Chicken
Out of Hell
An Andrew
Hamlin Joint
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Here to view celebrity Top Ten Lists)
Losing My Hearing From
Listening To Last Year Dept.: Ah, the absinthe
hangover of 1997, the
year my right ear started ringing and wouldn't stop,
the year one of the
best rock writers I've ever called friend vanished
into
Manhattan and two
others quit returning my calls, the year Randy
California
and Jeff Buckley
vanished under water, Christopher Wallace under a
spray of
lead, Burroughs and
Ginsberg under what we might naively call natural
causes (and Michael
Kennedy and Sonny Bono came skating along to
bookend New Year's Eve
and warn us of the hazards of winter sports, and to
remind us that death
is a season which settles in on its haunches, not an
age to be dismissed
with cheers at a particular midnight). It was the
year
I traveled
cross-country and saw the cornucopia of the House on
the Rock in
Spring Green,
Wisconsin; the comic solidity of the Garden of Eden
in Lucas,
Kansas; and a humpback
whale trying to dance out on Gloucester Bay,
Massachusetts, and
listened to a man on a tape purchased at a Kansas
truck
stop explain how I
might live to the age of 120 ("Drive ten
thousand miles
across America and you
will know more about the country than all the
institutes of
sociology and political science put together"
wrote Jean
Baudrillard, and
although we rolled an eensy bit short of 10,000, I
still
like to take the
credit), not to mention the year I spent half of
thinking
the only decent record
released in same was the remixed Raw Power by
Iggy
and the Stooges.
Which I still don't
own.
So as recently as
December 26th I was sitting here in the wee, wee
hours
listening to a King
Kong's Me Hungry skip all over the place and
trying to
figure out if it's my
dying player or just a dying disc. (Gina G. hasn't
skipped yet; this is
the part where I learn to be grateful for small
favors). But now it's
the 7th and Jermaine Stewart is singing "We
Don't
Have To Take Our
Clothes Off" on STAR 101.5 and Mary Lou Lord's
Got No
Shadow is sitting on
top of the stereo. I'm experimenting with fragile
optimism once again.
But who knows which way tomorrow might slap me?
Top Ten Albums of 1997
1. Beth Orton--Trailer
Park (Dedicated/Heavenly)
Diffuse in emotional
focus but sharp in musical execution, it runs much
like a rainy day
bisected by a sheet of glass into warm electric-lit
living
room and corpse-gray
sodden marsh. Richard Butler sang about the
heartbreak
beat playing all night
down on his street and sounded relieved, released
(exhilarated even) to
find an ear for that information; Beth looks out her
window at one long
galaxy of emptiness, everywhere, and her words reach
you
with the comely
exhaustion of Frances Farmer fading away on deck
in South of Pago
Pago. She sings like an outdoor
winter breath
feels--so bracing it hurts at first, but infinitely
preferable to going
without it.
2. Everclear--So
Much For The Afterglow (Capitol)
"Heartspark
Dollarsign" and "You Make Me Feel Like a
Whore" dropped hints
that Art Alexakis
could sing out of amused disbelief and stalwart
triumph
(and the reverse,
respectively), which lifted him out of the one world,
one
anger hardcore stance
that limited his early work. In the harshness of his
guitar pipelines now
blooms forgiveness and the willingness to work a
partially
unsatisfactory solution to a convoluted problem
("I Will Buy You
a New Life"). Of
course, the guitar riff on "Sunflowers,"
which sounds like
it's being pumped
straight out of a sunflower, doesn't hurt. Pick this
up
if you need to feel
"happy in an ugly place."
3. Del Amitri--Some
Other Sucker's Parade (A&M)
"Not Where It's
At" and the four songs after it come on like
cold mountain
spring water after a
five-hour hike, and while some of the others are more
like eating ripple ice
cream with hot fudge out of the same bowl as Julie
Delpy (or Michael
Easton, the model from last week's "Ally
McBeal"), the
good taste never
leaves your ears, not even during the hippie-bashing
on
"High
Times," driving home yet again the uncomfortable
principle that
people would probably
buy and bounce around the room to The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion
if you put the right riffs behind it. These Scottish
students of pop help
themselves to some main ingredients--the Stones' grit
but not their
misogyny, the Faces' fancy but not their monumental
sloppiness--and find
the right riff every time, although so far they've
used their forces only
for good.
4. Eleventh Dream
Day--Eighth (Thrill Jockey)
They came to my house
in the form of "Makin' Like a Rug," in the
form of
oxidized imprints on a
magnetic tape in my friend's pocket, January 1994, a
friend who
ceremoniously stuck it into the player as a prelude
to the two
of us bouncing off
walls and generally amusing the lady moving into our
basement on that same
day. I brashly dismissed their slower songs as
sub-Crazy Horse
noodling, which the friend in question didn't take
kindly
to, being fond of each
album as a whole, but I suppose--and it's the only
defense I can
offer--that I unfairly expected their every song to
destroy
my world as thoroughly
as that one song, and wasn't ready for anything
else. Three years down
the line I think they've made the tension of their
passion soluble to
restraint and ominous quiet; these songs flow slowly,
lazily, like deep sea
fishes before a bathyscaph, blinking and shining in
places they ought not
to and offering a climactic glimpse of their hideous,
magnificent mouths
before pushing behind your eyesight. Rick Rizzo's
voice,
which on earlier
records displayed all the emotional resonance of a
Kurzweil reading
machine, has now graduated to the level of a
brain-damaged
mental patient, but
his wife, Janet Beveridge Bean, can still curdle your
blood with single
notes and syllables, and they still make one of the
music's more unlikely
couples. Here's to more unions like
"Insomnia" and
more progeny like this
one.
