CD review: Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Spoon
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
(Merge)

People of a certain age (OK, my age) frequently complain that there’s no good music being made these days. Rest assured that our good friends at Clear Channel know this. They’re doing everything in their power to ensure that even the smartest and hippest flyover-state residents hear nothing but the crappiest new music, keeping them safe in their classic rock/adult-contemporary womb. Let’s face it, when your choice is between hearing “More Than a Feeling” for the 703rd time and Akon yapping about whatever it is Akon yaps about, you’re going to go with the devil you know.

As a result of the apathy of mainstream radio, groups like Austin, TX-based Spoon will likely spend their careers confined to the indie-rock ghetto. Granted, that ghetto is getting more gentrified with each passing year (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga has apparently reached #10 on the Billboard charts), but it still means that Mr. and Mrs. Suburbia aren’t going to just stumble across this slice of accessible pop. Which is a real shame.

One could spend the entire 35 minutes of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga picking out the influences that pop up throughout the 10 tracks, from the Lennon-like opener “Don’t Make Me a Target” to the Motown-via-early ’80s New Romantic “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” to the echoes of the Kinks that crop up during “The Underdog.” In the end, though, Spoon’s sound is immediately familiar, but compelling enough to warrant repeated listenings.

One could also quibble here and there, of course. “My Little Japanese Cigarette Case” sets itself up as the heir to Fleetwood Mac’s “Gold Dust Woman” as it invokes the allure of cocaine, but the lyrics don’t do more than repeat the same three lines throughout the song. That lyrical minimalism can be found throughout Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which can make a few of the songs somewhat less than satisfying, like one of those fancy nouvelle cuisine meals where the presentation is beautiful but you end up stopping at Burger King on your way home.

Oh, and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is one of the worst album titles I’ve ever heard. That won’t help with the people of a certain age, but once they get past it, they’ll find much to get excited about.

Don't believe me? Give a listen here.

I feel as though we should get right into the religious material...

I'm a Christian. It's not something that I arrived at easily, though, and it's something that I continue to struggle with. It's a comfort and a consternation, but rediscovering my faith has helped center me. It's also a very personal thing for me, which makes writing about it a challenge.

I was confirmed into the United Church of Christ when I was 13. I mostly recall church being about the longest hour of the entire week. The Prayer of Confession made me feel bad, mostly because I couldn't understand what I was supposed to feel so bad about. The sermon seemed about four hours long. The hymns were like dirges, going on forever, with the congregation all standing in that stuffy room. Once I got confirmed, my parents told me I could decide for myself whether I wanted to go anymore. I started sleeping until noon.

In college, that glorious time of self-discovery, when everything is new and exciting and laid out just for you, my decisions about faith were made for me as I spent late-night dorm lounge bull sessions listening to Pentecostals from rural Ohio towns and evangelicals from posh Columbus suburbs tell me that Jews were going to Hell. Brother Jed called my girlfriend a slut. I was officially off religion. Throughout my twenties and well into my thirties I told people that on my best days I was an agnostic.

Here's the thing, though. Within the space of less than a year, everything changed. I lost my job. I got a divorce. I moved to a new town, and left most of my friends behind (I suspect many of them weren't too upset about this). I started seeing the woman who would become my new wife. And I was very, very confused. I told myself that there had to be a reason for all of this happening to me at once. If there was a reason, though, there must be someone who knew what that reason is. So I went back to UCC (after a brief audition for the Unitarians, whose services were more like zoning board meetings) and reconnected with my faith.

Still, I carry my past skepticism around with me. I'm embarrassed by the Christian extremists who need to prove that they're right and everyone else is wrong. I'm creeped out by megachurches and their treatment of faith as another form of entertainment and Christianity as some sort of team you root for. And I view my faith as a path to being a better person, not to converting the people around me.

At the same time, I can no longer abide the people who deride anything faith-based. I resent being thought of as weak-minded because I believe that there are larger forces at work in our universe - forces that I recognize as God. God isn't the problem; it's how people use God that screws everything up.

So I am a Christian. Here's what that means to me:

Pat Robertson does not represent me.

Faith and science aren't mutually exclusive.

People of other faiths aren't going to Hell. God isn't running a country club.

Jesus Christ has made me a better person, but there's still a lot of work to do. Recognizing both halves of that sentence is sort of the point.

Can I get an amen?

CD Review: Nick Lowe - At My Age

I've been picking up more new music lately than I can realistically review for Playlist, so I'm going to start tossing them up here on the Internets, blog-form style. Some of them may see the light of day in print form once I pick at them a little more.

By the way, Yep Roc Records is shaping up to be quite the hip little label. With Billy Bragg, Robyn Hitchcock, Ian Hunter and Nick Lowe, it's as if they hired the 18-year-old me to sign their roster. Still vital artists making some nifty music, by the way. And they just signed the Gourds!

Nick Lowe
At My Age
(Yep Roc)

If there’s one word I’ve studiously avoided in my attempts to describe music, it’s “mellow.” I loathe this word. It conveys all the wrong meanings to me. Dark Side of the Moon is mellow. Gordon Lightfoot is mellow. “Have You Never Been Mellow” is mellow. These are not the antecedents I wish to conjure with. But avoiding this term becomes difficult when one comes across a record that does all that it can to give “mellow” a good name. Nick Lowe’s At My Age just might accomplish that task.

Over his last few records, erstwhile power-popper and Jesus of Cool (that’s not me talking – his first UK LP bore that impossible-to-live-up-to moniker) Nick Lowe has taken on a new persona, somehow debonair and worldly, but also self-deprecating and aware of his shortcomings. On “Long Limbed Girl,” Lowe reminisces about a lost love, wistfully hoping it hasn’t been a “long and bitter road.” “Hope for Us All,” meanwhile, allows that he is a “feckless man,” but if he can find love...well, you get the idea. Lowe’s lyrics, always a highlight of his records, remain as arch as ever, adding just the right twist to the countrypolitan leanings of this disc. And let's face it , any lyricist who can inject the word "feckless" into a song is eminently worthy.

