Hands Like Houses • A Discovery

So there I was digging up a dead tree when my shovel hit something hard. It was obviously solid and from the clunk that rang out when I hit it, sounded like it might be heavy too. I dug around the object and sure enough, when it was dug out and I was standing over it, I saw it was indeed a super solid heavy block of a super solid heavy thing. There’s no other descriptors I can shower it with. Figuring it needed further investigation, I took it inside and laid out its three component parts on the kitchen table.

Across the front was etched the statement Hands Like Houses. A message from another world perhaps? The three parts were well labelled: Ground Dweller, Unimagine and Dissonants. To make sense of the find, I started with the first part of the story.

Magical electronic sounds fell out when opened but soon dissipated into nothing to be replaced by something I’m a lot more familiar with. Guitars, drums and at the front, a man carrying so much baggage it was falling out of his mouth.

I flicked through the markings on the map that came with it to see where these people had been. This Ain’t No Place For Animals. Starving To Death In The Belly Of The Whale. Lion Skin. Antarctica. It looked like the diary of lunatics on a road trip from the asylum and as time pressed along, I decided this is also what it sounded like.

Part two took me to different places. They sounded tired from their trip. Beaten into the ground with the weight of the travel or perhaps the weather. Part two was full of warnings of Places A Man Should Never Travel To. Eating nothing but Oceandust along the way, the adventurers clock up some more miles of anguish turning every stop on the road into a 3 minute movie of the darkest parts of the human soul… and yet, I must keep watching and listening no matter how much sense it makes to turn away and head back to somewhere familiar.

Being as I’ve come this far, I figured I might as well see it through to the end. Somewhere along this journey, the travelling minstrels with the most excellent name have stopped for refreshments and refuelled...

What I see before me now is a much different movie. The sounds they insist on throwing into the world are bigger, more expansive than before. They have seen much and acclimatised to the atmosphere. There is no man from the asylum with a zero hours contract driving the bus. Now they are making their own way — driving themselves — bringing with them tales of Motion Sickness and New Romantics.

I appear to have acclimatised also. Where I once saw pain, I now see observation. What I once thought was a red carpet for them to sleep on is blood on the dancefloor. By the time I come to the end of marvelling at this thing I found in the dirt, I’m exhausted, but the trip has been been worth it. I have learned much.

Hands Like Houses tell the kind of stories that are best kept underground lest they drive you mad with their relentless shining of a torch at the folly of all human life. I feel like I’ve run up a mountain to find the coffee shop at the top closed for lunch.

I bury the super solid heavy block back where I found it and hope that one day, these adventurers will pass by this way again and leave more stories for me to discover in a place where there once stood a dead tree.

But no more digging for me. Not today.

Nickelback • Feed The Machine

Over the years, I’ve done more than my fair share of Nickelback reviews. In print, online… I even put them on the cover of a magazine once — but I always figured sooner or later my luck would die in my arms and I would have to admit that for once, everybody else was right about this band I happened to like for no other reason than I enjoy their company in the car.

To stick the pencil right into the sharpener here, ever since The Long Roadwas released, give or take a nuance here and there, all Nickelback albums have sounded more or less the same. This is both what we collectively love and (apparently) hate about them — but the band themselves are caught between the rock and the hard place too. To deliver something different now would not be Nickelback and wouldn’t serve their fanbase. The media would shout and point for trying and next time around they would go right back to formula to regain the ground they had lost…

So frankly, they may as well skip a wasted, unwanted album and just carry on as they are. What the critics are missing the point with, is that sometimes, all you want to do is drive to music with a pounding backbeat and some vague lyrics you think you might know but don’t really — which Nickelback have by the truckload. Case in point: the title track of Feed The Machine. Drums up front and centre, a great riff and nothing too strenuous on the vocal front… you’re feeling good as the needle on the dash is creeping up more than you care to notice…

I like Nickelback a lot. Their albums have too many slow songs for ‘like’ to turn into ‘full-time love’ but that’s why The Gods invented digital music and we no longer have to deal with such things. Now, you can create one giant Nickelback playlist called 99 Miles To L.A. and still be as one with Chad when the sirens start to flash in the rear view mirror.

