EVERYTHING MUST GO

Steely Dan's EVERYTHING MUST GO, from 2003, their most recent disc, has pretty much sat on my shelf since its release. I saw this tour in Albany, New York in 2003, and it left an itching for the introduced songs from the album, especially, "Things I Miss The Most". I also got a new Steely Dan T-shirt, ("I got the Steely Dan T-shirt!"), and this CD.

But my interest in the CD waned over the subsequent years, and it was not a disc I played much. 1972's CAN'T BUY A THRILL, still sparkles with cheery melody and hooks, and 1974's PRETZEL LOGIC, still caused me to appreciate a dark low cloud hanging over my head, but EVERYTHING MUST GO, moved as slowly as a Monday morning on Tylenol PM. With this successor to the 2001 Grammy winning TWO AGAINST NATURE, I was hoping The Dan would return to a rock-pop roots, say the garage rock meets high art sophistication of 1973's COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY, or maybe a smooth and disturbing KATY LIED, (1975), for a post 9-11 world. But you go back Jack, and do it again. The sound here is similiar to the agreeable but bland light jazz of TWO AGAINST NATURE, which was released after a hiatus of 20 years. After 20 years, most rock acts would be dead, or signed to Ringo Starr's All Star Band.

With EVERYTHING MUST GO, maybe fans like myself were tired of the passive and retired Steely Dan, churning out agreeable jazz-pop ditties as effortlessly as one would burp after drinking a can of Dr. Pepper. As of this writing, EVERYTHING MUST GO is the only one of Steely Dan's nine albums to not reach at least gold record status. In comparison, just a few years before, TWO AGAINST NATURE, scored double-platinum sales.

But recently, I was in dire need of a music to patch up some holes in my heart. Nothing special, just a basic "I hate your guts and I want to see you rot in hell" sort of melody. I know of no better pill for vengeance than Steely Dan's COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY. And man, it worked. Every skipped heartbeat, every saddened gulp, every clenched fist, was remedied, indeed glorified in a victorious and mean spirited way by Steely Dan's biting, blood trickling, sardonic break-up album. Take that, bitch.

Amazed at how the right music can truly soothe the soul, and in this case, comfort the nagging memory of a ruined relationship, I re-explored Steely Dan's entire catalogue, finally landing on the ignored EVERYTHING MUST GO. Indeed, I know these albums by heart, but they sounded so alive hearing them again, as if I was back in my teen hood marveling to COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY, with enough weed consumed on that album alone to finance a new Hyundai.

It's that first song on EVERYTHING MUST GO that throws me off. "The Last Mall", is a simple and tiresome song that initiates the album's theme of equating a financial and global ruin with the break-up of a relationship. It sounds as tedious as it's tenure of pushing a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel through a store. An apocalyptic, new age, store-is-closing sale where, "the tools for survival, and the medicine for the blues, sweet treats and surprises, for the little buckeroos", are to be greedily gobbled up by survivalist consumers.

But the songs get better, and "The Last Mall", in all it's easy irony may pave the way for the solid spoils of collapse that follow. "Things I Miss The Most", detailing life after divorce, is where one can forgive Steely Dan the velvety smooth slickness, just short of a xylophone solo and a bubble making machine, because they do it so well. Upbeat yet resigned piano keys court bluesy guitar and muffled sax in a touching, if thirsty, tribute to a marriage - "The talk, the sex, somebody to trust, the Audi TT, the house on the vineyard, the house on the gulf coast, these are the things I miss the most".

I hated the exhaustible "Blues Beach", when I first heard it and now I love it. It's that damn Steely Dan hook - gets me every time. It pushes the boundaries of familiar pleasantry, (think "Peg"), until you surrender to it's hypnotic bounce because it's taken up residence in the most musical and vulnerable part of your brain. An escape to 'blues beach' is a fantasy 'getting away from it all' for the middle aged set, - "I was scraping bottom, gropin' in the dark, it takes a crusty punk, to really beat the mean streets of medicine park". Only lyricist, singer Donald Fagen can say he's "chillin' at the Manatee Bar", and not sound like a total dweeb. It's also got those Dan signature hushed and exotic female backing vocals, which is always a nice touch, and a male falsetto, something new.

