ELEPHANT SHELL by Tokyo Police Club

Eager to break the mold of 'indie buzz band' that’s unfairly pigeonholed so many other promising groups in the past, Tokyo Police Club just released their debut full-length on Saddle Creek Records. Elephant Shell is a refreshing reminder of the band’s ambition as well as their musical aptitude. Sticking to the formula perfected on their attention-grabbing 2006 EP A Lesson in Crime, the Toronto foursome relies on a percussive sound embellished with complementary keyboards and post-punk guitar that melts into the mix (that’s a good thing; it works for them). Singer and bassist David Monks croaks and croons in a monotonic voice that seeps from an adolescent throat smoothed by either mother’s milk or Canadian whiskey with honey. And even though the band is too young to drink in America, the deliberately enunciated lyrical content is anything but immature. Songs like “Centennial,” “Your English is Good” and “Graves” brim with rapid-fire rhymes, poetic images and words big enough to destroy any Scrabble opponent. The music itself is catchy and instantly familiar. While tempered with bits of calm, mature sweetness, the songs still have moments of propulsive, juvenile energy full of sizzling cymbals and noisy exuberance. Moreover, the arrangements’ patently disparate elements actually work well together. The frenetic drumming somehow fits in with the robotic bass while the clean-toned guitar finds sanctuary in the digital soundscape. Preserving the concept that an album is more than just a collection of songs, TPC sequenced the 28-minute Elephant Shell very well. The first half of the album is so cohesive that it could be one 15-minute song and the second half segues seamlessly between tracks too. The band’s live shows stick to this formula as well; I actually saw them play last year and they were really tight. Indeed, Tokyo Police Club is starting to make waves. They’re well aware of it too, proclaiming on the ninth track that “you don’t need to change / your future’s with us.”

..THEY'LL BE AT THE HAWTHORNE THEATRE ON MAY 19. BE THERE..

"eye'm sorry"

So a lady is suing just about everybody involved after getting hit in the face with an errant baseball bat at a high school game. She was standing in a spectator area behind a waist-high face when a player lost his grip on the bat while warming up in the on-deck circle. Sadly, the woman ended up losing an eye in the accident. Now she's suing the West Linn-Wilsonville School District, Oregon School Activities Association, two fence companies, an architecture firm, the Jesuit High player and others for $2.7 million. Basically, she's saying that everyone should have known the fence wouldn't protect spectators. The claim against the baseball player alleges he was negligent for holding the baseball bat too loosely and for losing control of it. I understand that this lady is bummed and that she feels like she's owed something but seriously, $2.7 million!?! Not only is the school district already strapped for cash, but her medical bills were only $225,000. The district can't afford to pay her and educate kids at the same time. So come on lady, don't rob the underfunded school. Just accept the apologies, sue for the amount of your medical bills and leave it at that.

nothing left to burn

Technical wizardry and jazzy-pop song structures paired with clever lyrics helped Steely Dan repel philistines and defy convention. The group was made up of exceptionally talented and versatile studio musicians that took its name from a William S. Burroughs book. In it, Steely Dan was the name given to a dildo. I once bought tickets to see them play at a legendary theater in Chicago. The show was to coincide with a trip my girl and I were taking in July. We arrived at the venue to find the doors locked and the lights off. Stymied, we examined our tickets only to realize that the band had played in June. We had both inexplicably failed to notice the difference in four-letter J months at the point of purchase. So we missed the show. That wasn’t even the first time it had happened to me either. My friend and I once drove to LA to see the White Stripes play at this cool amphitheater. We thought our tickets were for Thursday but they were for Wednesday. So we missed that show too. In both cases, I was comforted by the fact that the journeys to the shows were awesomely memorable. And because I'm not one to cry over spilled milk, I moved on.

LISTEN TO STEELY DAN'S "CAN'T BUY A THRILL." DIG THE COVER.

blue mist round my soul

I never really paid much attention to Eric Clapton. Classic rock radio overplayed the staples and I soon became sick of hearing Cocaine, Layla (which I’ve now actually become quite fond of (mostly due to Duane Allman’s playing though)), and Wonderful Tonight. I knew that Brits famously attested to his godliness early in his career. I knew he’d done the drug thing in the 70’s and gotten in pretty deep. I knew that he’d done time in a number of monumentally influential bands, bands that I’ve come to know and love like the Yardbirds and Cream. But it wasn’t until I saw a clip of him on a DVD that I truly recognized his gift as a musician. Watching him play with Keith Richards, Mitch Mitchell and John Lennon as the Dirty Mac in 1968 was a revelation. The recently unearthed and remastered clip, on the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus DVD, shows them run through Lennon’s Yer Blues with restrained but assured ferocity. Clapton’s nimble fingers traverse the fretboard with a familiarity that appears to show, as others before me have suggested, that he was born to play guitar. He seems isolated in his own loud world, focused solely on his instrument as he sucks his teeth and nods his head. At one point, he looks genuinely surprised, looking up and grinning at the other guys, almost astonished at either their chemistry or his own mind-blowing ability. With a Gibson ES-335 strapped to him (which everybody knows is way cooler than the stupid Stratocasters he uses these days), he plays it clean, putting together gracefully fluid runs and cementing his position as one of rock and blues’ top guitarists.

