The Great Record Excavation: B is for The Black Halos

At last Friday's .357 String Band/Those Poor Bastards show at Turner Hall, Keith and Janet introduced me to their friend Dave from The Mighty Deerlick, a Wisconsin punk band that's existed in one for or another since at least my college years (i still remember a dude in the UW-Oshkosh music program walking around with "THE MIGHTY DEERLICK" written in marker on the back of his jean jacket...in 1993! In other news, i was in college when my current girlfriend was 11). We had an extended and entertaining conversation about our differing musical philosophies, stemming from some old AV Club comment thread where we (DJ and "prisonn") got into it here and there. Essentially, the conversation discussed the merits of "arty" bands vs. standard punk rock bands that play accessible music that many people can enjoy (you can guess which side i was on).

There's nothing wrong with playing accessible music, of course (which to Dave is the whole point of being in a band that plays shows in front of an audience)--some of my favorite bands play gorgeous, easily digestible music (see: Magnetic Fields, Murder By Death) that has earned them large followings. As i've said previously in this blog, if a band can accomplish something arty and challenging while also providing enough hooks to get large audiences invested (see: St. Vincent, Devo, Future of the Left), it's a special thing. But if i'm forced to defend either "accessible" or "arty" without straddling the grey areas, i'll end up on the side of "arty" every time.

A desire to try something different is why part of me always felt a little bit outside-looking-in at Green Bay's Concert Cafe, THE "most unlikely punk mecca" (according to a list New Bomb Turks singer Eric Davidson published, appropriately, in The Punk Rock Book of Lists) of the 1990s, despite being one of the regulars and despite becoming friends with Tom, Andy, and many of the people who kept that scene running. The Concert Cafe was the single most important building for hundreds of Green Bay and Fox Valley kids who would have never seen punk rock up close otherwise. It was home to some of the greatest shows i saw in my college years (at least two Brainiac shows, the last Rip Offs show ever, a New Bomb Turks/Teengenerate double bill, Archers of Loaf, Poster Children, the Jawbox/Jawbreaker double bill...i could go on). But it would be a gross re-edit of history to ignore the large numbers of kids that turned out for the most routine Fat Wreck Chords cookie-cutter pop-punk tours (oh good, No Use For a Name and Lagwagon are touring together; it'll be like one band with an intermission!), to say nothing of the legions of local garage punk bands that came and went with nary a hint of evolution beyond your standard Ramones/Rip Off Records/Maximumrocknroll-approved template.

It's that part of the Concert Cafe experience that i think about when i pull out the record that this week's Great Record Excavation will focus on--mostly because i picked it up at the Cafe.


The Album: The Black Halos, The Violent Years (Sub Pop, 2001)

Who they were: The Black Halos are a Vancouver, BC based punk rock band founded in 1993 by lead singer Billy Hopeless and guitarist Rich Jones as The Black Market Babies. The band was briefly on Sub Pop Records, and later signed with History Music. They broke up in 2008 after having their equipment stolen while on tour, however disagreements between the Halos and Billy Hopeless were also cited as a cause.

I ganked that paragraph directly from Wikipedia because i really don't remember all that much about this band.

Where i got the record: Like i said, it was a Concert Cafe show, apparently during its last year of operation, when it was known as "Rock 'N' Roll High School," judging from the fact that this CD apparently came out in 2001 (i honestly thought that maybe i got it in 1996 or '97). Despite all that stuff about all the cookie-cutter punk rock that came through the Cafe in those years, i remember legitimately liking The Black Halos live; they sounded loud and raw and looked like a bunch of mascara-smeared degenerates. But when i got the CD home, i remember placing it in my stereo, eagerly awaiting the grimy sleaze-punk that was presented on stage, only to discover...a record of cookie-cutter anthemic shout-along street-punk derived rock 'n' roll that i had heard about 500 other times (if i'm being generous) in the 6-year run of the Cafe. I shelved it after one listen and never went back.