"Godwhacker", is Steely Dan funk, their most predictable and dull musical style; ("Josie" from AJA). It's a dark foray into a planet and mind cleansing from the schizophrenic threatening powers that be, - "Be very, very quiet, clock everything you see, little things might matter later, at the start of the end of history".

"Slang of Ages" is the first time Walter Becker, one half of Steely Dan, generally the composing half, provides lead vocals on a Dan studio album, and he possesses an effortless and handsome style, with just a hint of vocal prowess, already proven on his impeccably lush "Book of Liars", from 1995's live ALIVE IN AMERICA. Again it's a smoother than fresh taffy richness that slides through Becker's half spoken vocals and Fagen's sharp and funny lyrics delivered to a newly hatched pop generation diva, - "Now did you say you were from the Netherlands, or was that Netherworld?, if you grew up in Amsterdam, then I'm the Duke of Earl".

"Green Book" is an ominous reference to film noir and atomic holocaust, (it name drops the classic Mickey Spillane film, "Kiss Me Deadly"), in a night through an urban underworld of shadowy alleys and dangerous downstairs bars, where "my coat is black and the moon is yellow", and "the new cashier looks like Jill St. John".

"Pixaleen" is a catchy and nasty number about a pixilated and genuine teen superstar running amok in an action packed, terrorist backed digital film. OK, maybe not, but it sounds like this, - "And when Abu rams the clip in the mingles, up on the catwalk inside the warehouse, you whip a knife from the top of your go-go boots, with just a hint of spectacular thigh".

"Lunch with Gina" sounds like a dreaded meeting with your ex-partner, - "The waiter never comes, God knows the service could be better, lunch with Gina is forever".

You could slow-dance with your soon departed mate in title track, "Everything Must Go", a sweet and resigned kiss off to a major deal gone bad, be it marriage, business, or a pissed off god with a breath of global warming. It strangely mirrors today's corporate financial disaster with a horde of fresh bankroll for the recipients of the spoils of war, -"It was sweet up at the top, 'til that ill wind started blowing, now it's cozy down below, 'cause we're going out of business, everything must go".

While starting off as a meek Steely Dan album, (I'd add THE ROYAL SCAM to that list), EVERYTHING MUST GO, recently became my favorite bit of music, finding regular rotation in my player and in my mind, six years after first hearing it. While COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY allowed me to express frustration and exorcise demons, and stopped me just short of visiting a shrink, or taking a clandestine meeting with an expert in voodoo doll culture, (the thought barely crossed my mind), EVERYTHING MUST GO is the cool comedown. A reminder that life goes on with or without a companionable world around you. You got to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go get blitzed. Better yet, go chill in a beach bar in the southern hemisphere. Watch some porn.

Theatre Review, THREE MURDERS AND IT'S ONLY MONDAY

Theatre Review

THREE MURDERS AND IT'S ONLY MONDAY

Springville Center for The Arts

February 1, 2009



* * * Three Stars



Here is a silly private eye romp of murders in a sanitarium. The jokes are often so bad they beg for mercy. The doctor of the sanitarium, for instance, answers an inquisition about the cleansliness of the hospital by proclaiming, "this is a sanitary sanitarium!", and then repeats the line as if pondering the playwright's lack of creativity. A hospital worker enters with a tray of breakfast cereal just as someone announces the murders may be serial murders. This two-act comedy prides itself on being bad, and comes close to collapsing under it's own sardonic weight.



