=====================================================[September 26, 1994]= __ | __ _ _ ___ | || ___ | __ __ (__ | | | \/ | ____) |___ || |___) |__ (__) | | ___) |___| | | | |___| |___) || |____ The Electronic Fanzine for Cool Folks Like You Editor: Scott F. Williams Internet: Scotty.Williams@launchpad.unc.edu Managing Editor: Bob Gajarsky Internet: gajarsky@pilot.njin.net Contributing Martin Bate Writers Al Crawford Dan Enright Bob Gajarsky Tim Kennedy David Landgren Tim Mohr P. Nina Ramos Scott F. Williams Address all comments, subscription requests, etc. to gajarsky@pilot.njin.net Dan Enright may be contacted at dan@x-perts.scranton.com ============================================================================= Consumable is published by Pathojammic Productions as a service to all who use computers to communicate. All articles in Consumable remain (C) copyright their author(s). Permission for re-publication in any form other than within this document must be sought from the editor or managing editor. ============================================================================= .------------. | Contents |-. `------------' | `------------' Comments from the Managing Editor REVIEW: Buckwheat Zydeco, _Five Card Stud_ - by Dan Enright REVIEW: Jesus & Mary Chain, _Stoned and Dethroned_ - by Tim Mohr REVIEW: Killer Pussy, _Bikini Wax_ - by Dan Enright REVIEW: Jules Shear, _Healing Bones_ - by Dan Enright REVIEW: Warren G. - _Regulate...G Funk Era_ - by Scott Williams INFORMATION: Single Gun Theory to chat online with fans. --- What's coming up in the near future? Consumable Online will be conducting an interview with They Might Be Giants on October 10 for a future issue. If you have any questions for the band, feel free to drop them along. We're still taking results from the "What music from the 80's should be reissued" and questions for Carl Caprioglio, president of Oglio Records, which is best known for their 1980s reissues series. The Echobelly interview will be in an October issue, probably concurrent with the U.S. release of their debut album. I will say this is a *must-see* band live and their performance, together with the music, is fantastic. Plus, tour dates and many more reviews. We'll see you next month. - Bob --- REVIEW: Buckwheat Zydeco _Five Card Stud_ (Island) If you're a fan of zydeco music, be warned: this is not a traditional zydeco album. If you're familiar with Buckwheat's (Stanly Dural Jr.) work then you already know his penchant for incorporating pop music into his writing and arranging. He also uses the recording studio to add sugar that doesn't make it intto his live performances such as strings, percussion and horns. If you like the traditional sound, pursue recordings by Clifton Chenier or Beau Soleil. That stated, this is a good-time, up-tempo, zydeco influnced romp through current musical styles. He's got Willie Nelson's first single "Man With The Blues" - with Willie singing. He's got a gospel arrangement of the traditional song "This Train" with Mavis Staple, he's got David Hidalgo (Los Lobos) adding vocals to the *happy* rockin' "Hey Baby," and the previously unreleased Van Morrison tune "Bayou Doll." These are mostly dancing songs, and they do get your feet a tappin'. Every musical style in the south is here - country, gospel, blues, zydeco, and r&b - combined into a sound that is instantly identifiable as Buckwheat's. While I didn't think this was an outstanding addition to his catalog, and would suggest newcomers listen to his Grammy winner 'On A Night Like This,' it should be included in the collections of serious fans. I would also suggest seeing him live if you want to get a true feel for the energy and power this man and his band generate. --- REVIEW: Jesus & Mary Chain _Stoned and Dethroned_ Influential and original bands often follow career paths like fireworks, particularly in Britain where tastes are notoriously fickle in the independent music scene. Bands break and disappear at alarmingly close intervals. Of course, in many cases this correlates to a lack of growth, whereby the records lose their importance due to monotony. Given these expectations, it is even more remarkable that the Jesus & Mary Chain have delivered one of the year's best albums ten years after they stormed the British music scene with their feedback drenched pop. _Stoned and Dethroned_, their fifth album (excluding two B-side compilations), sees the band stripping down to largely acoustic arrangements, 17 succinct songs dotted with 12-string guitars and tamborines. Far from an enervated unplugged session, the record retains the band's self-proclaimed "sound of speed." The customary Jesus & Mary Chain feel of heat and speed, the lumbering