5. Eric Matthews--The
Lateness of the Hour (Sub/Pop)
Morally and socially
the man is a bore, a living example of why so many
turn away from
Christianity, on top of which I can see why he won't
perform
live if he won't sing
above a whisper. But I examined my fondness for Miles
Davis, another
whispering monster, and decided after much pondering
that I
could accept the art
as child to the man, sort of an Oswald/Nicholas
Mosely
conundrum. I still
can't think of anyone else who does pristine
orchestral
pop quite like
this--less amusing than Divine Comedy, but not quite
so arch
as early Scott Walker.
6. Papas Fritas-- Helioself
(Minty Fresh)
Isabella Rossellini
wrote that her ex-husband Martin Scorsese didn't
believe in perfection,
that he took a perfectly-edited scene from Raging
Bull and punched out
one frame; in the same spirit Papas Fritas ruins
potentially perfect
"Hey Hey You Say" in the last half-minute
with
impromptu arrhythmic
percussion from their friends. But that's in keeping
with an enlightened,
childlike outlook that borrows from Ernie and Bert as
much as from Brian
Wilson ("Weight"'s tack piano comes off
like a Smile
demo). What They Might
Be Giants might sound like had John Linnell never
learned he was going
to die.
7. Yo La Tengo--I
Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (Matador)
Crept up on me in the
midst of a great rhumba up and down these charts. I
hear the Velvets real
loud in the organ-jangle-drone stuff, I hear
retro-lounge on the
Bacharach cover, but I hear so many things I haven't
heard in a long time
and didn't realize I missed until now.
8. The Orange Peels--Square
(Minty Fresh)
Waiting patiently for
those Christian themes to present themselves, but
since I can't stop
bopping around the room long enough to concentrate on
lyrics, I'm taking it
on faith that they don't consist of The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion.
9. Cornershop--When
I Was Born For The 7th Time (Luaka Bop/Warner
Bros.)
Like De La Soul with 3
Feet High and Rising, they understand the primacy
of
play; unlike De La
Soul with 3 Feet High and Rising, they don't yet
understand how to spin
comedy into a larger mosaic. So they sometimes put a
guitar and a drum and
a harmonium into just the right space to make an
infectious party
number with transcendent implications ("Brimful
of Asha,"
"Sleep on the
Left Side," "We're In Yr Corner"), and
sometimes they just
play with the
shortwave and let inspiration worm its way through
the pipes.
So only time will tell
if its inspiration outweighs its trivia. Next year
and/or next album, ask
me and I'll tell you.
10. Gina G.--Fresh!
(Warner Bros.)
It looked like the
sure thing: An Aussie lassie pulls on a loose-knit
crocheted minidress,
steps before the camera, and prances through
"Ooh
Ahh...Just A Little
Bit," (a dance single that puts my finger on
replay the
way those rats with
wires in their brains put their snouts on the
levers 'til the
cartilage wears down). . .and promptly gets trampled
by five
pairs of Spicy
stiletto heels on her way to the sex-kitten payout
window.
OK Computer
this ain't (although were it a computer of a charmed,
Aladdin's lamp
variety, one can imagine Gina using it to conjure all
those
zesty beats) and
Spice-slammed sales probably weren't helped by the
record
cover (not only have
we got a new winner for Worst Hair in Rock, but a
body
covered in drying
chocolate looks too much like a body covered in
drying
something else), but
every single song could be a hit on C89 FM, that
station that puts
boogie in your dishwashing shoes and snuggle in your
front seat technique,
and the endless gospel oscillation challenges us to
see spiritual
revitalization behind the facade of a frightfully
thorough
aerobics workout.
(p.s. She looks much improved, not to mention rinsed,
on the back cover.)
Next Ten:
11. Bob Dylan--Time
Out of Mind (Columbia)
Placed here in the
hopes that I'll eventually take this record to heart
as
so many others have,
instead of saying "Interesting career
move," or "His
pain is parallel to my
pain."
12. Robert
"Bilbo" Walker--Promised Land
(Rooster Blues)
As though his annual
drives from Bakersfield to Mississippi gradually wore
a hole in his
ectoplasm, drained away his own soul and let stories
of the
highway and the
night--and the ghost of the highway man who still
stalks
the night--flood in.
13. Bjork--Homogenic
(Elektra)
The gods talking to us
in a language we don't really understand, but love
hearing.