I had cause to drive a Very Long Way yesterday and figured it would be a good plan to let Feed The Machine ride shotgun. It’s solid you know. If you’re a fan, you’re not going to be disappointed in it. It could use a song like Animals or Something In Your Mouth to make it really rock the fuck out, but it’s good enough to bolster your playlist out.

Here’s something interesting though — when the album had finished, I queued up Curb to see where they had come from all those twenty years ago and found that Nickelback have buried their roots deep. They used to sound like a mash-up between Stone Temple Pilots and Our Lady Peace. The album is OK but it doesn’t sound like it’s going to take them around the world. Then I came forwards in time and gave The State an airing. Hmm, I think to myself, reminds me of Candlebox but without any songs I can remember…

The Nickelback journey sure is an erratic one. By the time they hit Silver Side Up, they appear to have figured out how to write great songs, know what kind of a sound they wanted, nailed it all in place with The Long Road and kept going with it… pushing it over and over again until it maxxed out some three albums back — which is exactly what happened to Def Leppard. They got stuck inside of their own formula and never found a way out of the woods and for most of the rock loving world, that’s just fine.

Anyway, there’s a whole bunch of good stuff here. Coin For The Ferryman is a nice little number, Must Be Nice stands up tall with its childish (on purpose) nursery rhyme pastiches and Silent Majority is likely the best track on the album so why it’s buried so far down in the track list is something only a record company exec can explain. Do we still have record company exec’s out there? The remainder will probably find itself silenced inside of my playlist, aside from the track Home which I have become very fond of over the last few days.

And that’s the part that borders on love about Nickelback for me… or maybe it’s just Chad mindset. The man misses home— until he gets there and remembers why he left. Every album, there’s a song like this and I feel comfortable in the way it makes me feel. I miss home too. I miss my friends. I miss the people I used to hang out with — hell, I might even miss the person I used to be and Chad gets it: “I’m the only ghost walking though the hallways” — you hit the nail on the head for me there brother.

I think I miss the way Nickelback used to be too but I can’t be sure. The last few albums have been a little like staying with somebody you love when they’ve wandered too far from the path but later apologised — everything looks the same as it once did but you can’t figure out why your heart isn’t pounding when you hear their key in the door.

Uncle Sam • Heaven Or Hollywood

I got a bee inside my head last night to listen to Uncle Sam. A band maybe only 25 people ever gave a damn about and even then it was a fleeting affair. Before I began the great treasure hunt for the album, I couldn’t recall a single song I could even remember the name of but as with all great quests, it began with a story…

I was at The Marquee one evening — this was in the period when it had moved to Charing Cross Road from Wardour Street, sometime in the late 80s I guess — and bumped into my pseudo friend Ray Zell who was out with Larry (Miller) from the band. I was drunk. Ray was more drunk than I and Larry, presumably unused to the % of alcohol in UK beer, was more drunk than both of us put together twice over.

I said hi to Ray, Ray introduced me to Larry. I told him I really liked their album and Larry eyed me up and down a while before announcing;

“Wow. I could make a great coat out of your hair.”

Which is only odd because it wasn’t like Larry didn’t have enough hair of his own if he was lacking in the wardrobe department.

Still, it always made for a good story and last night while we were out shopping for ‘prom shoes and accessories’ (not something you would catch Larry Miller doing on a Tuesday evening) my small person pointed out a girl in the street with insane hair — hair that could only have been created by psychedelics and glue —so I pulled it out of nowhere to give it an airing myself:

“I could make a great coat out of that hair, Hoss.”

And so that particular legend found a new lease of life. When everybody had gone to bed, I pulled out Heaven Or Hollywood just for the sake of old times and decided the world needs more bands like Uncle Sam, now more than ever.

Why? Because whether we admit it or not, we miss MC5 more than we know or care to admit.

The album eases itself open with a slick, greased up hand that could snake its way in anywhere: Live For The Day reminds me of Lords of the New Church on a day when they could give less of a fuck than all the other days on which they couldn’t give a fuck either. Maybe it’s the song title that makes it so. Regardless, if you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into by the time that’s over, there’s little hope for your soul.