Director Joanne May however, keeps the gumshoe comedy carefully tongue-in-cheek with exaggerated and amusing performances, and often, exceptional comedic timing from the cast of 12, (13 if you count the puppet Howdy Doody). Lead player, gumshoe Harry Monday, (Troy Lester), in a debut performance, carries off the private eye schtick with ease and a cool way of talking out of the side of his mouth, ("it's like this, you see"); Scott Hill, as Dr. Morrissey, is a fine comic player, never fearing to take his bit to outrageous heights while keeping his romp within the confines of the staged silliness; Mike Sharrar, as Larramore Mandrake sweeps the stage with his skilled delivery and timing, and possesses an outstanding singing voice; Pam Morley, as Tara Dallaise, does the sexy femme fatale bit with just enough voluptuous swash and sway. Howdy Doody doesn't move his mouth, while his ventriliquest does. It's a joke, son.

Often this trite takes itself too seriously as if the audience really cares 'who-did-it'. What is most appealing is the sound effect thunder and lightning, lights going off and on, candles being lit, farce-like entrances and exits, and the sheer fun that the cast is having infecting the audience with sometimes undeserved giggles. It all reaches a satisfying conclusion.

THE WRESTLER

At least now I have seen at least one film nominated for an Oscar this year; Mickey Rourke in THE WRESTLER. It's a brutal and probably accurate depiction of life in the bottom rings of the Pro Wrestling circuit. Rourke plays an aging muscle-bound lunk, whose 1980's heyday in the wrestling world are in sharp contrast to his current bottom-feeder status. Like a decrepit blonde Thor with bulking muscles, scars and bandages, and a face as worn as an old punching bag, Rourke delivers a sad and powerful performance as a man reaching for the thunder in a merciless sky. I thought the last moments of the film were a note of optimism, while the three friends I saw it with felt it was only tragic. Minor argument ensued.

KRYST, Of Course We don't Have Coffee

Saturday night I saw divorced friends Al and Gale's son, Kyle, perform with his band, Kryst, at Club Diablo. I've always wanted to check this club out, and it's pretty much as I expected; narrow, dark, loud, a pool table, a bar, a raised platform stage, and decor I could only describe as pop-gothic, (the devil's image was prominent but friendly like Santa Claus). We made a strange middle-age trio made all too evident when I bought the first round and my friends requested a 7-Up and a coffee. I really didn't want to walk up to this cool crude bar with the gorgeous waitress (everytime she reached down to fill a beer glass, the room swooned), and order a coffee. But I did and of course they didn't have coffee. Kyle and his band Kryst were way cool and experimental, heavy and prog-ish, making unlikely and effective use of a violinist, a vocoder, and a megaphone blending into the prominent drums and guitars onslaught. At one end of this musical horizon I detected an early Pink Ployd keyboards springing a young Syd Barrett into the world of madness, and at the other, a more psychedelic Nine Inch Nails in a decidedly rock and roll spirit. It was a fantastic set. I've talked with Kyle about music before, wondering if the younger generation left homage for the last wave of great cutting edge artists. I mentioned if he was familiar with, say, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, maybe Swans, and he looked at me like I was from another planet.

