Holiday Music Gift Guide: Same Old Song (12/8/09, Boston Phoenix)

Most music fans can probably be forgiven, at this point, for being doubting Thomases at the alleged demise of the major-label music industry. After all, wasn’t last year supposed to be the final hurrah for any kind of box-set bonanza? Wasn’t the death knell for the super-album event already rung last year, and the year before, and the year before that?

The truth of the matter is far less dramatic: as every year piles up, there is just more and more product for the music biz to package up in heat-shrinked plastic wrap for us, the music consumer. And don’t let those dire sales figures mislead you — music has become a 24-hour soundtrack to our civilized existence. Smart phones, iPods, what-have-you: they are just more ways for us to be listening to music in more places at more times than ever before. If that means that there are no multi-platinum guarantees anymore for mainstay artists, it also means that new artists are promoting their shiny new wares in an ever more crowded marketplace.

A good analogy for the reissue business is the end of the 1999 film Being John Malkovich, wherein an elderly group seeks out a way, every generation, to enter a younger portal, thus living forever. Substitute the group of old codgers in this analogy with, say, old codgers like the Rolling Stones and Neil Young (both of whom are midway through a multi-year CD remaster campaign of their back catalogue) — the challenge for the old guard, then, is to find access to this younger portal. Whether with Rock Band or movie soundtracks, older artists are clinging on to dear life with a tenacity not seen in previous pop-music generations. As rock and roll enters its (ulp!) seventh decade, the backlog has started to pile up. We see this not only in lavish remastered reissues of albums that have been released a million times before, but with the remastering of albums that are not that old to begin with.

In fact, the culture of remastering and reissuing has become so commonplace as part of the music-buying experience that a new CD hasn’t really succeeded until it has had an official victory lap reissue as a “deluxe edition,” replete with bonus tracks. If this seems like a desperate move on the record industry to dredge the last drop of capital out of, say, the most recent releases by acts like Bat For Lashes and Lady GaGa (both of whom have recently hit the shops with two-disc reissues of albums that are less than a year old), it can also be seen as a windfall for music fans, as we are courted by musicians with a continuous opening of the vaults, an audio fire sale with no end in sight.

Can you even remember a time when artists would release albums with no enticing trinkets attached? If you are a fan of older music, it is no longer a matter of “I wonder if they will ever remaster this classic record?” — now it’s more like, “Wow, 10 of my favorite artists are remastering their entire catalogues with bonus tracks and slamming sound — what furniture can I sell to buy them all?” If you are a dedicated music fan, start thinking about a pre-holiday yard sale. (Just remember to hang on to your CD shelves.)

Back on the Autobahn
If there is one act in recorded music history most deserving of a digital audio makeover, it would have to be German synth pioneers Kraftwerk. Behold this year’s line of factory showroom reissues: starting with their seminal 1974 ode to smooth driving and human automation, AUTOBAHN ($18.98), cruising through the is-it-irony pan-Euro optimism of 1977′s TRANS-EUROPA EXPRESS ($18.98), and eventually landing at the austerity of 2003′s TOUR DE FRANCE ($18.98), these eight remaster jobs are wunderbar ear candy. There are no bonus tracks, but there is a level of audio clarity that really does a massive service to these wide-open tracks, thanks to the remaster job done by the band itself at their own Kling Klang studio. Allow yourself to submerge into the luxuriant synthetic bath of European decadence that is Trans-Europe Express‘s “Hall Of Mirrors,” or the frictionless forward motion that is the seemingly endless title track on Autobahn, and you are listening to Exhibit A of why remasters exist in the first place.

In many cases, remasters exist because an artist wrested control of master tapes and was given permission to give fans the deluxe versions of albums that they always deserved. Robert Fripp’s mad prog creation King Crimson is finally getting the rollout it deserves, now that Fripp has shifted the KC oeuvre to his own Discipline Global Mobile, and away from the cold dead grasp of EG Records. The initial trio of releases, double-disc (or triple, if you include the DVD included in the ultra-special editions) editions of IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING ($24.98), LIZARD ($24.98), and RED ($24.98), is a phenomenal start. The Court job is itself a revelation: in addition to a competent remaster and the expected bonus tracks (BBC sessions, studio outtakes, live tracks) is a remix of the album overseen by Fripp himself that is literally jaw-dropping in its widescreen lush richness. Even the most die-hard Crimhead will be bowled over by the layers of sonic phantasmagoria brought out into the light in this new edition — the album closing title track has never sounded this mellotron-tastic and vibrant.