Does it hold up? As i spin The Violent Years on my computer (shut up--the hard drive's spinning), not much has changed in 10 years. It's not a bad record by any means--heck, a standard punk rock band put out an album on Sub Pop, so it must have something going for it. And sure enough, everything you'd expect in a workmanlike, serviceable punk record is here: guitar riffs running through what sounds like a wall of Marshalls; solid-if-unspectacular mid-tempo drumming that varies by little more than 10 BPM from one song to the next; and ragged vocals soaked in Marlboro and rail whiskey. Anyone who wants their New York Dolls-influenced glam-punk to come wrapped in more of a Rancid jacket (minus the ska) than a Faster Pussycat scarf (minus the Aerosmith) knows what they're getting into with this disc.

And that's where i differ from the Dave Deerlicks in the world, i guess; ten years on, this sounds no different than the pile of dyed-black, leather jacket punk promo CDs that threatened to topple off the desk of my college radio station's music coordinator office like a game of Oi! Jenga. There's nothing here to distinguish the Black Halos from any other band from 10-15 years ago. They don't have the incisively, absurdly intellectual smartass lyrics of the aforementioned New Bomb Turks' Eric Davidson or Boris the Sprinkler's Rev. Norb. They don't have the dizzying 90-degree turns of a NoMeansNo. They don't have a dry guitar tone that matches the dry humor of their lyrics, like the Rip Offs. If you put The Violent Years on at a party where a bunch of dudes with "RAMONES" plastered across their leather jackets are drinking Blatz, it'll get the heads bobbing and the fists pumping. It's accessible as hell, but generically so. It's government issue (lower case) punk served in a white case with "PUNK RECORD" in black Arial font. Hell, one of the songs is cringingly titled "Sell-Out Love."

The Black Halos are a textbook case of a band that lots of people saw, said "hey, they were pretty good," and promptly forgot about. I can't help wondering, though, how different my opinion would be if they sounded more like that gritty, attitude-filled band that i hazily remember seeing on stage in Green Bay a decade ago? I remember a real sense of surprise that the record sounded so generic when compared to the band's live show. Maybe if the CD had been a more accurate translation of their live sound, i wouldn't be ready to shelve this disc back in the CD rack, not to be remembered until i unpack my next apartment. As it stands, the discs rates a big fat "meh" from me, but i'll bet if they reunited and did another tour, they could still find an audience and map out a string of grimy, hole-in-the-wall punk clubs where dudes would lose their minds. And sometimes that's all you need, i guess. Hell, beats playing for three disinterested lumps of space in a Nashville shithole. I should know--i play in a purposely obtuse "arty" band.

But hey, judge for yourself: click here to download The Violent Years by The Black Halos

Full Disclosure: Lollipop Factory and Those Poor Bastards are friends of mine

Those Poor Bastards at Turner Hall (photo by Angela Morgan for the Pabst Theater Group)

One of the necessary "evils" of being a musician who also likes to write is inevitably writing about your friends. Internet commenters pounce on any opportunity to discredit music journalists (because, you know, internet one-upmanship is second only to "urine hoarder" on the list of Noble Life Pursuits), and perceived "favoritism" is right up at the top of their arsenal--at least, it is in small cities like Milwaukee where the music scene is so closely-knit that it's nearly impossible to not know at least two-thirds of the musicians, promoters, writers, sound techs, and music store owners by name. (Another classic hurled at the musician/writer is "you're criticizing this because you're jealous that your band will never be this popular." Yes, that's why Bon Iver's falsetto gives me worse shrinkage than the Polar Bear Plunge--i secretly wish my dad had a cabin in the North Woods where i could retreat, order pizza subsist off the land, and whimper into Garageband for a few weeks.)

The plain truth about being a musician who writes (both of which i'll continue to do, sorry) is that musicians meet other musicians on a different level than regular journalists do. We meet by playing shows together, not by hiring PR agencies we can't afford to send each other CDs. We form bonds from being In The Shit together and swapping war stories. And yes, when we happen to like each other's bands, we LOVE each other's bands, because we have had to deal with seeing so many god-awful (or even worse, kinda ok) bands (many of which contain other friends of ours, which is just frustrating) that finding a killer group of musicians that also happen to be rad dudes or ladies is like walking into a club and finding a $10,000 guarantee...er, so i'd imagine. Pile on the fact that in a town like Milwaukee, the musical infrastructure is so thin that if some of us didn't refuse to recuse ourselves from bands we know personally while multi-tasking as musicians and writers, many deserving folks simply wouldn't get covered (or are Matt Wild and Evan Rytlewski expected to attend every show in town while somehow avoiding becoming acquainted with everyone?), and what it all boils down to is: yes, sometimes i like my friends' bands, and thus i will write about them. Deal with it, and be glad i'm not writing about all my friends' bands that i dislike.

