TEENAGE WASTELAND

Of hormones and pulp.

Tell me this: Is there anything in the universe more annoying than the American teenager? With all of their surly, awkward, pimpled-ness, can you think of a segment of American society that is more loathed and loved than teenagers? I mean, just about every corporation and manufacturer worth its weight in Clearasil panders to the teen demographic. Most of the films Hollywood defecates into the theaters are geared toward teen boys who have lots of money to blow and want to see more tits and s’plosions. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, per se.

Same goes for music. Teenage rage and mooning over unrequited love have spawned the best and worst in songs. And books. How else do you account for the enduring popularity of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road? Teenagers. God bless ’em.

So to understand the hormone-injected inspiration behind pop culture, you gotta understand the American teen. A good place to start is Teenage Confidential, by Michael Barson and Steven Heller. It’s a graphics-intensive romp through the history of the teen in the U.S., through movie posters, album and magazine covers, and advertising. Some of the copy adorning the movie posters is absolutely priceless (from the 1940s B-movie, Girls Under 21: “Too old for playthings … and too young for love!”). The book focuses on the’40s, ‘50s, and early ’60s, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for a fleshed out treatise on The Jackson 5.

Gotta love the book covers from mid-1950s pulps, too—young delinquents arching their backs in suggestive poses, black leather jackets, cigarettes tucked behind ears, and titles such as Juvenile Jungle, Teen-Age Mafia, and Hate Alley. As a fan of these schlocky paperbacks, I can tell you that the contents are every bit as melodramatic as the titles and cover art. Good stuff. I shudder to think how what the cover of a pulp novel about my teenage years would say. Probably something like, Tragically Responsible: The Story of a Boy Who Works Part-Time for Milstead’s T.V. & Appliance, Makes His Car Payment on Time, and Never Gets Laid … But Abuses Himself Fourteen Times a Day to Photos Ripped From the J.C. Penney Catalog!     

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE A REFUGEE

Peeking at The Pretenders, Palmyra Delran, Beaten by Them and The Standard.  

I typically approach new material by bands who had their heydays in the 1980s or 1990s with no small amount of trepidation. There’s no way it’s going to live up to their best work; admittedly, that’s not the best way to think about it. But I’m pleasantly surprised by new releases by refugees from the postpunk 80s and the riot grrrl 90s, although much less so with a storied album by an indie band still plugging away.

The Pretenders, Break Up the Concert (Shangri-La, September 23)

In recent years, country music has become the last refuge for washed-up artists looking to revive their careers in a genre whose fans still buy albums. Bon Jovi and Jewel saw modest commercial upticks after signing with Nashville labels, and upcoming albums by ex-Hootie Darius Rucker and Jessica Simpson will likely do the same. Of course, Chrissie Hynde is not now and never will be washed up, no matter how many mediocre Pretenders reunion albums she releases. The latest, Break Up the Concrete, is the band’s least mediocre in nearly two decades, mainly because the Pretenders have gone country. Not slick Nashville country, but roadhouse country. Break Up opens with the rockabilly single “Boots of Chinese Plastic,” then launches into “The Nothing Maker,” which is steeped in pedal steel. “Don’t Lose Faith in Me” and closer “One Thing Never Never Changed” are convincing country-soul numbers, while “Don’t Cut Your Hair” and the Bo Diddley-style title track tear up the barroom dance floor. Unlike other artists, Hynde’s gravitation toward country never really sounds like a career-calculated move, if only because it’s such a good setting for her brassy vocals, which amazingly have lost none of their jive or authority over the years. Has she aged at all?

On repeat: “Boots of Chinese Plastic”

Palmyra Delran, She Digs the Ride (Apex East, October 14)

On the heels of last year’s friggin’ great Friggs retrospective, Today Is Tomorrow’s Yesterday, comes this genial EP from guitarist Palmyra Delran, who trades her band’s sloppy East Coast riot-grrrl assault for a more pop-addled sound complete with surf riffs and jangly guitars. The Joan Jettsy “You’re Losin’ Me” stops for a kazoo-sounding guitar solo, and “When I Was You” begins with a strong Byrds-by-way-of-Bangles riff, then careens into a ska breakdown. “Baby Should Have Known Better” roughs up a girl-group chorus, while on the title track, lovely backing vocals ooh and aah coyly behind Delran’s vocals, which exaggerate the sneer in Delran’s voice. Short but sweet, hardened but happy, She Digs the Ride could be the soundtrack for the coolest teen movie ever, by which I mean Clueless.