Odd fellows
Another mellotron-laden 1969 long-player getting the deluxe treatment this winter is David Bowie’s SPACE ODDITY ($24.98). Initially a flop of a record attached to what was seen at the time to be a novelty hit for the erstwhile David Jones, the album is one of rock’s earliest reissue successes, as it only landed on the charts when it was re-released in 1972 in the wake of Ziggy Stardust. The album proper is a schizo affair fitting of an artist who would soon be known for his multiple personalities: if the title track is prog space folk, the rest runs the gamut from string-laden balladry (“Letter to Hermione”) to epic sci-fi rock (the nearly 10-minute “Cygnet Committee”) to “Hey Jude”–esque hippie shakedowns (“Memory of a Free Festival”). The latter song was split up as A and B sides of a single with a backing band that would eventually become known as the Spiders from Mars, containing the legendary fretwork of master guitarist Mick Ronson. The bonus disc of this new reissue contains those two tracks, as well as a trove of other rarities, including enough BBC sessions that weren’t included on 2000′s Bowie at the Beeb to make you wonder just how much material Bowie is sitting on in his seemingly endless vaults. The gem of the unreleased material is the original version of the Aladdin Sane dream-popper “The Prettiest Star,” recorded years earlier with a very young Marc Bolan moonlighting from his day job in T.Rex to work with his glam-rock rival.

We’re going to guess that Vince Clarke and Andy Bell wore out many a Bowie and T.Rex album on their way to becoming synthpop superstars with Erasure. The reissue of their pinnacle LP, 1988′s THE INNOCENTS ($47.49) is one of the most extravagantly exhausting deluxe jobs ever, comprising not just the album in a pristine master (mega-smashes like “Chains of Love” and “A Little Respect” have never sounded quite this theatrically 3-D) and the expected b-sides, BBC sessions, and live tracks, but an additional DVD with an entire concert as well as a cornucopia of promotional videos andTop of the Pops appearances. A similarly exhaustive treatment is given to the first two long-players by goth warlords Bauhaus, with the release of the “Omnibus Editions” of 1980′s IN THE FLAT FIELD ($24.98) and 1981′s MASK ($29.98). For anyone convinced that the band’s sole contribution to the lexicon of rock resides in the pick-slide-with-delay Halloween-y-ness of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” these two weighty audio tomes stand as a correction. Tight and frenetic grooves fight with desperate, emotionally fraught vocals, colliding in track after track of explosive new wave kicks. “Into the chasm, gaping, we,” intones Peter Murphy in his superhuman bellow in Field‘s powerhouse title track, and it’s an apt if stagey metaphor for the act of digging into the dark delights of these sets, whether the early singles, here finally grouped with their respective albums, or the collection of demos and rarities. The gem here is the release (as a bonus disc with Mask) of the 1981 live set This Is for When, a blazing concert that once collected massive sums for its excruciatingly rare vinyl form, now polished up and proffered to the masses.

Remastered and revisited
In a sense, that is what remastering and reissuing is all about, right? A repurposing of a set of songs that once may have been the dominion only of an underground and rabid fan base, now made more conveniently accessible for a more general audience. Which in part is what makes the recent re-release of Jawbox’s classic 1994 album ForYOUR OWN SPECIAL SWEETHEART ($12) all the more interesting. This DC post-hardcore troop were the toast of the Dischord indie scene until they jumped ship for the big bucks and bigger production values of major label Atlantic Records. The resulting record is a rare example of an indie group making the absolute most of that grab for the brass ring, as the band’s penchant for chiming dissonance is harnessed in pure rock finesse and a shiny new sense of harmony and song craft. The record was not much of a commercial success, and it has been out of print for years. Luckily for us, the band got back the rights to the master tapes, and it now is back in print on . . . Dischord, with tons of bonus tracks, a tough and tight remaster by Bob Weston (who also, along with Steve Albini, did a bang-up job on the recent remaster for Touch & Go stalwarts The Jesus Lizard), and a refurbished album cover that omits the blurry blow-up doll on the original. Epic tracks like the album’s lead single “Savory” stand out as some of the best indie rock (or “rock,” period) of the ’90s.

This kind of reassessment is ultimately the point of remasters: keeping records alive long enough that they can continue to impact the music of future decades. Whether you think that this is a marvelous smorgasbord for the music consumer or a crass cash-in by artists who don’t have the dignity just to let it go, newer generations of music fans, as a result of music reissues, are far more musically literate and more cognizant of the nooks and crannies of rock’s storied underground than previous generations ever could have been. Album reissues are essentially rock culture’s way of curating the past — one generation’s cult band flop album is a later one’s seminal work of influential brilliance, right? And with that past catching up to us at a rapid pace, what with our accelerating culture, perhaps it’s only a matter of time until every album is essentially a deluxe remastered edition from the moment it’s released. Until then, though, the past will always be filled with pay dirt waiting to be mined for buried gems ripe for reappraisal. Let’s hope we never have to stop digging.