In recent interviews, Nick Lowe has expressed an admiration for Dean Martin’s country-styled records of the 1960s and ’70s, and that light touch does serve as a musical touchstone here. But while Dino’s Reprise output was too often loaded down with the sense that this was the work of a guy punching the clock, At My Age demonstrates a finely-wrought thoughtfulness that is the hallmark of a true craftsman.

Musically, most of the elements that peppered his earlier work—the blue eyed soul, the countrified acoustic strum-alongs, the unerring ear for a pop hook, are still intact here, they’re brought to a more intimate level. Those who only know Nick Lowe from 1979's “Cruel to Be Kind” and have written him off as a one-hit wonder, you’d do well to give At My Age a listen. You might find he’s mellowed right along with you.

Dig the sounds here!

Zimmy Day, Part 2

Bob's appearance at the Zoo's historic Amphitheatre was, for the most part, everything I've come to expect from a 21st century Dylan concert. Bob was his usual taciturn self, the band was tight as ever, and the song selection offered a few mild surprises. The set list was as follows:
1. Cat's In The Well
2. When I Paint My Masterpiece
3. Watching The River Flow
4. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
5. Lay, Lady, Lay
6. The Levee's Gonna Break
7. Floater (Too Much To Ask)
8. High Water (For Charlie Patton)
9. I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
10. Spirit On The Water
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. When The Deal Goes Down
13. Summer Days
14. Like A Rolling Stone

(encore) 15. Thunder On The Mountain
16. All Along The Watchtower

George Harrison's All Things Must Pass LP playedbefore the show, foreshadowing the distinctly early-'70s vibe at the beginning of the show. Later, "Spirit on the Water" was the surprise hit of the night. Usually when a musician plays one off the new album there's a mass exodus for the restrooms.

It was great to hear the crowd getting into it. As far afield as Bob tends to go with his arrangements and phrasing these days, the potential for him to lose the "greatest hits" crowd is always a possibility. Dylan also had trouble keeping his guitar in tune at the beginning of the show. I thought rock stars had a guy whose job that was.

At any rate, great show, great weather, great venue.

Zimmy Day!

Tonight Michelle and I and my parents will be catching a set by a young up-and-comer, Bob Dylan, in the historic splendor of The Toledo Zoo's Amphitheatre. This will be the fifth time I've seen our Mr. Zimmerman perform, and I've been all a-twitter all day.


The first time I saw Bob play was in 1986. I was seventeen and only tenuously familiar with Dylan's oeuvre. To prepare myself for his show at Pine Knob, I went out and purchased Biograph and his most recent record, Empire Burlesque. I then went home and tried to digest all four cassettes, as if I was cramming for an exam. Probably not the best way to develop an appreciation for an artist.

In the end, of course, all that cramming was for naught, as Dylan was virtually incomprehensible throughout the evening. Support act/backing band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers proved to be the highlight of the evening, delivering their sure-fire hits in an easily-recognizable manner.


By 1989, the next time I saw Bob, I had become far more familiar with his work. Unfortunately, he appeared to have become substantially less so. Apparently, though, I was witness to his first-ever acoustic performance of "I'm in the Mood for Love," a song that I knew best from Alfalfa Switzer's definitive rendition. Steve Earle opened, and in my youthful arrogance I dismissed him as some dumbass country guy.


Following that underwhelming experience, I took thirteen years off from live Bob. It might well have been longer, but his records had gotten a lot better, and rumor had it that his live shows were full of a renewed energy. Besides, my next chance to see him was at a rodeo. That week, my brother and I, in a week of beer-fueled mayhem, took in Lyle Lovett, Bob Dylan and ZZ Top at the Reliant Astrodome. The acts came on after the rodeo was over, so we did have to sit through some ropin' and ridin' (and one night, Martina McBride) before the rockin'. Still and all though, the rumors were true - Bob was back.

Last time I saw Zimmy was in 2004 at UT's Savage Hall. Great band, great set, and Bob played keyboards. As chronicled in his book, he's come around to a new way of singing. As near as I could gather, it's mathematical somehow, but that wasn't the most lucid chapter in the book.

What will tonight's show bring? I'll let you know.

Breaker, breaker 1-9.

Yes! Technology!

Right, then.

Eric Klinger here. I'm a writer for the Marketing Department in a popular area non-profit organization. It's a good job, one filled with orangutans. Plus it keeps me writing, which is a good thing, since I've recently discovered that writing isn't quite the pain in the butt I thought it was. Which in turn has given me a few new things to get excited about.

Music has been at the center of my life since I was twelve. I've tried several times to make some sort of career out of that love, but it never really came to much. Throughout my twenties, I was in a couple bands. The second one came close to "making it," but the times must have changed or something.

Anyway, in 2003, my new wife and I decided that we were on the biggest roll of our lives (having met each other). We figured that the time was right to open our own vintage vinyl shop. We gave it out all, but decided to close up the storefront and peddle our wares online. I've been blessed to hear music that I otherwise never would have come across and met some cool people as well. It also kick-started me into music writing, thanks to my pals over at Playlist and the Maumee Mirror.

Speaking of blessed, I've become keen on Jesus. More on that later.

Now I'm here, trying to do more writing and looking for ways to stay motivated. Contentment has a way of sapping your motivation. Here goes...

And so begins the finest career in all of bloggerdom

Much to discuss - so very much to discuss.

Later.