On repeat: “When I Was You”

Beaten by Them: Signs of Life (Logicpole/Thrill Jockey, November 11)

Remember that Silver Mt. Zion album from earlier this year? Think back. Remember how it was pretty damn silly? Remember how you thought apocalyptic post-rock had run its course and was no longer a viable genre? Remember thinking that scene in 28 Days Later was both its pinnacle and its death knell? Well, I remember. I also remember taking it all back after hearing this Australian band’s ominous debut, on which they build tense grooves instrument by instrument. Each member does his own things, not always playing toward a common purpose and so creating a strange friction on “Town Too Small” and “Pioneer 10.” The drama recalls early Dirty Three, but without the same sense of careening abandon. These songs go where they need to go and the band just follow along, which makes Signs of Life sound organic instead of forced or “written.” Beyond that, it’s well sequenced as an album, cresting and fading dramatically between tense numbers and more atmospheric songs like the title track--never a glamorous compliment, but crucial here to maintain that sense of undirected flow. Only complaint: Post-post-rock band should not be allowed to rap, which sinks “Verge” and nearly ruins the mood altogether.

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On repeat: “Town Too Small”

When Hell is full, the dud will walk the earth:

The Standard, Swimmer (Partisan, September 23)

Yes, I feel absolutely terrible panning the Standard’s long-in-coming sixth album. The Portland band got shafted when V2 folded shortly after they signed with the label, and they spent nearly a year in the wilderness, shopping around Swimmer. Credit them with persistence: Singer Tim Putnam founded Partisan Records to release the damn thing himself. It’d be a tale of triumph if Swimmer were their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but instead it’s more of the same: high-drama indie rock that’s still pretty faceless.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

HUNTING IS HALF THE FUN

”Sonic Reducer” singles out worthy music and spoken-word recordings that sit somewhere outside the mainstream. This is not an obscurity contest, however, and most (but not all) of these recordings did receive a traditional release, distribution, some attempt at publicity, etc., from some recognizable small- or mid-sized labels. The point is simply to draw attention to some really good records from all sorts of genres, eras and formats. Everything in this month's column was originally released on CD in the mid- to late-nineties. They may not be easy to find, but hunting is half the fun.

DANNY FRANKEL, New Thing on Jupiter (1997, WIN Records)

Widely traveled drummer/percussionist Danny Frankel's New Thing on Jupiter is a minimalist hep-cat party-starter, perfect background music for an intergalactic beatnik cocktail lounge. Bongos, optigan, tape loops, autoharp, whistling and a Casio help spread out the spaced-out vibe. Danny is unique stylist who has toured and recorded with Jim White, Lou Reed, Rickie Lee Jones, Beck, Marianne Faithful and many others.

IRA COHEN, The Majoon Traveler (1994, Sub Rosa import)

World-traveling poet, photographer, publisher and filmmaker Ira Cohen's continent hopping spoken word CD of mystical, mythical musing was produced by the untouchable Algerian mix-master Cheb i Sabbah. Featuring cut-ups of Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Angus MacLise, the Master Musicians of Joujouka, Moroccan street recording and other deep thinkers and players. Friend and contemporary of William S. Burroughs, Paul Bowles and Brion Gysin (who The Majoon Traveler is dedicated to), Ira is a true original: a brusk, no-bullshit-allowed mystic with a deep, Jewish-Brooklyn baritone.

LUTHER RUSSELL, Down at Kits (1999, Cravedog)

One-man funk factory Luther Russell drops a mother-lode of smooth, dubby instrumental funk that mixes up Memphis, New Orleans and Kingston, cocktail lounges, roadhouses and a touch of sublime muzak. Luther did the major-label two-step with The Freewheelers in the early 90s, then moved up to Portland, where he left a huge mark before eventually returning to LA. He figures hugely in the next record...

