Movie Review - Pirate Radio

Pirate Radio was released in the UK as The Boat That Rocked. They should have stuck with the original title. It would have clued the viewer in on how cheesy, unsubtle, and stupid the movie is. Absent the title, it does not take long to figure it out, between the over-the-top villainy of Kenneth Branagh (complete with Hitler moustache!) and the obviousness of characters named "Twatt" or "Thick Kevin." It's an unfunny waste of a likable cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, and two guys named Rhys (Darby and Ifans).

On the plus side: most of the acting isn't bad once you get beyond the plot and dialogue. The music is predictably terrific - lots of Who, some Jimi, some Stones, Cat Stevens, The Box Tops, The Hollies, Otis Redding, The Beach Boys ... The wardrobe is delightfully stylish, and the British accents are always cool.

The only problem was that five minutes, there was something that made me say "God, this movie is stupid." I'm not even going to link the Amazon for this one. Don't see it. Don't buy it. Eh, I'll link to the soundtrack.

Buy it from Amazon:
Pirate Radio (Soundtrack)

Broken Bells

Rating: B

I love James Mercer and The Shins. Friends recommended Chutes Too Narrow for some time before I finally took the plunge and bought it. Then I felt like a jerk for waiting so long. I like Gnarls Barkley, too, though I'm not familiar with Danger Mouse's other work. When I heard of Broken Bells, an album by Mercer and Danger Mouse, I thought it sounded enticing. These sorts of collaborations are pretty hit-or-miss, though. The Postal Service had a strong album, but Bright Eyes' Digital Ash in a Digital Urn was a weaker record. I'm not sure what compels poppy / folky indie artists to collaborate with electronic musicians / producers, but they do. I would prefer a new Shins album, but since I have a lot of respect for both these artists, Broken Bells intrigued me.

I've never been big into electronic music, preferring the immediacy of just instruments and vocals. Particularly I enjoy acoustic music. But Danger Mouse's production isn't too heavy-handed here; he'll throw a funky flourish (as in the opening bars of leadoff track "The High Road") or a drum machine ("Trap Doors") on there, but by-and-large the songs would fit well on The Shins' most recent album Wincing The Night Away. The one notable exception is "The Ghost Inside," where Mercer warbles in a falsetto over synthetic percussion, with a keyboard riff chiming in for the chorus. That description doesn't make it sound good, but it is in fact awesome, maybe the album's best moment. It doesn't sound like anything The Shins ever did, but it shows off Mercer's versatility and ear for melody.

After repeated listenings, almost all the melodies stick in my head, but I can pick out very few of the lyrics. This is intermittently true of The Shins' catalogue; one of the reasons Chutes Too Narrow is my favorite of their albums is that the lyrics are more immediate. Mercer's voice here is almost covered by gauze, just another instrument in the mix rather than a source of emotionalal resonance. That's fine, but it misses on opportunities. "Citizen" has an achingly beautiful melody, but the vocals are so low in the mix and have so many effects that it's hard to make out what he's saying.

Broken Bells is a fine album with several solid tracks and some great moments. In many ways it's better than I expected, but I also don't think it's quite what it could have been.

Buy it from Amazon:
Broken Bells
Broken Bells Official Site

Blind Pilot - Three Rounds and a Sound

Rating: C+

The first time I listened to Blind Pilot's Three Rounds and a Sound, I was on an airplane. It was an international flight, a redeye to Spain, and I wanted to sleep. Three Rounds was perfect. Mid-tempo tunes with acoustic guitars, gentle melodies, occasional horns or banjos providing texture and not violence. Listening to the album, I closed my eyes. I never fell into a deep sleep, but I was drifting in and out. I very much enjoyed Three Rounds.

The problem is, the album doesn't hold up as well in other contexts. It's quiet, repetitive, lovely, delicate and dull. Individual songs are fine, but listening to Three Rounds as an album is just track-and-track of the same thing. There are definitely high spots - the chorus to the closing title track and the background horns on opener "Oviedo," to name two. But mostly it's just pleasant: typical is "I Buried a Bone," which just plods along quietly through its verses and chorus before giving way to a Spanish-tinged horn solo. It's immediately followed by "Things I Cannot Recall," which follows a similar formula. There's just not that much going on here.

The "folky music but with horns" motif is likely to draw comparisons to two of my favorite bands, Okkervil River and Neutral Milk Hotel, but those bands are at their best when they're unhinged, when Will Sheff starts screaming in "For Real" or Jeff Mangum goes crazy in "Holland, 1945." Even their more subdued stuff teeters on the brink of sanity: Sheff's voice gives away his buried anger in "A Stone," and the haunting theremins in "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" give it an outer-spaciness. Blind Pilot is not like this. Lead singer Israel Nebeker mostly plays it safe, only stretching himself in "The Story I Heard."

The album's iTunes "hit," "Go On, Say It" shows the flaws with the group. The rhythm is a fine generic mid-tempo. The vocals are laconic in a way that evokes a shimmering dessert. The chorus gets punched a bit with a string section. And the ending repetition of "Go on, say it right" just begs for Nebeker to let himself go ... and he doesn't. It falls flat. The whole album is like that. Three rounds and a sound, maybe. But the sound is a whimper, not a bang.

Buy it from Amazon:
3 Rounds and a Sound
Blind Pilot's MySpace

Top 10 Concerts Ever!