Anyone who has friends gets understandably excited when those pals' creative endeavors don't suck; if they're actually amazing, one can get positively orgasmic about it. On the flip, anyone who falls in love with a band would be tickled to discover that the band members are rad folks and instantly friendable. As a dude in a band, it happens to me quite a bit, and it's always a thrill.

I met Beckah and Tweed, collectively known as the Columbus, OH RV-dwelling indie-prog duo Lollipop Factory, while they were in the midst of a week-long stay at the HiFi practice house, the Church of Murray, waiting to get their RV repaired. They were charming, nondescript kids, which hardly prepared me for their colorful, unrestrained showmanship and hilariously over-the-top glam-prog shredding. Two Thursdays ago they made their most recent stop in Milwaukee at the Cactus Club, and those who stuck around after Everybody at Midnight's set and didn't just bail after their friends played were subjected to Lollipop Factory's most uninhibited Brewtown blast yet. Wearing matching black ensembles (she in black leather pants w/matching top, he with black top hat, high-heeled boots, and sleeveless collared shirt with ascot-length tie), Tweed's wall of four full stacks blasted both guitar and bass frequencies while he busted out Queen/Bowie/Hoople-soaked riffage over Beckah's stand-up drumming, both operatically crooning their best Ian Hunter vocals.

Tweed recently rebounded from some serious health problems that left the Factory stranded at home in Columbus longer than they'd like (they literally live out of that RV), and it was apparent that he was thrilled to be back on stage, working his wah pedal while bracing his other foot atop Beckah's kick drum, and occasionally leaping onto one of his speaker cabinets and shredding from five feet above the stage. That wall of amps produces more sound than a duo would be normally expected to generate; hell, Tweed and Beckah produce more on-stage energy than normally expected. It's a show that's loud, over-the-top, theatrical, damn sexy, and punk fucking rock. If seeing a Lollipop Factory show doesn't make you want to instantly be pals with these two crazy-ass weirdos, i hope your anti-anxiety meds start to kick in soon.

A week later i found myself at Turner hall to see my bandmates in Zebras, Vincent and Lacey, back their pal Wyatt as Madison, WI Gothic country trio Those Poor Bastards. I initially became friends with Vince and Lacey out of mutual musical admiration--i was a Zebras fan as soon as i saw them in the Corral Room in Madison three years ago (before my joining the band, obviously). After a couple years of hearing hilarious road stories about Vince's other band touring with Hank Williams III, it was finally time to check them out as they opened the .357 String Band's last-ever Milwaukee show.

I think that even if i were well-versed in Gothic country, i would still rate the Those Poor Bastards live show as "something i've never seen before." Lonesome Wyatt glares out at the crowd from beneath his long black hair and top hat, alternating between spooooky Goth crooning and eeeevil demonic growling, hurling hilariously bleak lyrics about death, God, Satan, and death. Take this darkly comic stanza from "The Bright Side":

You gotta look on the bright side
Take a walk in the sunshine
The lord is on your side
And people are good

Bullshit! Fuckin' bullshit!
Nothin' aint never gonna get no better, no how

Meanwhile, Vince pounds out basic but perfectly musical drum beats while using one hand to add a little moog bass, while recent addition Lacey adds brooding keyboard flourishes of her own. It's a rockabilly Peter Steele backed by analog synths, and it's quite simply one of the best things i saw all year. TPB's recordings are a little more fleshed out, with Wyatt's songs backed by banjo, piano, and other traditional country elements, but for my money, the combination of dark Southern balladeering with fuzzed-up moog is where it's at.

Both Lollipop Factory and Those Poor Bastards have that unspoken "this is how it's done" bravado that declares to the audience, "sure, there's a lot of different music out there, but THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE." One of the most impressive things a band with both talent and charisma can do is convince other musicians in the audience that they want to start a band just like the one on stage. Lollipop Factory makes me want to dress better and turn clubs into arenas with ridiculous taco riffs and fiery licks. Those Poor Bastards make me want to write lyrics as brilliantly populist and singalong as Wyatt's. That these inspiring, bar-raising bands happen to include friends of mine, well, it boggles my head and reminds me that i'm one of the luckiest dudes around, to know people this phenomenally talented and to not have them laugh my pedestrian ass out of the room.