14. Link Wray-- Shadowman
(Hip-O)
This 68-year-old
half-Shawnee resident of Denmark (by way of North
Carolina) sings a good
game notwithstanding having only one lung, and
plucks a six-string so
as to vibrate those telephone lines you didn't know
you had inside your
chest. Missing his Seattle show (on his first U.S.
tour
since the second
Johnson administration) was one of three deep regrets
I
had about being on the
road in July--along with Samuel R. Delany's reading
and a certain
acquaintance of mine dressing up in a Wonder Woman
costume...
15. The Pugs--Pugs
Bite The Red Knee (Casual Tonalites)
Guaranteed (by me) to
make more sense of any James Bond movie than any
actual James Bond
movie soundtrack.
16. Built To Spill--Perfect
From Now On (Warner Bros.)
Maybe it's too dowdy,
or maybe the thematic re-references to "that
sound in
my head" remind
me too much of my own tinnitus, but this one took a
bad
tumble from my Top
Ten. This much remains: "Randy Described
Eternity," an
allegory of hell's
threat that counters he Christian concerns addressed
above, and the most
impassioned use of a quantum-real cello section since
Boston's Third Stage.
17. Cub--Mauler! A
Collection of Oddities (Augogo)
A DIY trio that
sounded at different times like radiation leaking
through
Times Square
("Exit"), a committed woman
("Pregnant"), the Troggs ("You
Know He Did"), a
long-lost golden oldie ("Secret Nothing"),
and/or lyrical
gangstas: "Satan
sucks/But you're the best."
18. John Fogerty--Blue
Moon Swamp (Warner Bros.)
"Centerfield is
rock under glass," one critic wrote, "and
Fogerty needs to
let some air in."
So long as he keeps crafting these elegant
paperweight
worlds, no such
protest from me.
19. Bouncing Balls--Bouncing
Balls (Genuine Spurious)
Former Algebra Suicide
soundscapist Don Hedeker throws out his synth, picks
up a guitar and a
power trio, breaks out his old Clash and Graham
Parker
vinyl, and brings down
the spirit of '77 the way Frank Marino used to call
down Jimi Hendrix. Not
the smartest material in the world ("Looking Out
For
Number Two"
descends to the level of its title), but what the
lyrics may
lack, the riffs more
than make up for. A great midnight
shake-your-fist-and-yell
set.
20. The Feminine
Complex--To Be In Love (TeenBeat)
Fresh from the vaults,
the triumphs of a five-piece all-girl rock'n'soul
outfit out of
Nashville, back when to be any one of those things
was weird.
And weird they were,
but in a funky, unabashed kind of way. Recording
quality is rarely less
than sub-Bee Thousand, but the Complex's sweet
subversity always cuts
through--offered a national television slot on
"Showcase
68," they warmed up the studio crowd (and
probably killed a few
of 'em) with a
Caucasian recasting of Pigmeat Markham's "Here
Comes The
Judge."
Excelsior!
Albums I wish I could
hear so I could have an opinion: Radiohead, OK
Computer;
Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out; Pat MacDonald, Pat
MacDonald Sleeps
With His Guitar;
Wu-Tang Clan, Wu-Tang Forever; Jimi Hendrix, First
Rays of
the New Rising Sun;
Dan Cray, Foul Berth; Regular Einstein, Seven
Deadly
Songs; Future
Bible Heroes, Memories of Love; Pavement, Brighten
The
Corners; Norma
Waterson, Norma Waterston; Reverend Benjamin
Cone, The Trial
of Oh Jesus; T
Model Ford, Pee Wee Get My Gun.
Reissues/Repackagings:
Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Raw Power; The Beach
Boys,
The Pet Sounds
Sessions; Al Green, Anthology; The
Sugar Hill Records
Story; The Smithsonian Anthology of American
Folk Music;
Neil Hefti, Batman.
Song Of The Year:
Hanson, "MMMBop." This song inspired me to
say, not
softly, such things as
"Fluff? FLUFF? This is NOT FLUFF!!!! This is the
GODS TALKING to US in
a language WE can ALMOST UNDERSTAND!" It also
literally saved my
sanity one morning where I was unable to get out of
bed.
A song can do no more,
except maybe raise the dead, and when I find one
that does that, I
won't let you know.
Other notable songs
(not mentioned above): Chumbawumba,
"Tubthumping;"
Smash Mouth,
"Walking On The Sun;" Billie Myers,
"Kiss The Rain;" Third Eye
Blind,
"Semi-Charmed Life;" David Bowie, "I'm
Afraid of Americans;" Crush,
"Jellyhead;"
The Verve Pipe, "The Freshmen;" Puff Daddy,
"I'll Be Missing
You;" Freaknasty,
"Da Dip."
Show Of The Year:
Toss-up between the Holmes Brothers at the Backstage
(r.i.p., sniff), and
the Blind Boys of Alabama at the Seattle Opera House
as part of the
Bumbershoot Festival. Runners-up: Dave Alvin in
Chicago
somewhere; The Loud
Family, Tractor Tavern; Beth Orton, Crocodile; Skunk
Anansie, Crocodile;
Colorifics' farewell performance, Crocodile.
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