The previous parts to this project were mostly about pulling apart what other people said about fIREHOSE the band and the fIREHOSE albums. My opinions, although mostly positive, were based off of putting others down. To be more constructive, I decided to venture to the heart of the album and to the heart of its creators.
I found a Crawford, E in Pittsburgh, PA in the White Pages. I wrote a bunch of questions about everything from getting input into the Watt and Hurley machine, his new power trio in Pittsburgh, Pirates fan? Penguins fan? Steelers fan? I got my wiretapping device all hooked up and I called. Here’s a transcription.
SWR: Hi, is Ed there?
Woman: Who?
SWR: I’m looking for Ed Crawford.
Woman: He doesn’t live here.
SWR: Oh. Sorry.
Feeling defeated, I sent out a bunch of e-mails to variations of Gmail users with the words ED CRAWFORD FROM OHIO. I put periods all over the place. I had dashes. Some came back as MAILER DAEMON, and I got 2 responses from Eds who weren’t the EdFROMOHIO, just Eds that either had the last name Crawford or were Eds not named Crawford but happened to live in Ohio. One guy told me to ask Watt for Crawford’s information. I did that, but haven’t heard back yet. Now I’m realizing Crawford’s new power trio doesn’t even have a website or MySpace so how inclined is he to have a Gmail account? He probably has Hotmail or AOL or something equally ancient. Dammit.
In the spirit of Crawford, I should have bought a car, packed up my shit and drove to Pittsburgh and knocked on Ed’s door. But I don’t have a car or money for a car. Well, that’s how it goes.
To leave you with something rather than nothing, here’s a piece of a Mike Watt interview from April 2009. I asked him why he decided to record his 3rd rock opera in Brooklyn.
MIKE WATT:
I thought the best way to prac, I mean you can prac in a prac pad, but you play in front of people that’s the most intense prac (laughing)
So that was the idea.
Make the album in the middle of a tour.
I did that once with fIREHOSE. The 3rd album FROMOHIO, we made it in Ohio in the middle of the tour.
Maybe try that idea with Tony Studio G boss…
used to be the Bass player from Pere Ubu.
A huge influence on me, me and D Boon saw Pere Ubu in 77…78 at the Whiskey, it was a mind blow of a gig for us, man it was a trip.
Thanks Watt.
So there’s another reason it’s called FROMOHIO. The album is actually FROM OHIO, not just Ed Crawford.
My quick spiel on the album:
The lyrics on “Softest Hammer” are some of my favorite Mike Watt lyrics of all time. I love hearing him do backup, or co-vocals with Crawford singing “IT’S ED FROM OHIO!” I think this is the best closing track to any of the fIREHOSE albums. On the whole, the album doesn’t grab me by the throat like Ragin‘ or soothe my fear and disillusionment like If’n, but a good album. “Whisperin While Hollerin’” is one of my favorite Watt tracks and Crawford’s own take on Elizabeth Cotton’s take on “Vastopol” is great. Hurley gets 2 drum tracks, a couple of interesting curveballs and more proof that fIREHOSE like the Minutemen were truly democratic. Mike Watt has the Walt Whitman democratic soul.
According to Jargon Database, which is a cool site, Vastopol means
Open D tuning for a guitar. Supposedly it’s the name when Russian Sailors from the Black Sea city of Sevatopol were in port in New Orleans and the sailors had a guitar tuned this way.
Done. I think I’ll do Flyin’ the Flannel in haiku.
I was sitting in the back of McShane’s car going to see Mission of Burma or going to band prac. I can’t remember which. After bashing Rolling Stone together, Mike asked me if I could write for them, would I? I said I couldn’t write for Rolling Stone because I was too angry not to mention having little abilities as a proper journalist, but now I’m rethinking it. Fuck that shit! I’ve got a keyboard and if that fails, I’ve got pencils and paper. I can write! Or at least out of the lack, I’ll make my song.
Mike: But what if they WOULD publish your stuff? Would you do it?
Me: Fuck yea. I’d love to have a column. I’d call it FUCKO and I’d rant about all the shit that pisses me off. I’d do it under the disguise of albums reviews for the week and I won’t pull any of that clever antiquing bullshit like David Fricke
Now why would anyone write a blog just to get pissed off? Well, 99% of my posts have been positive on this site. Writing about music I like rather than bashing music that has failed me or the human race. It’s pathetic to have a blog just to get angry about stupid shit like the Grammys or Rolling Stone. Unfortunately, that 1% is what killed Jay Reatard, sorry Reatard fans but I stand by my review of Watch Me Fall. So now, I’m going to expand that 1% into something more edible, like 5% or maybe a solid 7. I think the negative should complement the positive and so on and so forth. This is a shitty world, let’s not hide behind Volcano Suns reissues. It’s good to listen to what you presuppose you hate. Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up liking some of it.