ROAD LESS TRAVELLED, Triangles

I did manage to see one more Buffalo play before the close of 2008, Road Less Travelled's production of "Triangles". Long-time friend, composer, musician, artist Alan Kryscak composed and performed the music for the production. The show consisted of three one-acts all somewhat revolving around the concept of romantic love triangles. Al stood on a platform over the stage behind a mesh screen playing surpringly aggressive and somber electric guitar including some entire lyrical songs at intervals and scene changes. No surprise that his playing was excellent, gently blending in to the moods of the production, but the original songs, which could easily stand alone as fine pieces of music, were strikingly in sync with the often light-hearted production, casting a dark and mysterious shadow over an impending expectation of romance. The first two one-acts were short forays into the concept of confronting a third party in a romantic triangle. August Strindberg's "The Stronger", consisted of a woman, dressed as if from the late 19th or early 20th Century, confronting another woman in what seemed an outdoor cafe, who is having an affair with her husband. Only the cheated upon woman speaks to the other in the scene. She rationalizes, compromises, and victors over the silent third party, causing one to consider that this isn't an actual confrontation at all, but an extension of an infuriated subconscience. Celebrated local playwright Manny Fried's "Triangle" follows, inspired by the one-act that preceded it. The same two actresses again play two woman, one who remains silent throughout, while the other confronts her regarding her intent to run off with the woman's husband, this time in what seemed a Depression-era set and costume. These are fine little bits, but they seem to me, as often one-acts do, merely character sketches of a larger piece that was never realized. I see nothing so inviting here but the skillful displays of the two actresses Kristen-Tripp-Kelly and Lisa Vitrano. The third piece, "The Elliptical", seems an entire full length play in comparison. It concerns three young friends, a guy and two girls, maturing into somewhat neurotic and sexually questing adults. It's funny, and slight and lofty, and often comes dangerously close to becoming merely a stand-up routine. When I see a production as sharp and succint as "Triangles" is, I can't help but focus on its shortcomings. The players in "The Elliptical" do a fantastic job hustling about the stage blending time frames and delivering monologues, almost at an action packed pace, but some of the comedic deliveries, especially from the talented ladies, Bonnie Jean Taylor and Kelly Meg Brennan, (so what's with the triple names in Buffalo theatre?), both of whom I loved watching perform this sexy and sweet ode to romantic relationships, get a wee bit tiresome and repetitious. Todd Benzin's performance is a class act; that rare display of light-hearted conviction and exceptional timing; groping, lusting, and conniving after the girls like his existance depended on it. Really, this is a production, so friendly and unassuming, you can't help but love it.

OUT AND IN WITH SKINNY PUPPY

Somewhere into my third decade, I realized I had stopped listening to music. Having always been an enthusiastic listener, buying records since I was first given a weekly allowance, it was my sudden and sad realization that I no longer possessed any interest. If I had so much as an old Pink Floyd cassette laying around somewhere, that was all I had. I had a huge collection of albums and tapes that somehow got thrown aside on the path to mature adulthood. Where is it written that when you reach a certain age, you toss your rock and roll records out the door, and set NPR on the radio dial. Jesus, I was becoming my parents.

So I set out to purchase every record I had ever owned. In a few years time, I had collected hundreds of vinyl and CD records of favorites, and as many new records and CDs. I had accumulated so much music, my small apartment was beginning to look like a used music store. And there was no way I was going to find the time to listen to everything I had brought home. So I alphabatized everything and decided to listen to at least three albums a week. I would attempt to listen to them in alphabetical order. I first had to force myself to find the time, put on a record or CD, and listen to the sweet music. Lights out, candle up, clear your mind, and infest it with melody and noise. The herb cupboard wasn't always empty. It was rather daunting when the next alphabatized album was, say, Frampton Comes Alive, when I least wanted to hear it. But do or die, I'd listen. And that's a damn good album.

And I've been doing just that for years. Now, of course, I have as much music downloaded, and like scouring a record store, (Record Theatre is a beautiful place), I now scour the internet looking for new and exciting music. With the New Year I find myself on the S's, and New Year's Eve brought me the Canadian band "Skinny Puppy"'s "The Process", and on New Year's morning, I listened to Skinny Puppy's "Too Dark Park". I don't know how Skinny Puppy came into my life. I think I heard them on the radio, and had to hear more. This is disturbing and dark experimental pop music. Big and highstrung crunchy metal with a lot of lifted verbal samples, and a wash of synthesized noise. Nine Inch Nails, for instance were influenced by Skinny Puppy. 1996's The Process is unusual in that it contains actual remnants of melodic song structure, most unlikely for a Skinny Puppy album, and opens with the soft and pretty repetition of a piano chord. Soon though the darkness sets in on a world where, "my brain is hurting", and "the mother toe is sad and she'll end when the world ends.". The cover artwork of "The Process" looks like downtown's Lafayette Hotel, where I once unfortunately lived. Haven't we all at one time or another? 1990's "Too Dark Park" is pure Skinny Puppy, opening with the statement, "he's fearing monsters, he's losing his mind and he's feeling it going.". It's a nightmare album of insanity, violence, and rotting meat in a science lab. Alleged to be anti-animal experimentism, it seems to be anti-everything. The listener may find himself, as stated in the closing of opening track, Convulsions, "extremely, intensely, terribly uncomfortable".