hotrod on a deserted road, is openly cultivated with the over- exposed shots of highways, seventies cars, and band members that decorate the sleeve. Accustomed to bludgeoning their listeners with electric guitars and a sheet of white noise, the Jesus & Mary Chain have perhaps taken a lesson from Ride, who punched holes in their wall of sound for parts of their third record,_Going Blank Again_, and found their songs stood fine even without the enormous noise facade. The Jesus & Mary Chain have gone further, completely jettisoning their trademark electric guitar wheezes for gentle arrangements. The result, sonically, is extremely rewarding: the power and menace and confusion signified by the noise on past albums eminates even more effectively from the thread-bare songs. Never the strongest lyricists, even this department has improved. In the opener, "Dirty Water," Jim Reid slyly questions the gangster ethos so prevalent in rock and rap these days: "Fuck with me and I'll fuck with you/ Isn't that what I'm supposed to do/Kick me down and I will kick you too/Isn't that what I'm supposed to do..." The third track (and first single), "Sometimes Always," uses Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star in a mournful duet. Sandoval's plaintive drawl blends well with Jim Reid's lazy snarling slurs. Sandoval sings "I gave you good and bad/I gave you all I had/I gave but you just threw it back." Then Reid pleads "I won't get on my knees/Don't make me do that please/I went away but now I'm back." The exchange progresses uninterrupted by excessive guitar bravado or needless musical sidetracks. William Reid propels the melody with understated but purposeful guitars, a blend of acoustic and electric sounds. The album remains consistent without blending together. Each song features distinct hooks and textures, so that 17 songs flow by without any tediousness. Themes of reconciliation over confrontation, forgiveness over retaliation, and a sort of humanism seem to inform the album, both lyrically and musically. In "Sometimes Always" Reid's character does finally get down on his knees in order to appease Sandoval. And rather than crank their sound up to Ministry-esque levels and try to one-up the current crop of amp torturers in a macho game of escalation, the Jesus & Mary Chain have stepped from the fray and written an album of pop songs that don't have to howl for attention. The album title may constitute an admission by the Reid brothers that they can no longer compete with the noise-mongers of the 90s. Still, their abdication may be unwarranted as the fromerly-obscured beauty of their songs becomes more transparent. The Reid brothers seem even to have surprised themselves with the success of this low-amplification sound in proving their song-writing skills: the last of three b-sides accompanying the lead single is a re-recording of an old Jesus & Mary Chain title, "drop," using the milder instrumentation that characterizes _Stoned and Dethroned_. A far more satisfying record than the latest offerings from a slew of younger hipsters,_Stoned and Dethroned_ shows that originality is not limited to the trailblazing first record by each new hopeful in the independent scene. Perhaps the album title is not self-depricating at all; perhaps it describes the younger bands who have enjoyed sudden rises during the long tenure of the Jesus & Mary Chain. --- REVIEW: Killer Pussy _Bikini Wax_ ( Sho-Pink/Oglio Records) I didn't catch this band when it released this album back in '83, which is unfortunate because this band has what made the *new-wave* movement so much fun - sarcasm, parody, humor, outrageous lyrics, and quirky song arangements. It opens with a cheesy surf sound-fx then a reverb heavy announcement "Ok you guys, come on eveybody, down on the beach. Surfs up." followed by a beach boys/beach party parody suggesting that before you put on your bikini you better use "Bikini Wax" 'Just a summer blonde? Nobody needs to know, now.../If those black 'n' kincky little hairs don't show, now.../For a muff that's up-to-snuff, you'll never need an axe.../Just leave it to your beaver and BIKINI WAX!" This is the opening song. Next, an up-beat little tune about rough "Boys" 'I need a date!/ I want a mate!/ Well, I don't care who!