So I spent today listening to an album that made every top ten list of any publication that would want to be called cool: It’s Blitz by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
I thought this was a garage rock band. This is not what I expected. And based on a lot of reviews, most people seemed surprised as well. They dropped all guitars for a kindergarten Nine Inch Nails sound. While I admire breaking your own mold, these songs are even less interesting than when they had guitars. The beats are formulaic dance beats that do nothing to improve the song it’s added to. There’s not even an attempt to change them into something worthwhile and interesting. Since I know practically nothing about this, let’s talk about something that I know even less about and bugged me throughout the album: Karen O’s singing.
I don’t believe her.
Off with your head
Dance ’til you’re dead
Heads will roll
On the floor
That’s the way I judge singers. I’m no expert on singing and tone and all that, I just read lyrics and listen to the person singing it and if they truly mean it, regardless of what it’s about, that’s good singing. The above lyrics from “Heads Will Roll” are pretty good. It fits with the theme of this album (at least for the louder songs), which I believe is DANCE AND LOOK COOL rather than ROCK OUT AND LOOK COOL of previous efforts. At least on “Zero,” the opening track, I believe her. She’s stuck up. I can hear her holier-than-thou tone when she sings
Your zero
What’s your name?
No one’s gonna ask you
Better find out where they want you to go
I can hear her saying that exact thing at a party to someone who doesn’t have as cool a haircut as her. Then she laughs hysterically and starts talking about how much she loves New Order more than Joy Division while nursing a Red Stripe. At least I believe her. OK, let’s not get mean.
Being unimpressed with the machine-made dance songs (there are more: “Shame and Fortune” adds guitars but still fails when the overused siren synth takes over, “Dragon Queen” is a retarded Wu-Tang beat that only makes me want to listen to GZA instead of Karen O whispering and clapping), for this album to make everyone’s top ten list, the album must succeed on the softer songs. Critics have argued the soft Yeah Yeah Yeah’s songs are the best the band has ever composed. One is track 4, “Skeleton.” Karen O sounds like a liar. She’s singing about love and her carefully conceived pauses and inflections for the words “Spin the sky Ske le ton me” ruin any chance of me buying into this. The Celtic tune at the end is laughable. An album that already sounds like more machine than man becomes laughable. While masters like Trent Reznor and newbies like Death From Above 1979 give life to their machines, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s bring us back to the hollow synth mainstream of the 80s. And it’s unfortunate because the simple words “Skeleton Me” might be the best lyrics on the album.
“Runaway” may be the only song on the album worth saving, and only the first half is genuine. She sounds like she may have a soul, but then the song loses me when she once again aims for style over substance. The strings at the end don’t succeed in turning this “album turning point” into anything epic. Rather, they reveal to us how hollow the synth and restrained yelping actually are.
I could have supposed a few reasons why I wouldn’t like this album before ever listening to it, but never did I think it would be Karen O’s intensity. For all my hatred, I thought she was energetic and soulful, just misguided. This is not the case on It’s Blitz. I switched over to the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack to see if maybe everything she does lately is as empty as this. It’s not. I hated most of the music while watching the film, but listening to it now, there are a lot of good songs. “Hideaway” is a great song. I believe her. She sings like she’s not carefully manipulating every inflection. There are no intentional awkward pauses in her speech. There’s nothing premeditated in her style. The fun songs are fun. Her yelping is honest and she doesn’t have to sing about dancing to imagine her doing so.
The opening song to the movie, “Igloo,” has more feeling than the It’s Blitz soft songs and she doesn’t even sing any lyrics, she just hums. Listening in comparison, the Karen O and the Kids soundtrack is great. It’s inventive. It’s almost untraceable. It sounds like music that this generation should be making in the 21st Century instead of some manipulated retro bullshit with less soul than James Brown’s dead finger.
I’m worried about us. If this is genuinely good music, who’s to say in 10 years the “new” sound from the underground will be Nu-Metal redu. I’m worried about critics and their souls. I’m worried about children and their hearts. I don’t blame the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, just fucking you, you stupid motherfuckers.
I don’t even know how to begin to explain to you what those above pictures are. I think this is the best movie ever made. It’s called Logorama and I found out about it because of the Academy Awards. Fuckin A, right? It was nominated for best short animated film. Directed by French animation group H5 and yea, it’s America bashing. The W at the end is a little too much, but watching Ronald McDonald shoot the Michelin Man in the head makes up for that. Here it is below for your enjoyment.
Watch it here. Now!
Oh. Umm. To make it about music, the last song is by the Ink Spots. It’s a song called “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.” It’s very good. Yep.
Also- The 2nd time I watched it, I paused it about every 5 seconds to see what I could find. See if you can find an Empire Strikes Back logo, a Cleveland Indian and although not a fan, an American Idiot album cover.
Also Also- I like the nod to Shepard Fairey’s OBEY poster. I wonder if there’s any Ron English nods. I think I’ll have to watch it a 3rd time, thought turning Ronald McDonald into something he ain’t is kinda Ron English already.
Enjoy