So yeah, i'll write about my friends' bands when they're amazing (they're not always), and i'll present them to you for review, because they deserve the attention (especially since, in the case of TPB, they are largely ignored in their hometown, as so many great bands are). If you like them even half as much as i, i'll consider my job done.

Listen to Lollipop Factory: http://www.myspace.com/lollipopfactory
Listen to Those Poor Bastards: http://www.myspace.com/thosepoorbastards
And then yell at them to get Bandcamp accounts so i can embed their shit

Martian Dance Band of the Week: Minutes

Last Memorial Day Weekend the band embarked on a weekend road trip that took us to Kalamazoo, MI for the first time. The show was set up by an internet pal, Isaac "Ike" Turner, a dude who posts on the EA Forum (the PRF: the #1 music scene and tour hookup spot on Eahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrth). We were hoping at the time to play the show with his band, Minutes, whom i had not yet heard but being a PRF band i was sure we'd dig and whose fans/friends would dig us. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, Minutes were playing that same night in Chicago at our normal FIB stomping grounds, Quenchers, and thus we passed like ships in the night, only without the casual hookup that phrase implies in tawdry romance novels. A shame, really, because they sound like attractive, attentive lovers based on their stellar debut LP, which just activated on Bandcamp this week (you can order physical albums from the page; they'll ship in January).

The word from their Quenchers show was that Minutes was positively unfuckwithable, and i can see why as i listen to the new self-titled record. Members of the band have apparently done time in DC and played with Beauty Pill and the Most Secret Method, and it's apparent in the rustic, organic feel of both the songwriting and recording quality, which let's call perfectly mid-fi (not super-slickly produced, but not purposely recorded on a four-track for that hip lo-fi "shitgaze" sound, either). It sounds like a top-notch home recording that, were it coming out on CD, you could envision being wrapped in home-made cardboard sleeves individually screened with a band member's art. These are all positives, by the way.

The songs are quality post-punk that call to mind the classics of 90s indie-rock geography; there's a little Polvo-ish North Carolina in the guitars and vocals and definitely DC in the arrangements, a combination that reminds me of a few of the bands from late-90s Oshkosh that were drawing from the same wells (if i drop the names Chinaski and Hong!, that'll mean jack shit to about 95% of you, but the 5% "fuck yeahs!" will be worth it). They share a lot of influences with Milwaukee's Absolutely, although Minutes' riffs are more tightly focused into sub-three-minute nuggets instead of Absolutely's more adventurous explorations of the same material. The vocals throw around melodies and counter-melodies willy-nilly like they have extras stored away in a secret toybox somewhere in the closet. Sure, let's saturate "Float and Breathe" and "Sunday Not so Bloody" with hooks layered over each other. Fuck it; we've got hundreds. And let's blast through ten songs in twenty-five minutes so each song delivers a mere taste and peeps are forced to listen repeatedly to scratch out that earworm. Good plan, guys.

A download of ten mp3s will run you a cool Lincoln--for two of 'em you'll get the vinyl too. That is what we call in the blogging biz a god damn bargain. Now if you'll excuse me, i need to call a band meeting to see when we can swap shows and get these fools to Milwaukee and get us back to K-Zoo.

The Great Record Excavation: A is for Arcwelder

In what was probably the most-read post on this blog to date (thanks to a lot of you re-posting it and passing it around...hey, keep doing that), i made reference in the opening paragraph to my CD collection and how it started me thinking about how some of those discs are the only relic i have left to jog my memory about bands long relegated to obscurity. As i said then, it's not an indictment of their quality as bands, per se; rather, it's a symptom of being a music fan and consuming as many different bands as possible.

So here's what we're going to do once a week (or more if i get rambunctious some week): I'm going to go through my recorded music collection, one disc per letter of the alphabet per entry. I will endeavor to grab a CD, vinyl LP, or commercial cassette that is at the bare minimum five years old, but will generally be older (it also has to exist physically in my collection; this isn't the Great mp3 Excavation). I'll re-listen to the record, recall how i came across it, and decide if it has held up over time. I'll also post a SendSpace link to a download of the record, as i'm sure many of these will be out of print or at least difficult to find (however if you like the record and can find it for sale, i of course strongly advise you to purchase it on the off chance that the cash will still make it back to the band members; likewise, if any of the bands i write about in this feature don't want their records downloaded, they can let me know and i'll remove the [temporary] link).

