Review: The Bird and the Bee - "Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future"

I can’t help but shake this feeling that there is some underlying sarcasm that pervades the music of the duo The Bird and the Bee. Whether or not they’re being somehow disingenuous, I don’t think that would change my overall opinion of their music, but there is something in their songs that screams Adam West-style camp. While their first, self titled, full length album produced a very successful dance club hit, the destined-to-be-censored lead single “Fucking Boyfriend”, their infectious grooves and layered nu-jazz take was enough to win over a lot of non-believers focusing on some of the more transparent hooks.

The pair is back with their second album, Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future, a title which suggests progress, moving forward; but if that is the expectation here then prepare to be disappointed. While B/B’s first album gained a fair amount of attention not only for Greg Kurstin’s prolific portfolio (having done production work with everyone from The Flaming Lips to Kylie Minogue) but its aloof genre-bending, the pair has apparently decided to take that sound, however originally unique, and run with it.

If you liked B/B’s self-titled record then this isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, and there are plenty of reasons to like this album. As one would expect, Kurstin’s production is virtually flawless, seamlessly mixing in his dynamic beats while highlighting the airy, yet powerfully entrancing voice of Inara George. Unfortunately, the songs waver in effectiveness, and at times almost begging the question of whether there was an intentional effort to alternate good and bad tracks.

For instance, Love Letter to Japan just doesn’t quite work, neither an ode to J-pop nor the more kitschy eastern European club music, yet ambivalent in trying to sound like both and ultimately falling flat. However, this is followed by one of the album’s stronger tracks, the distinctly more indietronica influenced “Meteor” which manages to temporarily persuade the listener to keep going, before funneling into the overwhelmingly laughable “Baby”.

Still, there are a lot of reasons to like this album, as their jazzy sound may yet have some novelty left. The beats and handclaps of “My Love” are reminiscent of Radiohead’s "15 Step" and provide the pounding undercurrent to one of the album’s catchier melodies, further sold by that beautiful voice. “Polite Dance Song” takes after some of the best Ratatat tracks, while “What’s in the Middle” rolls along like a dance song but glows with aspects of space rock. Still, for every solid track there’s a “Diamond Dave” (a masturbatory ode to America’s most famous ex lead singer) or a “You’re a Cold”, which, quite frankly, almost blows the whole deal.

While The Bird and the Bee’s sophomore album may suffer from bouts of inconsistency and the trouble of following in the wake of an album which established such a unique conglomerate sound of jazz, dance, and pop influences, the good moments on Ray Guns ultimately outshine those which make a quick break for cheap pop appeal. But still, here’s hoping we get to find out where else the future takes this band.

You know, besides ray guns.

6/10

Michael Phelps and Ambivalence: The Public Paradox

Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian from any single staging of the games, was recently photographed hitting a bong at a frat party. In the days of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs having taken center stage in the world of sports, the Ricky Williams and Rex Huddlers of that world have taken a backseat. Well, given the brightness of Phelps’ star since his amazing performance at the 2008 summer games, it’s pretty difficult to ignore marijuana’s prevalence in culture, both in sports and outside, at this point.

Recently Chuck Culpepper published a brilliant article in the LA Times deconstructing the issues at hand in terms of Phelps relative guilt in the eyes of Americans. While I will be focusing more on people’s actual reactions from here on out, there are still a number of pieces of speculation in Culpepper’s article which prove invaluable to an informed discussion on that topic. But for the moment, the question remains: have the public and professional reactions to Phelps’ behavior been appropriate?

As Culpepper points out in his article, marijuana is a very prevalent drug in sports, appearing “this week in the suitcase of an arrested college basketball point guard at an airport, and this winter in the possession of a former Dallas receiver, and a Seattle linebacker, and a Florida State receiver, and a retired NBA forward/center, and amid a Japanese sumo wrestling scandal if you can believe such, and in November with a New York Jets defensive end, and last spring in that bellwether moment on talk radio, when Dallas Mavericks forward Josh Howard readily said he enjoyed an inhale.”

This raises two questions: 1) how prevalent is marijuana use on the whole, and 2) what does this do to the traditional perception of marijuana’s mutual incompatibility with physical and intellectual skill? For those who have even casually indulged, or have been around those who do, the answers are fairly simple: 1) very, and 2) it doesn’t change perception much, because only the incredibly ill-informed actually believe in that mutual exclusion. However, except for the most unabashed drug users, would anyone really feel comfortable with someone of the stature of Phelps making no attempt to hide, or perhaps even flaunting, such behavior?