FERNANDO, Pacoima (1998, Cravedog)

Born in Argentina, raised in the San Fernando Valley barrio of Pacoima (home of Ritchie Valens), living in Portland, Fernando Viciconte has a string of superb releases. Pacoima is really something special: sung entirely in Spanish (except for one track), it's a mix of rock en Español, Tex-Mex, Casio-twiddling tangos, gutsy ballads and Farfisa-driven rockers that could be lost tracks by ? and The Mysterians, Sam the Sham or the Sir Douglas Quintet. Producer Luther Russell gives it a kinetic, live-wire feel, and plays most of the instruments, sans some of the guitar, trumpet and pedal steel.

THE GONE ORCHESTRA, Begone (1995, self released)

If Sun Ra's Arkestra added low-fi FX and dipped into boogie-woogie and boozy blues along with their outrageous space jazz? Well, actually they did. But Gone Orchestra do it really well, too. This Portland combo is thick with iconoclastic personalities and sonic tinkerers, including a few affiliated with he Smega collective of cultural contrarians. If Duke Ellington was smoking crack while making records it might come out like this...

CRASH WORSHIP, Triple Mania II (1994, Charnel House)

In a savvy move, Crash Worship pared their monumental, primordial percussion assaults down to shorter, digestible pieces, separated everything in the mix and made a CD of actual song-like material. And they do it with out losing any of their menace or psychic heavy-osity. The provocative cover is vintage Crash Worship: art inspired by Henry Darger's pan-sexual waifs,  rendered in full-color etched copper plating.

IAN SHOALES, I Gotta Go (1997, 2.13.61)

Tart-tongued, sharp-witted and incredibly verbally agile, comedic social commentator Ian Shoales sprints through 24 short, tongue twisting subjects ("Neo-Literacy," "Boomerville," "Elvitude" etc.), all ending with his trademark "I gotta go." These 24 tracks were recorded between 1985 and 1995, and reflect the cultural landscape of the Regan and Clinton eras; we can only imagine what he would make of the current Bush/Cheney/Carlyle Group-led on-going fiasco. Unlike many spoken-word recordings, it holds up under repeat listens.

UTAH CAROL, Wonderwheel (1999, Stomping Ground Publishing)

On Wonderwheel, the Chicago-based duo of Grant Birkenbeuel and JinJa Davis make tight, deadpan, insanely catchy folky rock with brief, funky instrumental interludes. Something eerie and possibly dangerous lies just below the surface, while the top side is smooth and user friendly. They have since released two more CDs, Comfort for the Traveler in 2002 and Rodeo Queen in 2007. On this first release Utah Carol manage to sound completely original without actually breaking any tangibly new territory, which is notable into itself.

RUBE WADDELL, Hobo Train (1996, Vaccination)

Junkyard blues, drunken sea-chanteys, depression-era calls to arms, homemade instruments, debauchery, anarchy and pork-pie hat wearing surrealism. Named after the legendary early 20th century baseball player, ambulance chaser and boozer, Hobo Train is the first of several outlandish CDs this Bay Area  four-hat has released. Rude Waddell are pretty much the ultimate house-party band. As long as your house has big holes in the walls, a dirt floor and is well away from any neighbors?

NEW COAT OF PAINT: SONGS OF TOM WAITS (2000, Manifesto)

Andre Williams, Knoxville Girls, Dexter Romweber, Botanica, Preacher Boy and others remake, retool and rethink 14 of Tom Waits' songs. A trio of ballads by Carla Bozulich, Sally Norvell and Eleni Mandell anchor the center of the record. But check Lydia Lunch and Nels Cline sliming their way through "Heartattack and Vine" and Screamin' Jay Hawkins completing owning "Whistlin' Past The Graveyard" to see why this is a superior collection.

Carl Hanni is a music writer, music publicist, disc jockey and vinyl archivist living in Tucson, AZ. He hosts the vinyl-only “Scratchy Record Show” every Tuesday night at the Red Room in downtown Tucson, and spins records wherever and whenever he can. He believes that in a better (all analog) world all records would be released on vinyl, but takes good music from wherever he finds it—even on CD. His feature piece on legendary bass player/record producer Harvey Brooks will soon be published in Goldmine.