Hopefully, each entry will sort of look like this:


The Album: Arcwelder, Pull (Touch & Go, 1993)

Who they were: Arcwelder were a Minneapolis entrant into the Touch & Go Records 1990s-era noise rock family (sort of amusing, as they would have fit on their hometown Amphetamine Reptile label just as easily). While their rhythmically driving, largely midtempo gallops invited easy comparisons to Jawbox, their growly guitar tones were more in line with several of their Chicago peers and labelmates in The Jesus Lizard, Pegboy, or Pegboy predecessor Naked Raygun.

Where i got the record: Ah, therein lies a tale. I first heard Pull, Arcwelder's third full-length and first of four for Touch & Go, in my pal (and current HiFi guitarist) Chris' Jeep on the way to some Fox Valley show or another back yonder 'round '93 or '94. I remember digging how the drone-like, box fan riffs of songs like "Will When You Won't" were counterbalanced by vocals that were far more melodic than many of the noisy T&G bands i was discovering at the time (Girls Against Boys, Shellac, etc.), and i especially was taken by the tom-heavy drumming on driving rockers like "What Did You Call It That For." Living in the orbit of Green Bay's legendary Concert Cafe all-ages venue, we were treated to a couple live visits from the band as Green Bay was one of the few viable punk towns within decent driving distance of Minneapolis. Still, while we saw our share of Arcwelder shows and enjoyed the hell out of Pull, i feel like our crew still relegated them to "serviceable younger cousin" status in relation to bands like the aforementioned Girls Against Boys, Jesus Lizard or Brainiac. Arcwelder were good, but when reaching for something abrasive on the CD shelf, Cruise Yourself or Liar were more likely go-tos. Thus, as Arcwelder slowed down with age, they began to fade a bit from memory.

Similarly, Arcwelder were seen by me as a fun bonus on the last day of 2006's Touch & Go 25th Anniversary weekend outside the Hideout in Chicago. After two nights of GVSB, Ted Leo, Man...or Astroman?, Killdozer, The Ex, Big Black, etc. holy shit etc., the idea of seeing one of the "minor" T&G bands that i had vaguely fond memories of kick off the Sunday festivities sounded like mere icing on the cake. So when they hopped on stage and proceeded to blow several of us away with one of the more spirited performances of the entire weekend, you could say i was a bit floored. The Graber brothers, Bill and Rob, rolled their way through one rollicking face-scraper after another while drummer Scott MacDonald dialed it in with killer tom fills and SINGING! Holy shit, how did i forget that he was a singing drummer? Awesome! (We singing drummers need to stick together as we get shat on more than regular drummers despite obviously being more talented.)

As they finished their set to a rousing ovation from an obviously gobsmacked crowd, HiFi bassist Josh turned to me and said, "let's go over to the merch stand and buy all their records right now." We made a beeline to where the CDs and vinyl were being sold, and having limited funds, i was forced to choose between four different Arcwelder records, none of which i had ever owned. But of course, familiarity caused Pull to jump out at me; thus, it was Pull that i bought.

Does it hold up? Yup--still awesome. The guitars still pack plenty of sugary hooks inside their distorted bite, while veering nowhere near pop. Songs like "Lahabim" take their time to establish a moody, deliberate midtempo groove, adding what sounds like occasional double-tracked drums for emphasis, while haunted vocal melodies and countermelodies add plenty of tension. Meanwhile, songs like "Remember to Forget" and "Just Not Moving" simply rock out with a bit of grunge-formula loud/louder/loud verse/chorus contrast.

Arcwelder, incidentally, never broke up; they still play infrequent shows around the upper Midwest and even toured the West Coast with Shellac in 2009. Which naturally begs the question: how much to get you guys down to Milwaukee for a show, dudes? For some reason i never grabbed any of your other records, and i'd prefer to buy them straight out of your hands.