Jim DeRogatis is leaving The Chicago Sun-Times and has written a run-down on his 15 favorite concerts in covering music. Inspired by this, I'd like to offer my favorites:

1. Wilco at Stubb's BBQ 9/22/2001 - the first great show I ever saw. Wilco was in Yankee Hotel Foxtrot limbo, and the whole country was in post-9/11 confusion. It was the first time I heard "Ashes of American Flags" and it was incredibly powerful. The band seemed taken aback by the applause for their set and played three encores, closing with a raucous version of "I Got You (At the End of the Century)".
2. Flaming Lips at Madison Square Garden 12/31/2003 - in a special New Years' show Sleater-Kinney opened and Wilco closed, The Flaming Lips stole the show. Dancing people in costumes, great music, unbelievable feeling and thousands of balloons made for an unforgettable night.
3. Fleet Foxes at Somerville Theatre 10/6/2008 - the Pacific Northwest band makes beautiful music, but it's not always the most high energy, so I didn't know what to expect. Live, their music was equally beautiful, with gorgeous harmonies and passionate vocals and playing. The crowd was totally swept up, universally standing in movie theatre setting. Afterwards I turned to my girlfriend, who hadn't spoken a word through the whole set. "Was that one of the best shows you've ever seen?" she asked? It sure was.
4. Art Brut at Middle East 5/16/2006 - the best live act going. I've seen them three times since, and they are always terrific. Eddie Argos works so hard to give everyone their money's worth, and the best part is you can see how much fun he's having the whole time. This was my first experience seeing Art Brut, and I've gone out of my way to see them every time since.
5. Okkervil River at T.T. the Bear's 11/10/2005 - like Fleet Foxes, this Austin-based group can be subdued on record. However, this live show was gripping, with singer / guitarist Will Sheff ripping his guts out on just about every song. The band didn't go on until midnight but still played two hours. In the final encore, Sheff gave the audience the choice between classics "Kansas City" and "The Okkervil River Song" and someone shouted out, "Both!" Sure enough, they played both, sending everyone home happy.
6. Sleater-Kinney at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel 2/14/2003 - Something has been missing in my life ever since the Olympia, WA-based trio broke up in 2006. I saw them five times; this, the second time I saw them, made my Valentine's Day in 2003 as they tore up one of Providence, RI's best venues.
7. K'Naan / Wale at House of Blues 4/1/2010 - see review here.
8. Mutual Admiration Society at Paradise Rock Club 8/12/2004 - This supergroup consists of the members of the talented Nickel Creek as well as Toad the Wet Sprocket's Glen Phillips. The show was fine until partway through, when rather than all take a break different members would play some of their solo items. We were treated to gems like Chris Thile's "I'm Nowhere and You're Everything," Nickel Creek's ukelele ditty "Anthony," and John Paul Jones playing a solo mandolin version of Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." Yes, that John Paul Jones. After that, the band had the crowd eating out of the palm of its hand.
9. Phoenix at Austin City Limits 10/2/2009 - see review here.
10. Kanye West at Ryan Center 10/26/2005 - I might have been the oldest person at the rapper's show on URI's campus, but there couldn't have been too many folks having more fun than me. The music was powerful and Kanye showed a charisma not always present on record, killing it for one of the most energetic crowds I've ever seen.

K'Naan - Troubadour

Rating: B+

I've written a lot about K'Naan of late. I was blown away when I saw him at House of Blues early last month. I noted his interview with Greg Kot (and he was also just on Kot and Jim DeRogatis' radio program Sound Opinions. And I was first introduced to him back at Austin City Limits. Still, I've been known to enjoy bands live better than I did on disc - recent efforts by Deer Tick, Le Loup, and Arctic Monkeys all fall into this category. In the final analysis, that's how I feel about Troubadour also; it's a fine album, but lacks the raw emotion of his live performance.

I can't fault him too much for that. The a cappella version of "Somalia," for instance, wouldn't translate as well to disc. K'Naan's extended descriptions of life in Mogadishu and his childhood wouldn't translate as well on disc. What they do, and maybe the slight edge that the disc lacks, is provide authenticity. K'Naan isn't Ice Cube rapping about shooting cops; he's talking about his real life, real danger from warlords, and a real fondness for his homeland despite all of its problems. Hip-hop is both blessed and cursed with an air of authenticity; Ice T's "Cop Killer" is taken much more literally than the downtrodden prisoner of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues." The songs on Troubadour, however, are truth. On CD that sincerity can be glossed over, but live it's impossible to ignore.

I just equated K'Naan with hip-hop / rap, and that's not totally fair. Troubadour is an eclectic album, drawing from hip-hop but also Somali poetry, folk, reggae, and even rock and heavy metal. Most of the time this is interesting: "Take a Minute" as a subdued folk track, the boisterous "T.I.A." and the poppy "Fatima," the jumping "A.B.C.'s and the anthemic "Wavin' Flag," maybe the most inspiring piece of music released since Kanye West's "Jesus Walks." At times it falls flat, particularly towards the end of the album, where the reggae-tinged "Fire in Freetown," ode to Western Union "15 Minutes Away" and sleepy "People Like Me" drag things down considerably.

All in all, Troubadour is a strong album from a compelling voice in music. K'Naan's music is true, fearless, and he's an important figure to watch in hip-hop.

Buy it from Amazon:
Troubadour
K'Naan Official Site