TRIBAL SHORTS

Certainly, what unites us here at Cut Through the Noise is music...but it's more than that...more than just something that goes on between your ears. It's an axiology that extends from the music to our music-lover lifestyles: how we vote, what we drive, what we eat, what we wear, etc. We are a tribe [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentati on of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

DEEP THROAT FOR PRESIDENT

Peeping two sexy new releases from Dark Sky Films.

Star Trek may have led you to believe that the time-space continuum has no sense of humor—but note the eerie similarities between Paris Hilton’s recent political bid and Linda Lovelace for President (Dark Sky Films, 95 min), a bicentennial spoof starring another sword-swallowing quasi-celebrity.

Released at the height of the Roger Corman drive-in era, Lovelace was desperately trying to escape the success of Deep Throat and producers like Arthur Marks were willing to give the slut a shot. What spewed forth is a mix of Mel Brooks, Smokey the Bear jokes and more double-entendres than an entire season of Three’s Company (although you’ve gotta admit, “The first woman president to go down in history” is pretty goddamn clever). The sex itself is innocuous; Lovelace looks like she’s humoring her cut-rate co-stars, which include Mickey Dolenz and Scatman Crothers, rather than pleasuring them. And the opening sequence—Linda posed like Patton with a camel-toe in front of an American flag—is pretty much the only full-frontal we get to see.

As an attempt at mainstream stardom, Linda Lovelace for President is a bust. But jokes that fell flat three decades ago now have outrageous camp value on the cinematic market. Imagine a country that was naïve enough to make jokes about pedophiles or let a porn queen lead a parade down Main Street? LL for President is an embarrassment of riches that could only have sprung from the ‘70s. The fact that it was almost directed by Richard Donner (as mentioned in the DVD extras) makes it even sweeter.

However, Games Girls Play (Dark Sky Films, 88 min) is a much more authentic presentation of the softcore sitcom formula made popular in the day starring authentic sitcom regular, Christina Hart, who appeared in everything from Happy Days to Hawaii-Five-O.  Sent off to a British boarding school after sleeping her way through Congress, Bunny (Hart) challenges her new roommates to a sex game involving important visiting dignitaries: the first one to bed a foreign official and snap a picture wins.

Directed by Jack Arnold, a respected ‘50s sci-fi craftsman who at this point in his career was tackling The Brady Bunch, there’s not a moment of simulated sex in the entire film. Yet Games Girls Play is still a turn-on, mostly thanks to Hart’s non-stop nude scenes, which make it seem like you’re watching that secret episode of Three’s Company (a show Hart also appeared on) where Chrissie finally takes her top off. Supported by a cast of British hotbodies with good teeth and a knack for delivering punchlines, Games Girls Play is one of the better inoffensive smut films of the era.

Christina Hart sits down for an interview on the DVD extras. But if you want to keep the image of her as a pert-nosed California girl forever locked in your memory, don’t watch. The space-time continuum has not been kind.

Straight outta the third most dangerous city in America—Saginaw, Michigan—Greg Walton writes from a basement bunker. His only window to the outside world is a sweet surround sound set-up and 65" inches of hi-def glory.

DISCOVERY: THE DUTCHESS AND THE DUKE

Sometimes it’s nice to look back at what we might have missed even a few months ago. That’s how I came across the Dutchess and the Duke, a Seattle duo who are looking way back to the 60s on their debut, She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke. The title may be stunningly obvious, but these ten songs are anything but. Drawing from some imagined-but-never-made Dylan album (check the subterranean homesick album art), the duo play scuzzed-out, scuffed-up acoustic folk rock full of jaded observations and pointed wordplay about wayward friends and lovers. Duke Jesse Lortz plays all the guitars, Dutchess Kimberly Morrison plays everything else: flute, keys, tambourine, handclaps. He sings wry leads, she oohs and aahs and harmonizes like his last friend. She’s the DJ, he’s the rapper. Despite all the old sounds and obvious musical touchstones, She’s the Dutchess never sounds like music to thumb through your record collection to (despite the Incredible String Band-style wailing on “The Prisoner”). They’re too anchored in the here and now to escape to the there and then.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

HAMELL CON CARNY

Join Hamell on Trial at Field Day in Ireland, where he watches Gary Busey and Jodie Foster in Carny, then goes to the carnival, where he declares that one ride is "fuckin' goin' down tonight."

