SARR - Girl Talk - All Day

In which everybody’s favorite mash-up DJ asks his audience if he can take the day off. Greg Gillis sounds a tad uninspired here. Compared to 2008’s raucous Feed the Animals, All Day sounds rigid, static and soulless. Certain combinations – “Blitzkrieg Bop” (Ramones), “Tipsy ‘09” (J-Kwon), “La Di Da” (Slick Rick) and “Waiting for the Sun” (the Doors) – don’t fit together as seamlessly as tracks such as “Jailbreak” (Thin Lizzy) and “Crank That” (Soulja Boy) did on Feed The Animals. All Day isn’t completely flat, however. The opening two minutes, featuring Ludacris’ “Move, Bitch” mashed up against the first verse of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” is sure to get the blood flowing, but I don’t know if the rest of the album will make you get up and dance.

SARR - Pentangle - Basket of Light

A solid folk album from one of the English folk era’s most enduring groups. While “Basket of Light” doesn’t match the best released by fellow folkers Fairport convention, Pentangle’s jazzy undertones certainly breathe life into folk traditions and keep the songs from sounding as dated as they should be. The record’s opening track, “Light Flight” (and its smoky vocals from Jacqui McShee) wouldn’t sound out of place at the Village Vanguard in NYC. Other highlights include “Springtime Promises” and the soaring “Train Song,” which almost ventures into prog territory with its bluesy time changes and frenetic ending.

SARR - Fillmore: The Last Days

For five nights in the summer of 1971, some of the San Francisco Bay Area’s biggest and best paid their respects to promoter extraordinaire Bill Graham’s Fillmore West concert hall. The highlights from the five-night party were compiled into this two-album set and a concert film, which has been recently re-released on DVD. There are a few standout tracks on the record – in particular, a transcendent performance of “Pana” by Jorge Santana’s Malo that’s more enjoyable to me than most of Carlos Santana’s catalogue. However in some cases (It’s a Beautiful Day’s incendiary “White Bird”) the performances sound limp without the video footage. Go with the DVD.

SARR - Pat Martino - Consciousness/Live!

Pat Martino is a stone cold genius of the jazz guitar. Throughout this two-album set, Martino pushes jazz to its limits, producing Clotranesque sheets of sound, daring his band members to keep up. However, though the full band tracks are breathtaking, Martino’s genius really shows on two tracks, “Passata On Guitar” and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” For all the breakneck energy shown on such tracks as “Impressions” and “Special Door,” Martino’s tender phrasing on “Passata” is the true standout of this disc, and Martino exhibits virtuosity and subtle restraint, creating the perfect atmosphere for a summer night on your patio.

An apology...

I've had quite the busy summer and early fall, resulting in the blog falling to the very bottom of my list of priorities. But, things are finally back to normal, and I can make maintaining this blog - and writing in general - a priority again. Sorry for the delay. More to come soon...

Short Ass Record Reviews - Kid Cudi - Man On The Moon: The End of Day

I haven't really written anything in a while, but I have a giant stack of music I want to talk about, starting with:

Kid Cudi - Man On The Moon: The End Of Day -

A Kanye West protégé does OK. The music and hooks on Man on the Moon: The End of Day are interesting enough, but Cudi’s lyrics make his rapping and singing forgettable. Not even narration from Common can make us pay attention to what is being said. Cudi show’s promise though, and a knack for creating dense atmospheres behind his raps. His thick synth-hop song textures are mesmerizing at points – though sometimes to the point of distraction - and collaborations with Ratatat and MGMT add melodic texture to the sometimes monotonous mechanical beats. Overall, Man on the Moon’s hip-hop minimalism carries the torch lit by Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak and points toward adventurous roads ahead.

Dave Eggers - Where The Wild Things Are

It happens to each and every one of us when we’re children. Our eight-year-old selves are running around the back yard. The world is our playground. No one can tell us what to do, stupid rules be damned. They’re not the bosses of us.

Regardless of what our parents might think, we know it’s a great idea to splash a little paint on the side of the house to give it some color. It’s perfectly practical to bring that rabbit running around the yard in the house. It’s safer to hide our snowballs in the house when we go inside for lunch so the neighborhood kids can sneak into our fort and steal them.

But the inevitable moment comes. “What did you do to the side of the house!?” What did the cat just chase through the kitchen!?” Why is there a huge puddle of water in the middle of the living room!?”

And then we get sent to our room. Our stupid parents don’t understand. The house looks boring; the rabbit was out in the cold; we didn’t want anyone stealing our snowballs. We need to get away to someplace where our parents can’t tell us what to do, where we can make our own rules, and our parents can’t get mad at us when we do what we want.

And the inspiration behind our plan is a little boy in a wolf suit from a picture book by Maurice Sendak. As children, Where the Wild Things Are is our first glimpse at rebellion, the first indication that we could strike out on our own, a hint that, one day, we’ll be gone from the shelter of our parents homes making a life for ourselves.