The Jesus Lizard: Live, Paradise, Boston, MA, 11/14/09 (Boston Phoenix)

“Get me something to stop the bleeding!” were the first words to come spilling out of David Yow’s mouth as his recently reunited Jesus Lizard tore into the first song of their triumphant set last Saturday night at the Paradise. And even though that’s just the first line of the song “Puss” from 1992’s Liaralbum, it set the tone for the joyously malevolent pummeling we were in for.

Your correspondent was standing near the bar as the band took the stage, at what he took to be a safe distance from the proceedings. Wrong! By the time Mr. Yow made it to the above-quoted lyric, he had already leapt far enough into the audience that I was suddenly propping his cowboy boot up as he swam across a mass of amped humanity. It’s a safe bet that anyone not in the balcony handled at least one part of Yow’s body at some point.

Any concerns that 10 years of dormancy would have dulled the Lizard’s edge were put to rest approximately two nanoseconds into the set. Somehow, guitarist Duane Denison (who sported a Federal Witness Protection Program–like moustache that I kept expecting to start peeling off his face) has made his mix of rockabilly, jazz, and punk phrasings even more devastating since the band’s apparent demise at the close of the millennium.

The Lizard really are an oddity. In their heyday, their music was dry, sharp, and effectless when every other outfit was drenching its mix in echo, reverb, and affectation. And as intense and brutish as their music was, it was far creepier and more cerebral than the usual straight-ahead rush of punk or metal. Think of them as the sonic equivalent of a drunk led out of the bar long after last call and looking for a fight in the parking lot. David Wm. Sims’s bass lines are just plain mean, and, as always, he flattened everyone with his nimble runs while flashing a thousand-yard stare that betrayed nary a hint of a good time. After the break-up, he became an accountant. Which wasn’t such a stretch — he was and is all business.

A lot of the Lizard’s power owes to Yow’s peculiarly antagonistic stage presence. Fans will recall incidents involving indecent exposure, or violence, or some mixture of the two. At the Paradise, he played it relatively safe. He even kept his shirt on till the final encore, an unusual display of modesty from a man whose genitals I’ve seen more often than I care to detail. This was nonetheless a powerful, visceral set — and in many ways a more musically adept one. When they closed with “7 vs. 8,” a deep cut from 1989’s Head LP, they stretched the ending until it snapped with a psychedelic madness.

For their final encore, they dragged out “Blockbuster,” a mean-spirited tale of violent reprisal from their debut EP, Pure. As the insistent bass line throbbed in tandem with the pounding of Mac McNeilly’s drums, Yow wiggled his ratty jeans down to just above obscenity level and wrapped his T-shirt over his head à la Beavis transforming into Cornholio. He struck a pose that was as goofball as it was Olympian. Meanwhile, the music badgered on in its dark majesty, and I was struck by their balance of the silly, the profound, and the profane, all of it stomped into utter oblivion with a mixture of precision and abandon. As they lurched into “Dancing Naked Ladies” to close the night, I once again found myself hoisting a portion of Yow into the air. Amid the chaos and the clamor, I felt a little sad — not that the show was over, but that this might have been our last chance to carry this sweaty maniac above our heads.

The Jesus Lizard (Boston Phoenix, 11/11/09)

GORY DAYS "There were times when I could get away with fucking murder," recalls David Yow (left). "Smash some guy in the face, kiss the next guy, squeeze some girl's tit, and hit the next guy over the head with a microphone."

They were heady, giddy times: black was white, up was down, and scruffy long-haired drug addicts dressed like John Fogerty were toppling pop royalty on the Billboard charts. The cultural upheavals of the early ’90s rang as a signal that some had grown tired of the pompous, preening megalomaniacal myth of the pop star. This shift had unintended consequences, however, as some of the strangest music of rock’s storied history wound up on a worldwide stage behind a veneer of what sure seemed normal — regular-looking guys and gals creating really, really twisted music. Exhibit A: the charmed career of Chicago-via-Austin art-noise punks the Jesus Lizard, who, reincarnated, come to the Paradise this Saturday.

Lizard mouthpiece David Yow sums up the chasm between his band’s innocent appearance and the demonic demeanor of their music: “Some people did perceive us as dark, or angry, or crazy, or whatever — but we were kind of just . . . normal guys who liked to . . . enjoy stuff.”

One can only imagine what lurks between those ellipses. During the band’s initial run, from their 1989 debut, Pure EP (Touch and Go), to their major-label 1998 swan song, Blue(Capitol), Yow and company became internationally infamous for 1) putting on the most incendiary live shows of any band around; 2) sporting the tightest rhythm section in rock; and 3) having, in Yow, one of the genre’s most perverse (and prolific) minds.

It’s all there on track one of that first EP: even as the delirious horror show of senseless and pointless revenge in “Blockbuster” reaches ludicrous lows (“We’ll nab your kids/ Take ‘em out back on the deck and barbecue their ribs”), it remains swinging and catchy. As psych-guitar flourishes swirl around a taut bass whump, Yow’s litany of tortures-to-come is capped with “Do you think you’d like that?/Do ya, motherfucker?!”