Just under a year ago, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart hosted a party at his Chanlder, AZ home comprised mostly of students from Arizona State University, some under 21. Now while Leinart did provide alcohol to underage kids, this would seem less of a perceptual big deal than being caught smoking marijuana. Leinart wasn’t that far removed from college himself, and underage drinking isn't exactly a rare occurrence at ASU. However, after pictures of the incident leaked out onto the internet depicting him, among other things, holding a beer bong for one of the partygoers, it ended up costing Leinart his chance at the Cardinals’ starting QB position, with coach Ken Wisenhunt deriding his lack of leadership.

Now of course that move allowed Kurt Warner a clear path to the starting job, and that seems to have worked out alright for Arizona. But the question remains, did Leinart deserve to have all of the hard work he had done erased simply because of one poorly conceived party? And while I am sorry to disappoint, this is something I’m not going to take an opinion on, but it does provide a precedent for the Phelps case.

While I don’t know if Leinart's actions deserved to cost him an athletic opportunity, I do think it is a worse infraction than Phelps’. Both cases turned out to be well publicized, with pictoral evidence to match. Both cases fail the ‘role model’ litmus test, an issue I will return to. But the difference between them is that while ultimately Phelps’ actions can hurt only himself, providing alcohol to a mass of minors is a much more dangerous proposition.

All that being said, publicly, both cases played out exactly as they should have. I don’t know how an incident such as Leinart’s affects the inner workings an NFL clubhouse, but, as an employee under contract -- one who has the burden of being a public figure -- it is clear that he is held to a standard of conduct that most people are not, and his coach has the right to make whatever decision he feels is best for the team. As for Phelps, one of his sponsors, Kellogs, has already dropped him, citing that smoking a bong is not consistent with their image. And while there are probably people out there with the munchies reaching for that box of cereal who would beg to differ, the fact is Kellogs made a business decision well within their legal rights.

Neither of these cases, of course, are so cut and dry. Each one has their own nuances that make them a unique scenario. However, in terms of public perception, they are lumped into the category of ‘athletes behaving badly.’ So in terms of public perception, complex, multi-faceted answers simply aren’t an option. What exactly is the US Olympic Committee supposed to say and do regarding this matter? How does anyone deal with the paradox of agreeing that role models should not be seen smoking marijuana because of those role models’ effect on the young and impressionable, while understanding casual use is prevalent and relatively harmless; at least no more so than other, legal, vices?

Culpepper muses that an appropriate response on the part of Phelps’ sponsors might be something like “We realize he's a role model. We don't believe children and adolescents should smoke marijuana. We also realize Phelps is an adult. We recognize that adults often smoke marijuana without being harmed. We also recognize that because he's a role model, we support his attempt not to repeat this.” But of course, this is too straightforward, too honest, and not enough of a soundbite for public consumption.

So, Phelps financial supporters have little choice but to stand behind him or leave him behind, not fool around philosophizing on grey areas. While this incident has shown that public perception of marijuana has moved far beyond the days of Reefer Madness, it has also pointed out that, at least with supposed role models and public entities, people are not ready to accept ambivalence. We can handle it when we learn of the latest evidence against Barry Bonds, because every shred of it makes him more guilty, and it’s comforting to distinguish between right and wrong, guilty and innocent.

What we can’t handle is when there isn’t such an easy answer, when there is no good and evil, no clear right or wrong.

The Continuing Contract Saga of Manny Ramirez

For someone (such as myself) who plain just doesn’t like Manny Ramirez, the further the Major League Baseball offseason progresses the more enjoyable it becomes. There have been all sorts of rumors circulating about the oft-disgruntled slugger since he first declined a two year 45 million dollar contract offer from the Dodgers early in the free agency period. But every single one of the rumors -- according to those teams supposedly connected to Ramirez -- has turned out to be completely fraudulent.

Last offseason, Ramirez’ agent, the infamous Scott Boras, pulled off the ultimate heist in securing another client, Alex Rodriguez, an even better contract than the one he opted out of to become a free agent. The trick in this case was that after wriggling free of a ten year 250 million dollar contract right in the middle of it, Boras was able to get the Yankees to up the ante for another ten years and about $275 million, with no apparent competition willing to go anywhere near those figures. The Yankees declined to call Boras’ bluff and, in effect, bid against themselves.

Of course, we all know that the laws of MLB economics don’t apply to the Yankees, so there really should be no surprise there. However, other teams took note of the outcome of the A-Rod contract saga and, given the tightening economy, are simply refusing to play Boras’ brand of hardball. This has led to the incredibly intriguing standoff between Manny Ramirez and the Dodgers.

