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| The difference between ignorance and indifference? I don't know and I don't care. |
| "Sha Sha" |
| by: Karla |
| Let me ask you guys a question. I assume that the majority of you reading this have brains. What happens when you and your brain are both tired? The two of you go to sleep, right? Well that's pretty much how my thoughts run, too, except my brain and I don't always share the same schedule. Sometimes it gets tired when I'm still awake. And when my brain retires early things get dangerous. You see, contrary to popular insults of intelligence, a tired brain is actually worse than no brain at all. Because it's in this state that very bad decision-making can occur without your knowledge. E.g. the decision to eat a footlong meatball sub right before bed. "But hey," you say, "sometimes I've earned a bedtime sub." And sometimes you haven't. Sometimes a brain fakes being tired because it's too lazy and out of shape to work. I'm talking, of course, about easy outs. Brains on welfare. About barely making it to class, about just passing history (Who was Noah's wife?). About forced conclusions, about artificial reference-dropping and sliding by on topical knowledge. When do you put a hard-worked brain to rest, and at what point are you just a slacker? |
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| Sometimes I feel like my thought pattern's sold out to some cheap philosophy it got off an infomercial: Do you have a hard time seeing people individually? Are you bad with specifics and one-on-ones? Try Generalizations! Generalizations are fun and easy to do! Use them to communicate your superiority or help organize marketing strategies. Like the makeover to Cher, Generalizations give you a feeling of control in a world full of chaos. Wish you were smarter or funnier? No problem, you're Jay Leno. In fact, studies show that without Generalizations and her sister product, Spontaneous Statistics, 90% of humor wouldn't exist!!! |
| Because this is true, and because I'm friends with multiple 18-23 year old white suburban males, it was easy for me to generalize a Ben Folds/Weezer/Wes Anderson demographic without having to explore the connection too much. I know the fan base is out there, I've seen their Nico posters. But what is the common denominator? Is it raw emotion? The childlike wonder? The vintage rock influences? The frustrated masculinity, the coming-of-age themes? ... The horn-rimmed glasses? The noncreative approach to describing Ben Kweller would be a Folds/Weezer comparison---I've made this, and so have many others---but that approach isn't entirely accurate. First of all, he doesn't wear glasses. |
| Despite efforts to liken him with Folds (the upcoming "The Bens" EP, featuring Folds, Kweller, and the uber annoying Ben Lee-----it's a good listen, by the way, except for "Crossfire") I can't see the comparison going over well with established fans of either. I don't really know why, the 'piano rock' grouping is pretty obvious. Tempting enough, anyway, for me to burn fellow critic Sara a Kweller/Folds CD---also titled "The Bens"---for Christmas this year before I even knew the Australian recording was going down. I guess I don't have room to speak. |
| There woudn't be any comparison of those two if it weren't for the ignorance created by radio. I swear, the lack of representation in a ten-song rotation is enough to make me don my pirate hat. If you're going to manufacture a white trash girl band don't try to pass them off as punk rock, Mrs. Armstrong will kick you in the nuts. That's when the real anarchy starts. :) |
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| I personally describe Kweller as youth plus love . . . plus fruit. Listening to "Sha Sha" the other day for like the billionth time (a year and five months in my portable CD case----that's a record rivaled only by "Pinkerton") gave me the distinct impression that he was molded from a peach. Yes, a peach. Of course, I mean that as more than a reference to his website art and anti-folk roots. There's a sweet softness to his sound. He pits unpolished and often sloppy vocals against fuzzy, sentimental melodies and blends them with multiple harmony tracks, it reminds me of a peach smoothie picnic on a windswept Midwestern plain. Peaches aren't particularly sentimental to me, unless you're counting that Presidents song from my freshmen year or the fact that I live in Georgia, so I don't know why Kweller gets me all wistful and girly. I still remember being eleven years old, lemon juice in my hair, radio by my side, sunbathing outside my mushroom-shaped house in Lynchburg, VA to the sounds of the Lemonheads. So it's possible that the Evan Dando/Juliana Hatfield connection appealed to my overly developed sense of nostalgia. Or something. Um...yeah. I feel like a pansy. |
| So what's the creative approach to describing Kweller, outside of erroneously associating him with bands whose fans don't like him? I don't know, probably not comparing him to fruit. As fellow Folds/Weezer/Anderson fans still point and laugh at my bumper sticker, though, I'm sure he won't fit the generalization anytime soon. I'd be okay with Ben starting a multimedia group of his own. Maybe with PT Anderson fans, they don't have anyone but Aimee Mann. And "Lost In Space" is a pretty crappy record. Sad times for them. "Sha Sha" makes a sparse set sound full, and like any good melodic music, hooks and pulls you right in without tiring easily. It's hard to describe why Kweller's impish, carefree, Opie-meets-MarkfromEmpireRecords voice makes songs like "Falling" or the b-side "BK Baby" (with its multiple "Alright"s and "Oh Yeah"s not a bit Vanilla Ice) so complete-----maybe it mirrors their simple form. The Brits understand what I'm talking about. :) BK proves that with strong melodies, anything is possible. How is it possible? I don't know. How is it possible that every casual "Sha Sha" listener can tell where "Lizzie" rips off STP's "Big Empty," but I'm still the only Weezer fan to notice that "Burndt Jam" is the Mario Bros. theme song? |
| Now my brain is tired ... |
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| Kweller's more southern folk than garage rock and anybody who thinks otherwise has truly performed a glaze of his material. They probably heard "Wasted & Ready" on the radio and thought he was still with Radish. Of course "Wasted & Ready" is the worst song on the album, don't you know that's how singles get picked? Oh ho ho, "Brick" is quintessential Ben Folds, everybody! Fiona Apple doesn't get any seedier than "Criminal!" ... I hold the radio directly responsible for four years of thinking the aforementioned artists sucked. We need some real discernment in the music industry, I'm sick of playing catchup with overlooked genius because some dork at a label can't tell Courtney Love from Brody Armstrong. |
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| Ben's 1st Nashville show March 5th, 2003. |
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