When I Told You That I Loved You I Thought You Were on the Pill

Sometimes the best way to defy expectations is to lower them drastically.

Vulture Whale - Head Turner (mp3)(buy)

So when I tell you there's this rock band from Alabama called Vulture Whale (myspace) that has released not one, but two albums called Vulture Whale, I should not tell you that their latest record (that would be Vulture Whale) is one of the most consistently enjoyable I've heard this year.  Because "Vulture Whale," yeesh.

I imagine the best way to learn about Vulture Whale would be to walk into a bar where you've ceremoniously slapped down a five dollar cover and chuckled at the line-up every worknight of your underwhelming life.  You've braced yourself for some tolerable background music and the usual, limited conversation.  You don't notice when they turn the jukebox down and the house sound up, but three or four songs into the set a phrase fits your ear just right or the tune twists a way you hadn't counted on and you realize that you've been nodding along the whole time.  You get up off your stool and start listening and start thinking that every song's littered with good lines and that the low-key melodies that got you to listen to the words in the first place shift and build and that, hey, there's some serious craft at work.  "These guys are really good!" you tell no one in particular, and both of you wonder just how many beers you've had.

That's the band's t-shirt up there, seriously.

You buy the record and listen to it a lot and start telling people that they should listen to this too and they say they will and they never do.  Because the band is called Vulture Whale and the record is called Vulture Whale.

That's the sort of band, and album, Vulture Whale is.  All its pleasures are surprises. Its surprises seem endless because you somehow can't keep it off repeat.  There's a great ‘Mats-y vibe, reedy Mascis-y vocals.  The writing is so shrewd that it seems a shame to even mention it.  Every line either serves to establish a level of plain-speak or to baffle that plainness with scattered poetry.  The urge to pluck out lines is overwhelming - "To tell the truth, for you, would be something else" ("Thought Eyes"), "How many fathoms in the river add up to one Mark Twain?" ("Sum Yung Scientist"), "I get excited when a nun rolls up her sleeve" ("That's Cold") - but all arguments work better in context.

And the words sound so good sung.  "We were drunk while we were married a week and we both had us a farmer's tan, I like rock songs, hey baby baby yeah" ("What Do").  God, that's good stuff.

"Head Turner" probably won't be your favorite track on the record - the punch of "Teedy" or the rich licks of "Tote it to Cleveland, AL" or the single "Sugar" might make for better introductions - but I love how hard the song works to defy its opening line's backhanded compliment.  Singer Wes McDonald sucks shoe so hard trying to turn insults into honest admiration.  He rubs your face in that line, even forces it in once where we we're sure a chorus will kick in.  World's worst pick-up as a hook, and we watch him twist in the wind before his stumbles seem sweet.  Takes more than a minute - forever! - for that jangly guitar line to show.  When his friends lend support, it's not only on an insult he was trying to undermine - "Radio face!" - but it's with classic rock radio backing vocals.  Get how the lush bridge doesn't kick until just after the last word when he sings, "You look as good as you did in the 80's... just a better version."  Like he's just, um, realized the need for more misdirection.  Meanwhile there are dropped gems like "Your past can't catch up."  Sticky stuff like "We could be like Paul and Joanne.  We could have our own dressing."

I'm not going to tell you that it's a pretty great record because it is.

Don't take my word for it (or John Darnielle's - his recommendations can be way hit or miss).  Buy it, wear it out.  Even the CD packaging is simple and lovely.

*

Phew.  Got through all that without using the phrase "MILF Rock."

*

Hey, did you know there was a new New York Dolls (myspace) record?  Did you know that it was pretty decent?

All the yazz about "Are These the Dolls?" should have been settled with their hit and miss first 21st-C album - and I addressed it both on here and with the band.  Of course they're not, and yes now they are, and it looks like they're going to reinforce that/confound that by continuing to exist as they are right now.  This record's release means that they've now matched the output of Dolls 1.0.  In quantity, at least.

‘Cause I Sez So will not change anyone's life or mind, but it's an entirely pleasurable enterprise.  Even the reggae'd-up retread of "Trash" - which I'd dreaded, as I hope you did when you read that - turned out to be a good idea.  One of the things the Dolls were always supposed to be was fun, and relieved of the old pressures of drug abuse and internal turmoil and inflated label expectations and the new pressures of proving themselves, they settle in and have some.

New York Dolls - This is Ridiculous (mp3)(buy)

As if to answer allegations that - like the post-Dolls collaborations between Johansen and Sylvain - these records are just David Johansen solo records with a better brand, collaborations are spread around pretty evenly.  This Waitsian thing was penned by Johansen and lead guitarist Steve Conte - who is excellent, here, doing both the obvious and the not.

They beg the questions, these Dolls, even as they provide answers.  Song titles like "Temptation to Exist" and "Exorcism of Despair" are critical sucker-bait, and lines in the song above like "All I ever do is reminisce/This is too austere/Just wanna disappear/& come back when the joint starts to swing" would be distracting if the joint hadn't already kicked in.

*

So happy for the Screaming Females (myspace) kids.  And I love that they list the news that they've been chosen to tour with Jack White and Alison Mosshart's new project - a stretch that will probably double the amount of "official" venues the basement band has played - after a home-state gig at Maxwell's.

*

This is good work.

*

"A new book alleges that President Obama is so irritated by Joe Biden's "indiscipline" that he has relieved the Vice President of all duties save recapping the CW's upcoming Melrose Place remake for the White House blog."

AND I WILL READ THAT BLOG.  Sydney Andrews is back, bitches.  Michael, too!  I can already taste the Olde English 800.  Biden owt.

*

Fuck Michael Lewis, "TrailFever" Was Inadequate, Annoying

*

Aw, hell, just go there.  Because Gawker is now about as dull and dim as the very successful Access Hollywood, the cool kids are free to play elsewhere.

*

tags: vulture whale  new york dolls  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    reddit