Download Pull by Arcwelder right here

Filling the "Best Records of 2011" Gaps

Jesus Christ, 201--maybe it's because i was secretly more active in seeking out new music this year and don't realize it, but you seem to have effectively laid waste to the last two or three years when it comes to having put out a slew of records that i would actually like. So many of my year-end top 10 records lists of the past 10 years have included records that weren't released in that year, thus making my lists more "the best 10 records i finally discovered this year" than anything. This year, there were so many awesome records released that i actually find myself having to either expand past 10 or fail to include some pretty excellent stuff.

Vincent from Zebras recently shot The Wizard, Dixie and me a Facebook message asking for our recommendations for 2011 so he could fill in his gaps, and now i'd like to do the same. Here are the records we came up with in that message thread, with the ones i've heard listed in bold:

Police Teeth - Awesomer Than the Devil (If you still haven't heard this, you're a failure as a music fan)
the Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts
Northless - Clandestine Abuse
Low - C'mon
Obits - Moody Standard & Poor
Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Belong
//orangenoise - //veracious
Boris - New Album/Attention Please/Heavy Rocks
Jesu - Ascension
Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee pt. 2
Memory Map - Holiday Band (You know that thing i said about Police Teeth? Yeah, that)
Helms Alee - Weatherhead
True Widow - As High as the Highest Heavens and from the Center to the Circumference of the Earth
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Tammar - Visits
Crooked Fingers - Breaks in the Armor
Low - C'mon
David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
REM - Collapse into Now
Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
The Blind Shake - Seriousness
Absolutely - Learns to Love Mistakes
Parts & Labor - Constant Future
The Ex - Catch My Shoe
TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
Victory & Associates - These Things are Facts
Trophy Wives - Old Scratch
Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
Wild Flag - S/T
The Poison Control Center - Stranger Ballet
Future of the Left - Polymers are Forever (I count EPs when they are too awesome to ignore)

A few of the records in this list that i haven't heard i still plan to seek out (except maybe that Radiohead, as i've never really cared for or disliked them enough to pay attention...same goes for the REM, actually. Sorry Dixie!), but i'm sure we've all missed a few good'uns in this list. Help us out!

Future of the Left's Polymers are Forever and the Necessity of Evolution

"I'm sick to death of people saying we've made 11 albums that sound exactly the same; In fact, we've made 12 albums that sound exactly the same."
--Angus Young

There are two kinds of music fans:

-Beatles or Stones (or Beatles or Elvis, if you're a Tarantino fan)

-Zeppelin or Sabbath

-Analog loyalists or digital technophiles

-For a while there in 1994, people were supposedly Green Day fans or Offspring fans, which in retrospect is hilariously sad

...You get the point. We love to divide our alliances into two camps and hash it out. The one i'm interested in today is

-People who never want their favorite bands to change, and people who demand evolution and progression

Very few people fall firmly on the hard black or white ends of this spectrum; i like to think that most people want their favorite bands to adhere to the sounds and principles that made the fan fall in love with them in the first place, while not pumping out cookie-cutter copies of their first album ad AC/DCium (although it should be noted that AC/DC is awesome). Still, there are hardliners that fear and distrust change of any sort. Ben Weasel used to insist with relentless frequency in Maximumrocknroll (hey, two MRR mentions this week; sweet) that bands should break up or change their names after three albums because it's unacceptable to tweak a band's sound to avoid running out of ideas (note: Screeching Weasel released its 12th album, First World Manifesto, in March). To the best of my knowledge, The Spits have written one song approximately 630 times; when i saw !!! live, i was really into it until about 20 minutes in when i thought to myself "oh...this is pretty much the tempo they're gonna use all show, huh?" and checked out.

My favorite bands excel by and large at finding ways to let their sound evolve while, well, still sounding like themselves: Fugazi's evolution from their raw debut EP to the nuanced The Argument; Poster Children's journey from the post-punk Flower Plower to the new-wave-tinged No More Songs About Sleep and Fire; Brainiac's Nirvana-esque Smack Bunny Baby to the just plain weird-ass chrome-icide of Electro-Shock for President. When Brainiac ended and John Schmersal continued with Enon, they recorded the phenomenally strange synth-damaged art-pop record Believo! before a wholesale lineup change resulted in the more conventionally post-punk High Society (Schmersal was the only band member carried over from Believo!, and while both records were great, the shift in sound was noticeably jarring).