THIS IS BUFFALO CLASH

Last Friday I went to the Joe Strummer tribute show at Mohawk Place. I was a big fan, still am, and every year I try to get to this gig at Mohawk, usually scheduled between Christmas and New Year's, and every year, something keeps me from getting there; a winter storm, conflicting work schedule, etc. But this year nothing was stopping me except my middle-aged indifference to all things happening outside the comfort of my cozy couch. So I had to sort of march myself out into the cold winter night, before I could find an excuse to stay home. Dug up and found, miraculously, my old Clash pin buttons, and adorned them to a Wal-Mart chic faux-leather jacket. Put black make-up on my eyelids, as Strummer was prone to do, and marched, marched, marched. Called my brother and a few friends to tell them I would be there, if they cared to meet me.

So I drove into Buffalo from the Chautauqua County industrial farm lands I hail, thinking of Strummer, dead from a heart attack at age 50, me, his age, still behaving like a teenager, drug-free, (tonight anyway), but with enough residue in my system to last a lifetime, my poor friend sitting home probably feeling miserable, (he called back to say he was having emotional problems), my state trooper brother, who might meet me tonight, and who I often party with, but whose presense can be unnerving as one never knows if he'll suddenly pull out a gun, point it in all directions and yell, "OK everybody, FREEZE!"And I was bummin' out. Stopped at Burger King, fished a greasy chicken patty out between it's bun, ate it, and felt disgusted. And the freezing rain made things perfect.

The place was packed. I felt so much better just getting through the door, and felt a bit proud to be supporting a Strummer show where proceeds benefited struggling musicians. I loved Joe Strummer, and that's why I came. A diverse age group- teenagers, young and old musicians, aging punks, hot young things, yes Strummer would have loved this. A young band was playing songs from the Clash's first album. Teenagers were mouthing out the lyrics with a memory better than mine. The world has changed. When I was a teenager, I couldn't fathom, liking or even knowing the music of the generation before me. I was a post hippie, pre-punk lost seventies child, star gazing into the likes of Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Now we're a united Clash. My brother showed up and we just hung out drinking beers and listening to the bands. I recognized a group of Buffalo actors, who I guess would be the epitome of that scene. Is that Father Baker? I wrote a scathing piece on that play after the - president? king? director?, of MusicalFare encouraged people to publicly announce their feelings about the play after a nastily negative review from The Buffalo News, where the production was somewhat accused of fostering child molestation. I pointed them out to my brother and told him "those guys are actors", and we just sort of stared at them for awhile like we were contemplating an exhibit at the zoo.

We couldn't find a roster of the bands, it was almost impossible to get a beer from the packed bar, so I don't know the names of the bands and musicians I saw. The next band played a lot of Sandanista. I wormed my way onto the cramped dance floor, and some stranger behind me kept screaming into my ears that the lead singer looks like he's about to OD. "He's going ...going....going to fall over ...that guy is messed up!" And, well he did seem a little high. I can't remember which song it was, but he kept tripping up on the lyrics, repeating the same stanza over and over, like he couldn't find his way out. Like a dizzying skipping record. Nice set though. The next band were dazzling in ways only a Clash fan could appreciate. A tight rhythm section behind a vocalist respecting and imitating Strummer, mouthing out sacred words and emotions as carefully as taking them from a Braille board. Never guessed I would see a perfectly executed "Car Jammin'" performed live by anybody in my lifetime. They were then joined by a saxophonist and trombonist from The Great Train Robbery, who brought an exotic illustrious flair to the decidedly hoodie caucasion scene, and provided perfect backup to a number of Clash songs, notably, "Rudie Can't Fail".

Yeah, Clash forever. Freezing rain and glaring lights outside. A cute teenage girl asked me to get on her cell phone and tell her boyfriend to F off. I obliged but wasn't so drunk I couldn't imagine a 6-foot tall football jock showing up and beating the crap out of me. A street guy emptied the handful of quarters out of my pocket befitting a Strummer sentiment. I defied orders and buzz-drove home.