Actually, if you didn’t know what you were in for by the album cover alone, you were lost already. It became something of an odyssey when Heaven or Hollywood was released to get the ‘real’ version of the album — the one featuring the girl with no pants and the straight-razor, leaving no doubt as to what she had been doing. Other (read: censored) versions of the album featured either a hard to remove sticker or a pair of pants. I’m not sure which is worse but it matters not. I had a good network and knew my record shops. The version I have here is the real deal that cost me an arm and a leg.

And then The Gods cried “Commercial Suicide” because if there’s one way to get your product banned rather then noticed, it’s like that. We knew from that very first spin we were enjoying a band with a limited lifespan at best. There was no need for them to make it even harder on themselves but I have to admit, it was fun at the time.

Anyway, Heaven or Hollywood continues in much the same way… as does their follow up album Letters From London. For completists, I believe there’s a third album called Fourteen Women, 15 Days but even I had burnt out by then.

Is there a sweeping ballad to make you cry on any of these releases?

No. We don’t do ballads around here. Only songs that sound like you’ve ingested so much of your drug of choice, you can’t remember if you’re still in the band let alone get off the sofa to make it to rehearsal.

Anyway, the reason the world needs more bands like Uncle Sam right now is for kids (I use the term loosely — anything up to 35 is included) to get it into their heads that you don’t need a Def Leppard scale production to make an album.

Sometimes it really is OK to not give a fuck if you dropped a note, sang out of tune, skipped a chord, weren’t paying attention… and it’s OK because your job — your one and only job — is to tell the world what you’re thinking or how you feel, right now.

Like it says in the small print, an attitude is a terrible thing to waste.

Mark Lanegan • Gargoyle

Over the last decade or so, Mark Lanegan has burrowed his way under my skin like a shamanic MoleMan on a mission from The Gods.

Back in my days of eyeliner and cuban heels, Screaming Trees were a great escape for me – I had some vague concept they were what a ‘real’ alternative band sounded like and at the core of their output was Lanegan’s voice bleeding all over their catalogue like a wounded stallion. By the time they wandered onto my radar and meant it, Seattle bands were gaining momentum all over the place but I was far too `distracted by the majesty that was Mother Love Bone to make Screaming Trees my main squeeze out there.

Twenty seven years (yeah, that scares me too) and ten studio albums later, Mark Lanegan is a different man than he was back then but his voice keeps getting better and better at assaulting what’s left of me in this post apocalyptic world.

Death’s Head Tattoo is a suffocating introduction to Gargoyle but its masterpiece comes just one track later in Nocutrne. These two tracks alone suggest that Lanegan has been forever drowning in a beautiful alternative eighties revival of the best kind: in a bedsit somewhere just outside of Camden where bands like Flesh For Lulu and Balaam and the Angel still reign the night life… or at the very least, as opposite sides of a battered Sony C90 cassette tape. But that’s probably not true no matter how much I would like it to be.

The point being, Lanegan doesn’t sound like anybody else. He’s a Leonard Cohen for a generation of people who might be listening but equally, might not. He creates worlds in a bubble he blew all by himself just as those other bands mentioned did. Splendid replete in his own isolation, the man is free to write whatever he pleases… yet for all the flowers I can throw at Lanegan for his years in the trenches – I’m not wholly struck on Gargoyle.

Those first two tracks blow supernova lightning bolts across the sky for me but it’s not until we hit Emperor — on what is effectively side two in old money—that it picks up again, but then it’s over. Three great songs doth not an essential album make. Three great songs makes a solid EP, but that’s about all.

If you’ve ever been curious about Lanegan’s solo career, there are far better places to start than this… and you should, otherwise you’ll miss out on some very sharp magic. Phantom Radio is all there – as is Bubblegum and I’ll Take Care Of You… but not this and that’s a damn shame.

Ain’t it shitty when you want to love something but can’t.