It was this last example that i kept in mind while clicking on Spin.com's stream of the new Future of the Left EP, Polymers are Forever. Since we last heard from FotL, their sophomore LP, Travels with Myself and Another, had just finished kicking their also-impressive debut, Curses, into the dirt. However, bassist Kelson Mathias then left and was not only replaced by ex-Million Dead bassist Julia Ruzicka, but a second guitarist, Jimmy Watkins, was also brought on board, ostensibly so Andy Falkous could spend more time on keyboards. So a shift in sound should have been expected.

Sure enough, the opening title track is awash with the buzz and fuzz of analog synths while retaining FotL's trademark minimalist arrangements and sneering, acerbic vocals (not to mention an absolutely killer earworm throughout the second half of the song that rates up there with any of their previous hook-laden winners). From there, Polymers are Forever runs a gamut of union-standard abrasive post-punk ("With Apologies to Emily Pankhurst" and "Dry Hate"), cartoonishly dandy stomps ("New Adventures") and a disconcerting, creepily blistering gallop (the closing "Destroywitchurch.com"), all crammed full of Falco's instantly-classic couplets flavored with ridiculous left-field imagery, random pop-culture references and, well, snide Welshness (a winning line from "Apologies:" "I fear most women like I fear tomorrow: absolutely/I can't let something as French as fear determine this insecurity").

Upon repeated listens, the EP has grown from "different, but pretty good" to "hella great" to "goddamn brilliant." It's a grower to be sure--not one song sounds alike, so the record may sound a bit disjointed at first listen. And to be sure, the lineup change is obvious and apparent, but that's not a bad thing. It's not as jarring a shift as between those two Enon albums, but it's definitely not Mclusky Do Dallas.

While the reviews that have popped up today seem mostly positive (hell, aptly glowing for some tracks), the initial response to the title track largely indicated that some folks are legit pissed that Falco isn't putting out Do Dallas Vol. 4. Falkous himself apparently went on some Twitter tirade (since deleted, so i missed it) about lackluster response to "Polymers" when the track was posted at Pitchfork, and anecdotal evidence from my own Facebook feed and some Electrical Audio Forum threads have uncovered similar attitudes (my pal Nick Woods: "Why can't Future of the Left just be a direct rip off of Mclusky?").

It's an attitude that confuses me, because as a musician, if my band were writing carbon copies of the song that made people freak out about us eleven years ago, i'd be eager to hasten death's sweet release by taking advantage of Wisconsin's new concealed-carry law and finding a club where i could shoot myself in the face at the end of (what would be) our last show. If you want Mclusky, pull out your old records. If you want old school FotL, bust out Curses. Meanwhile, i'll stay here on the Andy Falkous bandwagon, because he drives it around some thrilling curves at top speed, it's a hell of a fun ride, and the airbags haven't fired off yet.

I Can't Get My Head Around Mike Tyson as Herman Cain

Mike Tyson portrays Herman Cain a series of Funny or Die clips, including the (pretty funny) one above. It's obvious why the juxtaposition of Tyson in Cain's shoes works for comedic effect: both are considered in many circles to be batshit lunatics, with Tyson's crazy obviously on a much steeper level than Cain's. But it also works because Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist, while it is documented that Herman Cain has had settlements paid on his behalf as a result of sexual harassment grievances filed against him.

I'm no expert on the recent "rebirth" of Mike Tyson as a public figure, but i do understand that he's talked many times about the remorse he feels about his past deplorable hell-raising behavior. That being said, to this day he still denies that he raped Desiree Washington, despite his conviction, and even in 2006 said in an interview that "now I really do want to rape her."

Thus, this sketch is hard for me to wrap my mind around. It can't have escaped the Funny or Die folks that there's a sexual violence correlation between Tyson and Cain, no matter how much Tyson denies it, which also makes it very odd that Tyson agreed to do this. Then again, he is clown shoes mental. The sketch is damningly effective and brilliantly funny when you just focus on the whole mental imbalance thing. But there's a rape joke subtext in here somewhere that's messing with me, even if it's not an explicit source of broad humor.

I dunno. What do you think? Is this appropriate? Is any use of Mike Tyson making light of his past appropriate? Am i out of line for writing this post having not seen the Tyson documentary?