“A lot of the songs were based, lyrically, on dreams that I had,” he explains. “Or nightmares. I don’t know where the more desperate and morbid stuff comes from — maybe if I sought out professional help I’d find out! I’ve got a pretty healthy juvenile sense of humor. My father was really clever and quite the wordsmith, and I think I got that tendency from him — the combination of my love for Scrabble and my love for dirty jokes.”

Yow’s quest for smutty lyrical subversion was matched by the sly, surging machinations of the music behind him. For every instance of balls-out riff rock in their catalogue, the Lizard had a handful of creepy lurchers — disorienting tirades that pounced and stumbled through mirrored halls. Their sound (augmented on record and often live by spartan engineer Steve Albini) was stark, each instrument ringing clear and distinct: Mac McNeilly’s drums, dry and effectless; Duane Denison’s guitar, crisp and cutting; and David Wm. Sims’s bass, the sonic equivalent of a mean drunk who won’t leave the party no matter how many hints you drop. Top it with Yow’s demented caterwauling and you had an intoxicating mix of nausea and adrenaline.

Live, they were a dynamo, and that due mostly to Yow’s unpredictable antics — his wildman weirdness in flailing contrast with the inhuman precision of his band’s attack. This was insane art punk that came after bands like Nick Cave’s Birthday Party but well before modern-day Lizard-esque rafter swingers like Lightning Bolt, Fucked Up, and Pissed Jeans.

“There were times when I could get away with fucking murder,” says Yow. “You know, like, smash some guy in the face, then kiss the next guy, then squeeze some girl’s tit, and hit the next guy over the head with a microphone. Or maybe give the next guy a beer. To me, it all felt perfectly natural.”

One reason Yow could do whatever he wanted was because his band never screwed up. (“Ever,” he adds.) If there’s one problem to having a band with perfect execution, it’s that fans demand that consistency year in and year out. For Yow and company, this pressure started to wear, especially as they tried to branch out. “It’s a weird thing. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. A band like AC/DC are allowed to do what they do and not change, and everyone’s happy. Other bands, if you try to change, the fans don’t care for you anymore. Or if you don’t change, then you’re accused of stagnating.” Although the Lizard never stagnated, by the time they’d grabbed the major-label brass ring with Shotand Blue, it was hard to tell who their audience was supposed to be — they were too bizarre for the mainstream and no longer producing the psychotic maelstroms of their Touch and Go years. In 1999, they quietly disbanded, leaving a generation of millennial noise-rockers to pick from their corpse.

Now that the ’80s nostalgia of the ’90s has given way to the ’90s nostalgia of the fast-ending naughts, the proper audience might finally be in place. Yow warns us not to expect any new albums, however. “I have no desire to write Jesus Lizard songs. But I’ve said ‘never’ before and it has bit me on the butt and made me look like a fool. Let’s just say that it’s sort of been like hanging out with the old girlfriend. It’s cool, I don’t want to fuck her. But, I dunno, she’s kinda hot.”

THE JESUS LIZARD + ANIMAL HOSPITAL | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | November 14 at 9 pm | $25 | 617.562.8800 orwww.thedise.com

The Jesus Lizard: Texas Post-punk (Boston Phoenix, 11/11/09)

Asked how he developed his reckless on-stage persona, Yow credits the lawless and fertile Petri dish that was Texas post-punk. He recalls the “aura of danger” and the shows where there was “a really good chance that you would leave the venue injured.” So in honor of the welts and bruises meted upon a young Mr. Yow in pursuit of rock nirvana, here are three of the Lone Star State’s most fascinating firestarters.

REALLY RED | These early hardcore warriors mixed pure buzzsaw thunder with King Crimson laser-beam dorkitudes powered by the wounded howls of frontman Ron Bond (a/k/a U-Ron Bondage). Check their sole long-player, 1981’s beyond-essential Teaching You the Fear.

NCM (NON COMPOS MENTIS) | Although their discography comprises all of two seven-inch singles and a posthumous compilation track, Dallas’s NCM are one of Texas punk’s most notorious deathdealers. The 1980 “Ultimate Orgasm”/“Twist the Blade” single is a sick amalgam of bubblegum catchiness, breakneck punk, and sheer noise.

PAIN TEENS | Compared to the sarcastic yuks of so much noisy ’90s shock rock (hello, Butthole Surfers!), husband/wife team Scott Ayers and Bliss Blood were refreshingly sincere. Houston’s Pain Teens offered grim explorations of mankind’s psychic horrors set to increasingly experimental rock. Their 1990 masterwork,Born in Blood, mixes the kink of goth with a metallic howl more akin to no-wavers like Lydia Lunch.