the University of eBay? What are you, a Googleologist? That quote was taken out of context. The Joe and Jane to whom you refer are a couple of deadbeat art dealers I got mixed up with in Toronto during the SARS scare. Well, they flipped out when I came to pick up the paintings, which I PayPal’d for! Really violent stuff, they threw dishrags in my face, opened all their windows, turned on the vacuum cleaner… So I left without the art. And when I returned days later the place was boarded up. So, do I feel I’m better than them? Hells yeah. And, Joe and Jane, if you scumbags are reading this, I want my fake Ed Templeton paintings!

It really is a shame how you’re treated sometimes, but hey, we have an open forum here. You could get back at some of your castmates right now. Why don’t you tell us what they’re really like behind the scenes?

Well, Stan has really packed on the pounds since he got back from his “vacation” in South Africa. Get this, he actually wears a girdle under his suit! Those wardrobe girls have to squeeze Stan’s fat ass into a girdle! Ha! I think there’s some footage on the DVD… Anyways, Francine spends most of her downtime on set practicing material for her pathetic housewife gimmick of a stand-up career. Yeah, you can catch her at any amateur night with a three-drink minimum. Klaus is the most diva-licious of them all! He only drinks 72-degree Perrier water. I once saw him kick his empty bowl at a P.A! And Haley’s partying has gotten hilariously out of control—Oops, that’s my cell. TV’s Roger here… uh huh… uh huh… uh huh, riiight. Ok, ok, TTYL.— Apologies, that was my publicist. We were talking about my costars? Complete professionals, an absolute joy to work with.

If the smart folks at Fox greenlighted the movie Roger: The Untold Story, what would be the basic storyline? What would be the biggest surprise be for the audience, or for the Smiths?

Much like Ray Charles and Johnny Cash, I’m an unbridled genius with a dead brother. That’s right, tragedy is no stranger to Roger the Alien. Poor, dead, Esopoglop… Ooh! Do you think I’d get to play myself in the movie? What a juicy role… though they’ll probably call in a Ledger or a cross-dressed Theron to do the job. There are so few parts for non-humanoid actors. This is a humanoid-dominated business! I’m an alien and an actor. Not an alien actor! I’m a raconteur; I wanna tell stories!

What are your favorite shows about aliens? Which one does the most injustice to your people, if you don’t mind us lumping all aliens into one group?

You humans are fascinated by Alien culture, but mostly you get it wrong! It’s ridiculous. That cast of waif-ish drag queens on Desperate Housewives really poorly reflects on all of us. I can’t imagine what backwoods planet Hollywood pillaged to find those freaks. Don’t even get me started on Mork and Mindy starring Robin Williams, that obvious showboat! Drinking out of his finger, wearing suspenders… embarrassing. And Third Rock from the Sun, ugh! That dorky bunch couldn’t be more clueless. Cheap shots, all of them. Yes, exploitation helps young upstarts make a buck, but we’re not all clumsy oafs. I know it doesn’t jibe with your demo, Gail, but Star Trek Voyager got a lot of stuff really right… the episode with the Photonic Canon and the doctor singing opera, I got chills… Yeah, definitely check that one out.

Have you met anyone else at Fox? The Simpsons, the folks from Family Guy, perhaps even a cast member or two from The OC?

Yeah, yeah, Mischa Barton and I hang. We’re neighbors. I’m currently living in Margot Kidder’s old place, but I’m looking for digs in Malibu. I’ve got my eye on the home of a certain Britney Spears, but my accountant thinks any day she’ll drop the baby and her realtor will drop the asking price. In the meantime I’m enjoying the fabu young Hollywood domestic scene. Mischies pieces and I play monopoly with Jason Priestley every Wednesday. Throw a couple of steaks on the grill. You know, keep it chill.

Obviously, American Dad can’t go on forever, though we wish it many decades. Where do you see your career going after the show has run its course?

Just the other day I was jaywalking my Pomeranian in Beverly Hills, and Wanda Sykes approached me! Like, the Wanda Sykes! She wanted to go halfzies on a pitch for a Roger the Alien spin-off, but I told her that I won’t go all “Joey” on my fans. Besides, my new agent sees me as more of a leading man. Naturally, the next step is the big screen. I’m no fool; it’s all about branding. Perfume, sneakers, a recording contract, these things aren’t too far off for me. And I’m in no hurry to overexpose. Ballpark, I have at least 300 more years left in this life cycle.

Madlib makes move with made-up movie mood music

XXL’s Chairman Mao said, “You couldn’t pay me to listen to an instrumental hip-hop album.” Beat Konducta, Vol. 1-2: Movie Scenes might change his mind completely. Madlib is no stranger to the concept album, as his releases under the helium-snarled Quasimoto and vibed-out Yesterday’s New Quintet projects would insinuate. The track titles tell the whole story; Madlib decided to approach the Beat Konducta collection as the soundtrack to a film that only exists in his head. Hence, “Two Timer (The Pimp)” sports a swaggering upright bass and a triumphant horn interlude, while “Outerlimit (Space Ho)” drifts through ephemeral flute samples and a weightless tempo. The cuts are short and the transitions sudden, but Madlib flexes his production muscles, working with wildly different templates, speeds and moods. From the jogging bass line and horn flurries on “Electric Company (Voltage-Watts)” to the haunting falsettos on “The Payback (Gotta),” this wild pastiche demonstrates why Madlib is one of the most talented heads in hip-hop.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writers: Hayao Miyazaki (screenplay), Diana Wynne Jones (novel)
Cinematography: Atsushi Okui
Studio information: Buena Vista, 131 mins.

Miyazaki’s winning streak continues while bringing beloved British teen novel to life

This past year saw a better filmic realization of British youth fiction than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Diana Wynne Jones’ celebrated 1986 novel Howl’s Moving Castle held the ideal combination of whimsy and fantasy to match Hayao Miyazaki’s sensibilities. The film, as expected, is a feast for the eyes. Miyazaki’s background artists craft landscapes with majestic sweep and sun-drenched color. The quaint town of Ingary is bright on the surface, and careworn and gritty just below.

Leaving the Asian settings of North American breakthrough successes Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki blends Japanese culture with a reimagined Europe circa 1920, similar to 1992’s Porco Rosso. Young Sophie is something of a stiff, but discovers her youth after the Witch of the Waste ages her into a 90-year-old crone. Sophie wanders into the Waste seeking restoration, stowing away aboard vain wizard Howl’s ramshackle, lumbering home.

It turns out that Howl may not be the heart-devouring baddie his reputation suggests, as he risks his humanity to stop a brutish war. While Howl is away, Sophie bonds with Calcifer the Fire Demon (voiced by Billy Crystal), who keeps the steam-powered castle moving. “I can’t stand the fire in gunpowder,” Calcifer opines. “Those dopey guys have absolutely no manners.”

Eccentric pop auteur digs up vintage electronic instruments for hyper-melodic fourth album

Better known as a frequent Sufjan Stevens collaborator and touring band member, John Ringhofer has also spent the better part of this decade as the man behind Half-Handed Cloud, crafting meticulously quirky pop songs with a Sufjan-esque laundry list of instruments. For his fourth release, the master of the one-minute pop song employs a lost ’80s instrument called an omnichord—a combination of an autoharp and a synthesizer—to create prancing drum-machine beats and bubbling bass lines. The usual intricate assortment of horns, pianos and marimbas return to fill out the sonic tableau, but the synthesized textures push Ringhofer toward a delightfully idiosyncratic white-boy soul aesthetic, resulting in the most focused, melodically punchy and accessible release in his catalog.