However, as kids, what Max does in Wild Things just seems like something fun to do for a little while. It gives us a place to go before we return back to our comfortable homes and families. Personally, I never really thought of it as a glimpse toward a future, independent life until I read Dave Eggers’ novelization of his film adaptation of the book.

But Eggers brings that to the forefront, expanding upon Max’s tenure as King of the Wild Things. While the original picture book portrays Max as a great leader of the Wild Things, Eggers’ Max is completely inadequate.

As king, Max can’t seem to do anything to make the Wild Things happy. He promises them a better life, but it doesn’t seem to get any better. The Wild Things go hungry, wander without homes, and suffer from a crippling fear of a rumbling noise coming from beneath the ground that only they can hear.

All Max can seem to do is find ways to distract the Wild Things, whether it’s holding a parade, playing a dangerous game of war, or building a fort to keep the rumbling noise out.

Nothing Max does makes the Wild Things happy. Even Carol, the one who seems to have the most faith in Max, quickly becomes disappointed in Max when he shows attention to the other Wild Things.

But what Egger’s is doing here is showing us the reality that we never realized when we were kids. We might have thought we could do well on our own without our parents’ “stupid rules,” but we never would have been able to make it. In highlighting Max’s shortcomings, Eggers shows just how important family is to a young child. Despite their rules, we need our parents to teach us how to live, and how to take care of ourselves, so that when we finally get out on our own, and are in charge of our own Wild Things, we can do the same for them.

Eggers’ Wild Things is more than just a story of escape; it’s a lesson. A lesson that, despite how maddening they can sometimes be, our family is what teaches us how to live and turns us into the adults we will become.

Thomas Pynchon - Inherent Vice

Every time I hear the old cliché, “If you can remember the 1960s, you weren’t really there,” on nearly every documentary chronicling the turbulent decade on VH1 Classic, I find myself rolling my eyes.

I have no disdain for the 1960s. American society and culture in the decade has always fascinated me. When I was in school, I’d always find myself returning to the subject when the time came to write a research paper. Vietnam, hippies and the drug culture, the Summer of Love, music, I’ve tried to learn as much as I can.

Fascination aside, however, I’ve always regarded the broad picture of the time (sex, drugs and revolution) with a little skepticism. There always had to be more to the decade.

I though I might see more of a skeptical view in Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel, Inherent Vice.

Instead, what I got was the tale of a stoner L.A. Detective, Larry “Doc” Sportello, following a case in a marijuana filled haze, getting pulled in multiple different directions as the focus of his case changes from preventing a real estate mogul from getting committed to a mental institution, to solving a murder, to reuniting a presumed-dead musician with his wife and daughter.

The basic conflict of the novel pits the easy-going doper, Sportello, against the Los Angeles police department and its well-to-do associates. A particular thorn in the P.I.’s side is the hippie-hating actor/detective Bigfoot Bjornsen, who, when he’s not trying to arrest Sportello, is trying to use him as a pawn in his personal vendetta against a criminal network known as the Golden Fang.

And so it goes for most of the novel. The book’s tone is relatively lighthearted and straightforward. There are no heavy-handed messages, or shocking twists or turns; any confusion in the story comes from the doped-up mind of Sportello himself.

There’s not much else to say about Inherent Vice. If you’re expecting a cynical, damning look at hippie culture, there’s none of that here. Instead, what Pynchon gives you is a smart, humorous trip through the end of the 1960s filled with sun, surf and plenty of dope.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

It’s not Christmas, but it sure feels like it to me. Every April, as the weather gets warmer and the days begin to get longer, I get as excited as that boy in the YouTube video that just found out he got an N64 for Christmas.

Hockey detractors can say what they want; the Stanley Cup Playoffs are the single most exciting sporting event in U.S. It’s a shame that the sport isn’t more popular outside it’s markets, and has do real major TV deal (Does the majority of America know what the VS. network is?); when it comes to the end of the regular season, it kicks the crap out of the NBA, NFL and MLB.

All bets are off during the NHL playoffs. Of course, there are clear favorites and underdogs, but the top teams don’t dominate the post-season the way they do during the regular season – or in the way they do in other sports’ post-seasons, for that matter.

The unexpected truly can happen in the NHL playoffs. Through the first games of the opening rounds in the Eastern Conference, only one of the top seeded teams managed to win the first game of its playoff series. The Washington Capitals, considered to be the favorite to win it all, dropped their opening game to the eighth-seeded Montreal Canadiens in overtime.

Teams won’t be afraid to fight, either. Hockey is an extremely physical game, and the best way to get in your opponents head during the playoffs is the beat the crap out of them. Anytime the whistle blows when the puck in at the front of the net, you can expect a scrum and a few hard elbows thrown in for good measure.

And every game, you’ll be able to find me, beer in hand, crouched on a barstool in one of my favorite bars, or on my couch, feet up, beer in hand, cheering on the Buffalo Sabres and watching any other game that’s on.

Feel free to come join me. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Jimi Hendrix - Valleys of Neptune

Nearly 40 years after his death, Jimi Hendrix is still turning heads. The latest bout of head-turning came earlier this month, when countless publications and radio stations devoted hours of air-time and pages of headlines to the most recent collection of archived recordings released by Experience Hendrix LLC, Valleys of Neptune.

