=====================================================[October 5, 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 Reto Koradi David Landgren Tim Mohr P. Nina Ramos Scott F. Williams Address all comments, subscription requests, etc. to gajarsky@pilot.njin.net ============================================================================== 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 |-. `------------' | `------------' REVIEW: The Goats, _No Goats No Glory_ by Martin Bate REVIEW: Green Jelly, _333_ by David Landgren REVIEW: Sugar, _File Under: Easy Listening_ by Martin Bate REVIEW: Various,_You Got Lucky: A Tribute to Tom Petty_ by Bob Gajarsky REVIEW: The Rake's Progress _Cheese Food Prostitute by Bob Gajarsky TOUR DATES: The Rake's Progress, They Might Be Giants NEWS: New Christmas Release from Oglio Records --- REVIEW: The Goats _No Goats, No Glory_ (Ruffhouse/Columbia) The Goats _Tricks of The Shade_ debut was one of the best hip-hop albums of all time. It was a funny and funky political fairground ride through modern America in the guise of 'Uncle Scams Federally Funded Freak Show and Carnival'. Their live shows were incredible - barely organized chaos with Madd, Swayzack and Oatie rapping over a full live band (which makes its recorded debut here). Then Oatie left....... _No Goats, No Glory_ starts off well with "Wake'n'Bake", one of the best tributes to getting high that I've heard. With its blunted beats, live horns, humorous rap and "Late to bed means late to rise..." refrain, I'm smiling and nodding my head and thinking "Looks like I had nothing to worry about." But as the album progresses I soon start to realize that this isn't the Goats we knew and loved on the first album and my joy turns to dismay. Madd and Swayzack still wreck shit stylistically and lyrically but there's little focus to the lyrics with most of the politics gone with Oatie, and leaving only repeated tales of getting high, claims of how dope they are and err....busting Nazis heads (admirable past-time but here it just comes off as an excuse for some gangsta-style violence). Another big problem is the music. On record the band sound lumpen and dull - the guitars in particular seem to have little life and resort too often to bad rock guitar riffs. And when the live instrumentation is replaced by a more traditional hip-hop backing we get little more than second hand DJ Muggs beats. OK, but nothing new. The biggest disappointment of all, however, is the lack of real substance offered here after the compendium of styles and moods of the debut. Of the 11 tracks listed on the cover, one is a short fairly hypocritical skit, one a nice but almost pointless instrumental, and another an eight-minute slow, beatless trawl through various spoken word samples which completely loses the momentum built up in the aggressive "Mutiny", the energetic Rage Against The Machine style dynamics and jazz inflections of "Rumblefish" and the *very* Souls Of Mischiefy (but thats OK) "Blind With Anger". This is the final straw and things never really recover. In the end we're left with a good rap-with-touches-of-rock mini-album struggling to get out from underneath the extraneous filler added to make a full album. Wait for Oatie's next project, and just buy the singles off this. --- REVIEW: Green Jelly - _333_ - (Zoo) 11 tracks, 32:47 playing time What would happen if extra-terrestrials captured Lemmy and Weird Al Yankovic and conducted genetic experiments banned by the Galactic High Council? I have no idea, but the scum at the bottom of the Petri dish would probably resemble... Green Jelly. The band would like you to believe they are excruciatingly bad. They revel in the fact that _Rolling Stone_ voted them "Musical Lowpoint Of 1993". The story goes that they learnt to play by color-coding the guitar frets. Thus, a song was played 'blue, blue, blue, red, blue, blue, blue...' In any case, they ain't no Eddie Van Halen, but they sure know how to make themselves heard. The opening song on _333_, "Carnage Rules", sets the stage for things to come; high-volume thrashing guitar and Bill Manspeaker yelling 'Don't you know that carnage rules?'