While some have made the interesting assertion that teams publicly disavowing their connection to Ramirez (and thus keeping his price down) might be an indication of collusion among the MLB owners, this has no doubt been a bizarre offseason, and it isn’t exactly true that no other teams want Ramirez on their ballclub. There is no one in baseball who actually believes a bat like Ramirez does not make their team better. However, this isn’t a question of not wanting Ramirez so much as not wanting him at the price and length of commitment he and Boras are asking.

There are a number of factors which have been working against Ramirez securing the four to six year, 25 million dollar per year contract he was originally seeking. The first, as I have already mentioned, is the struggling economy. The second is that, before the economy decidedly turned south, there was already a distinct movement among MLB executives favoring financial flexibility. A number of teams had been the victims of contracts which never made sense for them in terms of length of the deal, and had been burned for it. The names Chan Ho Park, Darren Dreifort, and Kevin Brown should ring familiar for Dodgers fans.

Unlike the Yankees, who are able to eat money and withstand a bad deal or several (see: Carl Pavano, Jason Giambi, Jaret Wright, etc.) most teams cannot afford to commit to paying a single player a large portion of their operating payroll for a long period of time, as such deals don’t often work out in the team’s favor in the long run, particularly with veterans on the wrong side of 30. And that is essentially where the Ramirez standoff lies: caught between the Dodgers’ perceptive refusal to give a player more than the market dictates, and an agent working under an antiquated notion of what that market is.

In a market of four years ago, Ramirez would have easily gotten his $25 million per year over the long haul, and by that sixth year whatever team was employing him likely would have been paying a 42-year-old player and getting little to no return. Teams have gotten wise and are refusing to lose out over the long term for a short term payoff. Especially for an NL team, signing the already oafish-fielding Ramirez to a long term deal would be ludicrous, and it should be no surprise, given all the other mitigating factors, that teams are staying clear of Ramirez (or at least refusing to best the Dodger’s initial offer) and he is so far without a job.

The great irony, and humor, in this situation is simply that if Ramirez had played the good guy, continued to hit and endear himself to the city of Boston, the Red Sox likely would have picked up his 20 million dollar options for the 2009 and 2010 seasons. Instead, Ramirez behaved poorly -- to say the least -- to ensure that this would not happen, believing he would get a better (and longer) deal on the open market. Of course, maybe this was not Ramirez, but Boras playing the devil on Manny’s dreadlocked shoulder. In either case, someone made an incredible misread of the economic situation and market for Ramirez, and here’s guessing he ends up taking a variation of the Dodger’s initial offer with added incentives or an option year thrown in to save face -- slightly more money than he would have received in Boston, but having taken a giant PR hit in the process.

For someone who really doesn’t like Manny Ramirez, it’s been quite satisfying offseason. Whether it be him brooding that no one will sign him, the fact that Ramirez is the victim of his own ego, or the continued deconstruction of the invincible aura of Scott Boras, there are enjoyable twists in every aspect of this story.

Review: 2/1/2009, Thorns of Life @ The Crepe Place, Santa Cruz

Jawbreaker broke up in 1996. I was 11 at the time, and though I am sure there were a number of 11 year olds who listened to Jawbreaker and who may have even been aware of the band’s significance in the formation of pop punk -- before that term implied something negative -- I was not one of them. Those kids were and are, much, much cooler than I. What I did witness firsthand, being introduced to the band by a man who to this day bares a JAWBREAKER tattoo in the one and only typeset used on their album covers, was the evolution of the band’s mythos from also-rans who unequivocally sold out, to veritable gods to fourth generation pop punksters.

All that being said, it’s still hard to qualify Blake Schwarzenbach’s place in music in a broader context. On one hand, the man is revered so intensely in a certain scene, largely emanating from the Gilman Street project and the bay area in general, that few musicians from any scene have earned a similar collateral of banked credibility. His second band, Jets to Brazil, released one album which sounded suspiciously like Jawbreaker, and a latter two which didn’t and were almost universally panned, and what’s impressive is that this did nothing to taint the man’s latent, but rising underground appreciation.

During a time in which Schwarzenbach was active and touring with a band few really liked, he actually got more street cred. That’s a hard feat to pull off.

On the other hand, Blake’s influence is so restricted not just to one genre of music, but one sub-genre of music, that if you don’t idolize him than you likely don’t know who he is at all, nor have heard either of his bands. In many ways, Schwarzenbach’s career has served as a tribute to esotericism and all the paradoxes that come with it, a fact further illustrated by the notoriously snarky web comic Nothing Nice to Say character named after and drawn in his image. But hey, at least we know paradoxes are something he himself can comprehend, considering that he has spent most of his time post Jets teaching English at New York’s Hunter College.