/ I just want to screw!' With song titles like "Pocket Pool," "Dildo Desire," "Pepperoni Ice Cream," Pocket Pool," "Herpes," "Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage," and "Pump-rama" you get the idea where this disc is (no pun intended) headed. Yes, teenage horniness meets beat crazy syntho-madness. The darker side of the early B-52's. Not for the squeamish (or prudish). Ahh, whatever happened to this kind of music? I'm glad Oglio made this available for the first time on compact disc. --- REVIEW: Jules Shear _Healing Bones_ (Polygram) I was first introduced to Jules songwriting on the _Jules and the Polarbears_ albums. Jules has been writing and recording since the mid 70s yet he never gets airplay or rack space. This is a shame because he is a strong songwriter whose songs have been recorded and performed by other (more well known) musicians while he has remained in the shadows. I think it reasonable to compare him to Paul Weller, John Hiatt, and Bruce Tunkle - not stylisticaly, but as unknown by most except their peers. This disc finds Jules working with a very talented and established group of musicians - Tony Levin on bass (King Crimson/Peter Gabriel), Elliot Easton on guitar (Cars), Rod Argent on keyboards (Zombies/Argent), and Jerry Marotta on drums (countless studio sessions). Rod is also the producer and his touch is evident throughout the session. The production is fairly lighthanded though the lowkey structure of the arrangements allows it to be heard (not distractingly - like is sometimes the case) especially on "By and By" and (the only cover on the album, the Walker Brothers' hit) "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore." The songs themselves are slower in tempo than most contemporary music, showcasing Jules' lyrical composition and capturing a mid 60's pop style - which Jules claims as a major influence. I really liked the acoustic guitar/vocal song "Heaven/Hell" with the lyrics: 'I know a place/Where the poets/Have no words to sell/Is it heaven/Or is it hell - I know a place/Where words can't/Conjure up a spell/Is it heaven/Or is it hell.' The song "Two Friends" which is about having two polar personalities 'They both tell me/What the other one means/Two friends inside of me' that are always at war. Even though it is held in check on the album, I suspect that it is a hard rocker live. That is the overall impression about these songs; slow and smooth, but the potential is there for them to kick loose. They are all strong tunes and it is really hard to pick any - they all stand out. If you like songwriters then check this disc out. If you like rockers then wait and see him perform live, hopefully with this line-up. --- REVIEW: Warren G. _Regulate... G Funk Era_ (Violator/RAL) ** 1/2 "Ho, bitch. bitch, ho. yo, hit da muthafuckin' gat, Nigga!" - Yeah, whatever... I'll admit it, gangsta rap grates my nerves. Those furious cuts that took hip-hop to Senator's desks, mainstream commercial success, and off radio play lists, now sound like the ill bleatings of some corporate funded South Central Planning Board. Exploitative at the very least, the genre flows loaded with predictable all pain/no gain subject matter and fouler-than-thou misogyny. Why? -because it sells... Every once and a while, however, Los Angeles drops something interesting. Witness: Cypress Hill, Domino, and newcomer, Warren G. Debut album, _Regulate... G Funk Era_ is a "soooo funktified" mix of melodic Long Beach ghetto reality and laid-back bass bombs that juxtaposes waving palm trees and faded graffiti scrawl. The rhyme inventor/producer's anecdotes, are sometimes harrowing/ sometimes hilarious. The rough-cut humor warms the album, but turns gangrene with lines like "I knows this/ I blows this/ I'm funky; you stank/ You're a walkin' blood bank/ I'm a jar with my shank." Still, despite the overt gangsta lean, _Regulate..._ is surprisingly easy listening. Wax down your `63 Impala and bump with a trunk o'G-funk. Whereas a few years ago, hip-hop marched to the rhythm of James Brown's "Funky Drummer", the bomb in nine-four has got to be George Clinton. Like fellow rappers, Ice Cube and Coolio, G. pays homage to Clinton and his ensemble of Allstars, incorporating P-Funky elements, adding sorely missed complexity to what could have been just another bland R&B understructure. Eschewing pre-programmed boom for a rollicking live bass, Warren G. brings freshness to a genre that needs to evolve past the confines of base criminality. Still, all points considered, _Regulate... G Funk Era_ arrives late for the mothership connection. What California needs is hip-hop visionaries like De La Soul, Cool DJs like Red Alert, and political prophets of rage like Public Enemy. But then, what does this East Coast suburbanigga know, anyway? It's a G-thang, I wouldn't understand... --- INFORMATION: Nettwerk Records will be having Australia's Single Gun Theory on-line on October 3. The band will appear in Vancouver at the Doppler Computer Store at 485 West 8th Avenue. This will take place from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on the IRC (Internet Chat) channel #SGT. ---