. The next song is slightly slower; this time he sounds more like a demented Mike Oldfield on the second side of "Tubular Bells". The fourth song, "Fixation", introduces Kym O'Donnell (a.k.a. Sadistica) to the microphone. Think of a grunge Pat Benatar; you won't be too far off the mark. So far so good, but from this point on, you start thinking about what Rolling Stone wrote, and that maybe there was something in it. The next song is called "Bear Song". Think of Lemmy singing a nursery rhyme ('The bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see'). It's quite hilarious if you're ten. From here, we "Fight" ('fight, fight, fight, fight...'), and then we sing along to "Super Elastic" ('... double plastic'), and then go completely silly with "Jump" ('Kids jump when they're happy, adults jump when they're sad'). Sure. The album draws to a close with "Anthem" ('Sex and drugs and rock and roll', natch). Look for the tip of the hat to Don McLean's only claim to fame: "American Pie". The final song, slated to be the first single is my favorite track on the album. It's called "Slave boy"... sung in true Weird Al style to the tune (more or less), of "Love Shack" by the B-52s. And then, that's it. Just when they start warming up, it's finished. And that's the main problem. If this is all they want to do, it wouldn't have taken much effort to come up with another 40 minutes or so. Most of the songs peak out before the three minutes are up. That's fine with me, but cook up some more to fill up that empty space. To put things into perspective, it's worth understanding how the first album _Cereal Killer_ came about. It turns out that they originally produced a VHS-based extended video clip/album. It wound up selling in excess of 100,000 copies and people started asking for an audio-only version. The second album, _333_, is meant to a bigger and better version and be consumed the same way. I, for one, can't wait to see all the cartoon characters (Marshall Staxx, Cowgod, the mutated rat T.O.A.H, and a cast of, well, dozens) on the cover spring to life. While the music may be somewhat limiting, you have to respect a band that does all the artwork on the album (a la Hard-Ons), makes their own costumes (a la Residents), shoots their own video and so on. In fact, now they are talking about getting comic books published through DC comics, creating their own CD-ROM adventures (Maximum Carnage), producing their own TV show (The Stupid Big Head Show) and pursuing any other avenue that leads to big-time multimedia. But the point is: At 33 minutes, _333_ is too short. So while I agree with the concept, I'd sooner wait for the video game. Or something else. --- REVIEW: SUGAR, _File Under : Easy Listening_ (Rykodisc) Sugar's _File Under: Easy Listening_ is the third installment in Bob Mould's resurrection as an indie god with sales to finally match the critical kudos he's had in the past. _Copper Blue_ was Bob's tribute to the bands that he had influenced over the years and was one of the best albums of '92. _Beaster_ was an often vicious autobiographical set of mood-swings and was one of the best albums of '93. _FU:EL_ is unashamed pop/rock which touches on all the right emotions and, hey! whaddya know! is one of this author's ten favorite albums of '94. Here's ten reasons why : 1. Opener, "Gift", is upbeat Sugar at its best - chopping guitars and thumping drums topped by one of the sweetest, hopeful melodies you could ever want. 2. After the magnificent B-side "Where Diamonds are Halos", bassist, Dave Barbe, gets his first album look-in with the excellent Beatles-with-distortion of "Company Book". 3. "Your Favourite Thing" is the happiest single all year and sounds like the moment you realize you're in love, and makes you sort of sad if you're not. 4. Next up is "What You Want It To Be" which is a bit too Sugar-by-numbers to really impress, but it keeps things ticking over so I can forgive them. 5. "Gee Angel" is a tale of buying a set of wings, finding they're too big and trying to get a refund (!) all set to an upbeat jaunty guitar rock-out. Like "Your Favourite Thing", it cheers up my day. 6. "Panama City Motel" starts off as almost a reprise of _Beaster's_ acoustic opener "Come Around", before going on to evoke the feelings you get when you're not enjoying being away from home, but don't want to go back either. 7."Can't Help You Anymore" is all "woo-ohs" and "do-do-do-doo-do-doohs" and would be a number one hit in a perfect pop-world. 8. "Granny Cool" holds the mirror up to an unnamed Rawk-Star over a guitar riff that reeks sarcasm. 