Posthumous albums can be hit or miss, uneven affairs, mostly filler discarded in favor of other tunes more worthy of release. Valleys of Neptune is no exception.

It’s hard to deny that Hendrix was a revolutionary. He turned rock music on its head in 1967 and forever changed the way musicians looked at the electric guitar. The sounds he squeezed out of the instrument seemed otherworldly, and his writhing stage persona made showmanship almost as important as technical skill.

This is why Valleys of Neptune is, on the whole, disappointing. There’s nothing mind-blowing on this set, and nothing new to stand-up to the blistering work of his three studio albums or the Band of Gypsys disc.

There’s no “Purple Haze,” “Little Wing” or “Voodoo Child” on Neptune. The songs are good – some are great – but there’s nothing exceptional. The fire that made the Jimi Hendrix experience blister on their first three albums seems to be missing.

That the fire is missing is understandable. The majority of the tracks were recorded in the early months of 1969, when the relationship between Hendrix and bassist Noel Redding began to deteriorate. It shows. Hendrix and Co. sound tired on a lot of these tracks, weary and subdued, ready to go their separate ways.

Despite the evident weariness, Valleys of Neptune does contain a few gems that remind you why Hendrix is revered as a rock god. The trio gives a blistering take on Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love.” At 6:45 the song lasts about three minutes too long, but the group sounds inspired here, each member pushing each other to do justice to Cream’s classic.

Other standouts include the funky “Ships Passing In The Night” and “Bleeding Heart,” and a hair-raising extended take on “Red House,” that finds the bands flexing its blues muscle.

On the whole, however, Valleys of Neptune will only show you what everybody knows about Hendrix, that the man who forever changed rock and roll in 1967 was years ahead of his time, and that the majority of the rock world is still struggling to catch up.

Stephen King - Under the Dome

Like him or hate him, it’s hard to deny that Stephen King is an extremely imaginative writer. Never mind his periodic lapses into hackneyed prose, and his maddening stubbornness in listening to his “muse” - even if it tells him to kill off your favorite character - he knows how to keep your ass in your seat.

And his latest work, the sprawling Under the Dome – which King attempted to write in the 1970s and 1980s as The Cannibals - will certainly do just that. Through its 1074 pages, King slams you with one disaster after another as a town in rural Maine becomes trapped from the outside world by an unexplainable invisible barrier, known as the Dome.

Of course, as with most King works, things go to Hell pretty quickly, a plane runs into the Dome, unknowing town residents drive cars into the Dome at full speed, and electric pulses from the barrier cause the pacemaker of the Sheriff – the one upstanding man in the town in a position of authority – to explode through his chest.

King’s greatest strength in this work, though, is his ability to pile on the misfortune. All of the above tragedies are only the beginning of the terror set to unfold in Under the Dome.

Riots, murders, corrupt and incompetent politicians, an out of control police force and a U.S. government powerless to intervene are just part of King’s explosive recipe for chaos. King moves through the chaos at break-neck speed as fear and paranoia set in among the residents of the town.

However, as is the case with many King works, the novel’s climax and resolution isn’t nearly as compelling as the build up. For all of the havoc that has taken place, the novel’s end will leave you asking, “That’s It?”

That being said, Under the Dome falls among King’s better works of the last 10 years, miles ahead of Blaze (2007) and Lisey’s Story (2006), though not quite on par with From A Buick 8 (2003) or the surprisingly excellent Duma Key (2008).

The lack of a satisfying conclusion, though, is what keeps it from being on that level. A novel that pulls its readers along for a thrill ride so effectively as Under the Dome should reward its readers at the end for completing the trip. Instead, it opens the door and boots its passengers to the curb.

Third time's a charm...

I need to start writing again, for real. It’s what I’ve loved doing my whole life, but over the past few years it’s stopped being fun, and started to feel like work. I can’t say that I’m surprised, because writing is work. I work for a newswire, and I spend my days writing (lately, mainly editing) short turnaround pieces on music for a client that provides music news for 500 radio stations across the country.

When I’m not working on the music news, I’m summarizing speeches and testimonies of various governors and presidents of the Federal Reserve, and covering the odd Senate meeting here and there. But, working for a newswire means getting the news out as fast as possible. I feel less like a writer than I do an aggregator.

And sure, there are job perks – covering various music festivals, the North American International Auto Show – but when I’m covering a festival or a concert, I’m not reviewing it; I’m spending 150 words telling the readers what happened during each performance.

This can be a little tough for someone who went to school to be a music critic. I know I can’t expect to be able to write exactly about what I want to while I’m paying my dues in the professional world, but that shouldn’t stop me from still writing what I want to write about, regardless of whether I’m getting paid to do it.

So if I can’t do it at work, I’m going to do it here, on this blog. This is my third try at maintaining one of these, and I can’t guarantee that I’ll be posting here with any sense of regularity, but I’m sure going to try. I need to work toward making writing fun again.

So, here goes. And to you out there reading, thanks.