Ed Hamell picked up the guitar at age 7 and started writing songs not long after. In his early 20s, Mr. Hamell was the front man and writer for an original band, but local bands were a dime a dozen in the tough, working class neighborho ods in Syracuse, NY. So he launched a one-man act called Hamell on Trial. Six albums (plus a live one) and countless shows later, Hamell himself is one of a kind. Catch him on tour this summer in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

New tomes concerning the Spice Girls, indie band survival techniques, and cool.

The Indie Band Survival Guide: The Complete Manual for the Do-It-Yourself Musician, by Randy Cherktow and Jason Feehan (St. Martin’s Griffin) 

Someday I’ll write a guide. It will be called, The Fuck Up’s Guide to Life: The Complete Manual for Underachievers, or How to Get Paid Spewing Bitterness and Invective on The Internet. Until that day, my fellow slack asses, you must content yourself with the Cherktow and Feehan manual—just the ticket your piss-poor band has been waiting for. Read up, learn how to market yourselves, build a cult following, stumble into obscurity, toss your musical hopes and dreams into the dust bin, and become an orderly at a retirement community earning minimum wage. How’s that for a career arc? Seriously, though, if you’re serious about making it in the music biz, and if you have a modicum of talent to pull it off, you might want to get a hold of this book. Useful as hell.

Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever, by Farah Jasmine Griffin and Salim Washington (Thomas Dunne Books)

You like jazz? Yeah, me neither. But you gotta appreciate its role in American history and literature. Without it, we wouldn’t have Jack Kerouac and the dope-addled Beat movement of the 1950s and ’60s. And without that, well, we’d all still be reading Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh with our thumbs up our collective asses. So any history of Jazz greats is at least worth a nod of respect. Plus it’s bound to have some great heroine-related tales, since Miles Davis injected enough junk to bring down a water buffalo. 

Spice Girls Revisited, by David Sinclair (Music Sales, 2^nd edition) 

WTF? This book required a second edition? Who are the assholes who bought all of the first editions? I lose faith in humanity a little more each day.

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

RATED EX

Perhaps you’ve gotten this far through life and never heard of Frederick Exley. Let me introduce you.

Exley, or “Ex,” was one of those “one hit wonder” kind of novelists. In 1968 he published A Fan’s Notes, and if you haven’t read it, then you need to turn off your computer, fire up that shitty minivan, and head on over to the local soul-killing, super-sanitized Mega Bookstore and get it. Chances are they won’t have it, and you’ll have to contend with the dull-eyed stare of the 20-year-old clerk when she says, “Would that be, like, maybe a study guide or something? Like, maybe, Cliff’s Notes?” If she says that, you have my permission to set the place on fire.   

Anyway, A Fan’s Notes is a brilliant piece of semi-autobiographical fiction (in the same vein as On the Road) chronicling Exley’s obsession with football legend Frank Gifford (husband to that insufferable ditz Kathie Lee Gifford) and the New York Giants. Now, before you freak out at the idea of reading a “sports” book, let me explain something: A Fan’s Notes is only tangentially about sports. It’s more like a memoir of alcoholism and mental illness. And not fitting in. Anywhere. Walter Kirn described it best in Slate about a decade ago: “A Fan’s Notes divides the world into two camps: tortured, bewildered misfits (Exleys) and serene, fair-haired conformists (Giffords).” Nerds versus jocks, if you want to over-simplify it. But with boozing, sex, and electroconvulsive therapy thrown in for good measure.

Exley penned two other books which were flops. You can skip those. But despite some elements in Notes that seem a little dated and kitschy now (Perpetual angst! Stints in mental hospitals!), the book is really more relevant than ever with its examination of celebrity, obsession, middle class perfection, and what it means to constantly encounter images of beautiful, successful people living a life you will never, ever know—you loser. Stick with A Fan’s Notes, and soon you, too, will be hating all the pretty people. As if you didn’t already.

P.S.: For an excellent biography of Ex, check out Jonathan Yardley’s Misfit.

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

FAHRVERGNÜGEN

I love driving. The freedom to just go, $4/gallon be damned. Inherently and wonderfully American, isn't it? But as carbon-footprint-conscious as I like to think I am (and although I've never [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentati on of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.