9. "Believe What You're Saying" is simply a beautiful acoustic love song. 10. "Explode and Make Up" sounds like slow Dinosaur Jr. with Neil Young on vocals and crackles with the knowing inevitability of how relationships work. Why am I even writing this ? You all know how good Sugar are by now, right ? --- REVIEW: Various Artists, _You Got Lucky: A Tribute To Tom Petty_ (Backyard Records) Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers first started producing Southern rock at the tail end of the disco era. A tribute to their music has been presented on the new compilation album, _You Got Lucky: A Tribute to Tom Petty_. As is the norm on compilations, the album goes through a series of valleys and peaks; some of the tracks linger along listlessly. However, there are a few points which make the album shine. Tim Rutili of Sub Pop's Red Red Meat, under the pseudonym of Dexter Methoropham, offers up a chillingly faithful version of Petty's "Southern Accents"; Cincinnati's Throneberry comes through on "Here Comes My Girl" and aMiniature rocks in "Century City". Backyard Records is an offshoot of the Scotti Brothers label which is geared towards releases of alternative artists. The Petty tribute album is the result of a collaboration between Backyard and Alleged Records, whose original idea was to have Truck Stop Love record a Petty cover and eventually grew to include many of America's best independent rockers. In conclusion, this compilation will be best appreciated by those fans who are into independent releases and fans of Petty's very early sound; the more refined sound doesn't fit well into this compilation. Track listing: Everclear - American Girl; Engine Kid - Breakdown; Throneberry - Here Comes My Girl; Nectarine - Even The Losers; Truck Stop Love - Listen To Her Heart; Silkworm - Insider; Loud Lucy with Louise Post - Stop Draggin' My Heart Around; Edsel - You Got Lucky; Punchdrunk - Nightwatchman; Fig Dish - Don't Come Around Here No More; aMiniature - Century City; Dexter Methoropham - Southern Accents --- REVIEW: The Rake's Progress, _Cheese Food Prostitute_ (hifi) Has it really been 20 years since the Ramones, New York Dolls and Blondie called New York home? Why has there been such a drought of good bands, with only a few such as Sonic Youth and Helmet breaking out from the Big Apple? I can't answer these questions, but in the spirit of the radio-friendly pop-rock of the Spin Doctors, New York is offering up another tasty palate of music, _Cheese Food Prostitute_, by the five man band known as the Rake's Progress. The Rake's Progress sound as if they've been practicing the 3 R's. These 3 R's don't include reading, writing and 'rithmetic, but the influence of three of my own favorite acts - the (now defunct) Rainmakers, early R.E.M. and the (younger) Rolling Stones. Rake's Progress define their own music in terms of "alternative soul", which also bears some similarities to Cracker. But this *isn't* Cracker soul, or "Low", even though lead singer Tim Cloherty wants you to "Sell me something, get me high" on the leadoff track, "You Must Be on Drugs". Incorporating a touch of the Manchester madness with some old time rock and soul yields a good time on this track. The five piece band take their name from a series of etchings by William Hogarth, which depicts a wealthy young man who squanders his inheritance on wine, women and song and eventually winds up penniless in an insane asylum. At a recent performance in New York City, the Rake's Progress played more than 20 songs (their E.P. highlights only six of them) including a cover of the Clash's "Seventh Stranger"; they have been known to throw in other unusual cover selections as well. Although this E.P. is on the independent hifi (yes, in lower-case) label and might be hard to track down, it's easily worth the effort. The band will also issue a full-length release next March on Almo. For now, however, I can't take _Cheese Food Prostitute_ out of my disc player, and if you like irresistible, intelligent hooks, I bet you won't be able to either. --- The Rake's Progress tour dates are as follows: October 6, New York, Brownie's October 7, Philadelphia, Silk City October 11, Virginia Beach, Bayou (with Seed) October 13, Raleigh (NC), Brewery (with Seed) October 15, Augusta, GA (with Seed) --- The quirky They Might Be Giants have a "real" band behind them and are touring in support of their new album, _John Henry_. Here are the October tour dates: October 15, New Haven (CT), Palace Theatre October 16, Red Bank (NJ), Count Basie Theatre October 18, Washington DC, Liszner Auditorium October 21, Boston, Orpheum Theatre October 22, Oneonta, Gym SUNY/Oneonta October 23, Philadelphia, Tower Theatre October 25, Northampton (MA), John N. Green Theatre October 27, 28, 29, 31 New York, Irving Plaza Future tour dates include Providence, Buffalo, Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis, San Diego, San Francisco and Denver. More details as we get them... ---