Cheap Trick • We’re All Alright

The Cheap Trick you see above is the Cheap Trick I know like the back of my hand. It’s the Cheap Trick I have loved ever since the day I formed my first band and my co-conspirator — Steve, who could play guitar while I only talked about it — announced the first song we would be adding to our repetoire was going to be Dream Police. For all my love of music back in 1984, Cheap Trick were largely a band sitting on the ‘to be read’ pile and Dream Police is a tough song to get your head around if you’re not in love with it already. In hindsight, there are many easier songs in Cheap Trick’s early catalogue we could have chosen. Maybe he was testing me. If so, it was a good test because that was the day I became a singer (for real) instead of (fake) guitarist.

That brush with Dream Police could have set me back forever. It would have been so very simple to walk away and denounce Cheap Trick as null and void in my book but I went the other way. I took away his complete eight album collection — for Steve was nothing if not a serious collector — and studied them hard.

They were peculiar looking to say the least. Two cool looking guys up front was a given, however, they were accompanied by a guitarist with a strange array of toys and a drummer who looked like he would be more comfortable behind a desk writing up a police report detailing a bear attack somewhere in North Dakota. It seemed like a joke and yet… these guys could play. Not just play their instruments, but were in serious command of them. This was my first lesson in rock n roll:

Cheap Trick were dangerous because I had underestimated what they were capable of. Their back catalogue wiped the floor with my face.

A few years later, I was knee deep in more music than I knew was possible and Cheap Trick delivered their most commercial and accessible album to date: Lap Of Luxury. It’s an album that doesn’t put a foot wrong and I still grind it out as one of my favourite driving albums. Robin Zander is flawless up front on the mic. Rick Nielsen is absolutely in charge of his guitars. Nothing is getting past Bun E. Carlos at the back there and most importantly for me were the talents of Tom Petersson. I’m not much of a bass-afficiando unless we’re talking funk but Tom is different. Without Tom (and as is perhaps torchlit by the few albums he didn’t appear on), Cheap Trick lose their groove.

Having established my love of the band, let’s fast forward to more recent memory. Any new album is a good album when in comes to Cheap Trick but last year they released Bang, Zoom, Crazy… Hello and it was fucking wonderful. This week, they released We’re All Alright and that’s fucking wonderful too.

What’s pretty much unreported in the world of rock, is that Cheap Trick are seeing something of a creative rebirth. Maybe they’re too uncool to write about with gusto. Maybe they’re old news. Maybe nobody is listening anyway. Maybe it’s cooler to point a finger at the quirky antics of Fall Out Boy than at the father figures. Who knows.

I know. If you’re consuming music via what you’re fed via viral adverts instead of making some time to listen with those things that stick out on the side of your head, you may as well stick yourself back in front of MTV twenty years after it became irrelevant.

Unlike many bands a few years down the line, Cheap Trick appear to have wanted to make this album because they still have something to contribute. I’m a huge Kiss fan (to the core) but Kiss haven’t put a Kiss album out since 1977. There’s a lot of songs and albums I can buy into as a fan but actual Kiss albums as we wanted them? 1977. I can say the same of Aerosmith. The last great Aerosmith album for me was Draw The Line — which also happened to be 1977. Such is not the case with Cheap Trick.

Cheap Trick have consistently released Albums Of Value and never failed me with their enthusiasm for The Song. As I sit here today (with nobody really knowing why Bun E. Carlos is not in the band at the moment, but he is really) this is one fantastic sounding group. We’re All Alright sounds like Cheap Trick mean serious business. Hell, they’re starting to sound like they did in the 70s again and are coming out swinging with Big Gloves Loaded With Horseshoes to remind those who may have forgotten. Coming so soon on the back of last years Bang, Zoom, Crazy… Hello, the future looks full of gift horses strapped to a sleigh.

Time has taken its toll on Zander’s voice for the better. It rasps a little where it used to soar but the range is intact and it’s given the band a rougher edge that I really like because I’ve grown older with them. You can hear it on Like A Fly. And Tom? He’s still doing the thing I need him to do. He’s the stage that Rick stands on throughout Radio Lover and the cover of Roy Wood’s Blackberry Way. But I’m not going to spend a whole review sectioning the band into their component parts when this is one group of guys who are anything but.

Cheap Trick. Perhaps the only rock n roll band left in the world who matter — and we’re all alright with that.