These were the sorts of things I was thinking about as I was walking the block from my house up to the Crepe Place, a small bar and restaurant in Santa Cruz, California where Thorns of Life, Blake Schwarzenbach’s newly formed band, were to play the last of a run of three shows on the west coast. And while I have devoted all my words thus far to him alone, it needs to be noted that Thorns is not carried by him alone, and is, essentially, a supergroup filled out by two other well known members of the Gilman Street Project: drummer Aaron Cometbus, best known from Pinhead Gunpowder and the Cometbus zine; and bassist Daniela Sea, who portrays the character Max Sweeney on the Showtime Series The ‘L” Word, and is a former member of the queercore band Cypher in the Snow.

As I approached the front door of the Crepe, I asked one of the girls at the front what time Thorns of Life was due to go on, to which she replied that she thought they were on already, but “the headliner goes on at 11,” which was clearly misinformed after peeking a glance through the front windows. I waited outside for a few moments until the opener finished their set, choosing to avoid the steamy interior of the bar until I had to. And it was then that Blake walked by me, carrying some gear. In my younger days I would have felt compelled to say something to him, but after having met one too many punk rock ‘celebrities’ at Warped Tour and other shows over the years, I figured that this moment was akin to a part in City Slickers where Curly explains the meaning of life to Billy Crystal; between the man’s near mythical stature among bands I grew up with and his soulfully poetic lyrics, there is absolutely no conversation I could see engaging in that would live up to my expectations of who this person is supposed to be. But seeing Blake Schwarzenbach lugging his guitar around outside of a cramped bar on a crisp night as he likely did on Gilman Street in 1989? Now that was perfect.

Between bands I made my move, for the first time in my twenties shoving myself into a small but dense mass of people surrounding the area of the floor of the bar that served as the house show-style stage. Purely by accident I ended up on the audience’s left, near the front, a mere ten feet or so from Blake. While Santa Cruz has a reputation as a city with a thriving music scene, most of the crowd looked to be far younger than I, making me wonder how many people there really understood the significance of and context behind what they were about to see. The previous evening the band had actually played at 924 Gilman Street, and despite their promise that since this was the last in their run of shows they would, according to Blake, “leave it all on the floor,” I couldn’t help but wonder whether I should have made the drive up to Berkeley the night prior.

However, after attaching his set list to an overhead fan, Thorns of Life started out their set hot, and as soon as the first riff of the first song was played, everything else was lost in the moment. Whoever the crowd was, and whatever their familiarity with Blake’s career, there was not a soul in it who was not bobbing their head, slapping their thigh, or tapping their toe. The songs themselves were certainly more Jawbreaker than Jets, which, considering the lineup would be expected, but they rang with a kind of urgency not derived from youthful angst, but from the kind of road weariness of having been there, seen it all, taken a break, and now excited to be starting over again. Many of the songs started out with Blake and accompanying downstroked guitar similar to “You’re the One I want” from Jets’ final album, but sans the cheap pop appeal or overly emotive interlude. If you want to think in terms of Jawbreaker, more “Kiss the Bottle” than “Boxcar”.

In my entire life of going to shows, I’ve never seen a noteworthy band at an actual house show, but it was very fitting that the band chose the Crepe Place as their venue, mimicking one: something they actually did for their very first show a couple months ago. With the band playing on the floor, the entire set, which Thorns motored through with incredible energy and focus, took on the feel of not a performance, a ‘we play you listen’ experience, but a commutative one. It’s the closest most of us will ever come to seeing Jawbreaker in someone’s basement. And by the last song the crowd came alive with some old time good-natured pushing and shoving among the masses, the band bobbing along in rhythm, and everyone, well, in the moment. Cometbus provided the most energy from the trio on stage, smacking the skins with an effusive and unbridled joy, and though I couldn’t actually see Daniela, her bass lines were more than competent. Hey, that’s a house show, right?

By the end of the set, I wasn’t exactly sure what I had seen. I didn’t know any of these songs, and the enigma of Jawbreaker was never something I had experienced firsthand, anyway. However, as I was walking the block back to my place, I realized that the last hour had passed in the blink of an eye, and, like a man who claims to have just had a profound religious experience, I couldn’t help but shake the sensation that I had just been a part of something very special. While I may have missed the days of bands like Jawbreaker playing backyards and basements, for a brief few moments I was transported back into that time; I didn’t know the songs and this wasn’t exactly the kind of music I really listen to nowadays, but it didn’t matter. For that set, I was a part of something which, while probably not big enough to live past me, is still bigger than me, and I will be one of the very few who can say “I was there.”

Jawbreaker