November 10, 2003

The following is an excerpt from the November 12, 2003 edition of The Red City Times, a free weekly Baton Rouge lifestyle newspaper.

New Tunes

CD reviews by Wes Morrison

The Strokes - "Room on Fire"

After the ridiculous piling on of adulation in the press that greeted their first album, 2001's "Is This It," it would not be surprising to expect the Strokes to face a wave of bitter critical blowback, but don't look for it here.  "Room On Fire" puts the Fab Five back in their ideal element - the druggy, seedy clubs of Lower Manhattan -  and in their preferred format - tight, melodic three minute blasts of noise with arrangements as sharp and focused as the songs are sloppy and wanton.  The opening track "I Want to be Forgotten" kicks the set off with a charging, profligate urgency.  It's all chopping guitars, pounding bass, and slurred, angry vocals.  By the time the halfway point is reached with live favorite "You Talk Too Much," singer Julian Casablancas is whining over a pounding roar like my girlfriend after a pint of vodka.  It is all disillusion, rage, and resentment, but paradoxically it is charged with fire and passion - definitely not like my girlfriend after a pint of vodka.  The Strokes may be plowing the same furrow they did in their first album, but it is fertile ground and the result is a minor masterpiece.   Grade:  A+

The Distillers - "Coral Fang"

On their first major label release, the Distillers - yet another So Cal punk-by-numbers combo - let frontwoman Brody Dalle have her head.  A beer swilling, drug chomping lout in too-heavy mascara, the junkie chic Ms. Dalle comes on like Courtney Love after her medication has worn off.  My girlfriend loves this disc of faux punk rock, but then she spends most of her days sitting around our one bedroom apartment downing screwdrivers and complaining that I should get a real job instead of working twenty hours  a week at Barnes and Noble and writing a music column in a throwaway paper that nobody fucking reads.  Still credit the Distillers with putting solid, workmanlike backing to their banshee singer's bellows of rage and too studied disillusionment.  Even my girlfriend Yvette's constant bitching would sound better accompanied by the thumping racket the boys in the band unleash here.  Grade:  C+

The Rapture - "Echoes"

Ever since the invention of the drum machine the New York rock scene has regularly regurgitated bands of artsy techno alchemists set to integrate synthesized beats and rock guitars.  The Flavor of the Month now is The Rapture.  I need another bunch of bohemian white boys playing metal disco about as much as I need my girlfriend Yvette.  When she wasn't passed out watching The Weather Channel on drugs, she was always hassling me for going out to one the four or five decent rock shows a year here in lovely Baton Rouge.  I remember when she would go out and hit the clubs all night long with me.  Dressed in black and partying hard, there was no stopping her.  The only time she would go out lately was to shoplift junk food from the Circle K while she was buying her cigarettes and vodka.  It was really funny, a real lark, until the manager finally busted her out to a sheriff who just happened to be stopping by to get his coffee fix.  So now I'm stuck bailing her out, and is she grateful?  Of course not.  I'm "suffocating" her.  Then comes the same old dramatic monologue about how I'm a fat, lazy slob and that if I really loved her I would make a commitment and marry her.  Everything else aside, it is pretty bad salesmanship, don't you think?  "Will you marry me, Vodka Girl?  I want to spend the rest of my life watching you get stoned on vodka and cough syrup and watch The Weather Channel."  I don't think so, and The Rapture suck, too.  Grade:  D

Outkast - "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below"

Dirty South funkmasters Andre 2000 and Big Boi reportedly recorded these two separate discs because they couldn't stand to be in the same room together anymore.  Tell me about it, hip hop B-boys.  For the last two months, my girlfriend has been like something out of the Exorcist.  Frankly, I'm glad she's gone.  All that drunken screaming about how I should get a real life must sound pretty funny now that she's moved back to live in her parent's house in Denham Springs.  What it was was the Game Cube.  It's not that I replaced her with "Soul Caliber II."  It's just that she was drunk or asleep so much.  I had to have something to pass the time since they cut back my hours at Barnes and Noble.  Maybe I spent a little too much time on the game, and maybe I have put on a little weight.  To her credit, Yvette did go out swinging.  I still have a black eye, and the stitches should be coming out next week though the doctor at the Instant Care Clinic said it may be a couple of months before the patch of hair on my scalp will grow back.  I thought it was finally over until last week when she broke in and trashed my Game Cube and stole the blender.  Bitch.  Fortunately Larry, my old roommate from Pentagon dorm, is a lawyer now, and he got me a restraining order at cost.  Now I've got no "Soul Caliber II," my apartment is trashed, and she even stomped my GameBoy on her way out.  Now what I am going to do nights?  Finish my novel?  Get real.  Luckily, that new girl working the cafe at Barnes and Noble has been checking me out.  Maybe I'll slip her a few free CDs and take her down to New Orleans for that Raveonettes show at the Hose of the Blues next week.  God, she's only twenty and she's got the whole tattoo and piercing thing going, but what the hell?  Grade:  B+

Elvis Costello - "North"

And another thing, I wasn't the one who gave up on our relationship.  I wasn't the quitter.  After Cat Power choked to death when we were out that night at the Tabby Thomas show, you just gave up.  I know it is hard to lose a pet.  There's the whole stages of morning thing:  anger, denial, bickering, whatever.  It's been four months.  But you just gave up on everything else:  your job, your tapestry, and - let's face it - even me.  Well, I say good riddance, and Elvis Costello hasn't made a decent record in over a decade.  Grade:  D

Firemarshalls of Bethlehem - "In the Fire, In Your Arms"

I miss you, Yvette.  Come back.  I'm working at Barnes and Noble Tuesdays and Thursdays until closing this week.  If you're reading this, call me or stop by.  Grade:  A+