alcohol roundup

People drink for a number of reasons. Some drink socially. Some drink to get drunk. Others just enjoy the taste and like to loosen up a bit. Still, many Oregonians take it too far. It seems that life in the state of Oregon leads people to the bottle. Whether it’s the grey weather, the citizenry’s propensity to fun, or just an ambivalent ‘why the hell not’ attitude, Oregon breeds boozers. I can’t speak for other people that may boast of their state’s inclination to alcohol, but come on; Portland’s got more breweries per capita than other city in the nation. That’s no wonder when you consider the abundance of malted grains, clear mountain water and world-class hops found in Oregon. So who cares if you’re working early tomorrow, let’s get another pitcher as we round up some Oregon booze news.

Brewers from five continents earned awards from an elite international panel of judges this week in the seventh bi-annual Brewers Association World Beer Cup. This year, 644 breweries from 58 countries and 45 U.S. states vied for awards with 2,864 beers entered in 91 style categories. The top three entries in each category won gold, silver and bronze medals. In addition the competition gives "Champion Brewery" and "Champion Brewer" awards in each of five brewery categories based on the medals won by each brewery. Brewers from the United States won 185 of the 268 style category awards and four of the five Champion Brewery/Brewer awards...and Oregon won half of those! Everybody knows Bridgeport, Pyramid, Widmer and Rogue breweries but Pelican Brewery took home top honors as well in the large brewpub category while Bend Brewing Company won the small brewpub category. State pride! Go Oregon! Drink up!

Carnie fight! Some carnival workers got in a drunken fight in Medford. I guess they were arguing about taking breaks from the ring toss. During the fracas, one of them bit another’s thumb off, which a police dog later found. It was too mangled and contaminated with carnie germs to reattach so, by default, he became yet another member of the amputee carnie club. The following day, the two warring factions again did battle (allegedly sober), this time clubbing each other in the face with tree branches. Police again responded and took them all to jail. The carnies, I think there were six in total, all lost their jobs. You’ve gotta be a pretty serious fuck-up to get fired from the traveling trash contingent so I guess even carnival operators have standards.

Two women recently made local headlines for getting DUIs. In unrelated incidents, both ladies were about six times the legal limit with .55 and .47 blood alcohol levels. That’s like half their blood man; their hearts were pumping liquor-diluted plasma. I think that actually might be a legitimate cocktail in some foreign land; sheep’s blood and a strong liquor to kill some germs. Anyway, doctors were consulted and said that blood alcohol levels that high have killed people before. These ladies however, were no lightweights. Both had prior convictions for driving under the influence and one was even a former police detective. I wonder how a person, any person, seasoned drinker or not, can function with that much booze in their system. How’d they make it to their cars? How’d they get the keys in the ignition? Who served them that much alcohol? One lady didn’t even make it out of the bar parking lot—she was discovered passed out in her car with the engine running. It’s scary to think that drunks are out there cruising the streets, putting everyone around them at risk.

Please drink responsibly.

stickin' it to the man

I read online today that “an attorney who watched a police officer park illegally in front of a restaurant, then wait around while his meal was prepared, issued the officer a series of citizen-initiated violations.” This was in Portland. The attorney confronted the officer, who made some wise-guy remark, before deciding to file an official complaint. The officer will have to appear in traffic court and defend himself against several violations, including illegal parking and illegal operation of an emergency vehicle. All in all, he could end up paying $540 (but I truly doubt that will happen). If the officer was parked illegally while responding to a crime, it’d be another story. But even though this is somewhat petty, I think it’s cool that someone is standing up to the police. Too many times I’ve seen policemen [ab]use their status as officers of the law to wantonly break the very law that they’re charged with upholding. What kind of example does that set? How am I expected to respect the law when I see cops disrespecting it all over the place? I’ve been forced off the sidewalk into the street to make way for slow-rolling police bicycles that, by law, should be in the street and off the path of pedestrians. I’ve been dangerously cut off in traffic by police cars making illegal lane changes and turns without a signal and without their flashing lights. These are trivialities but rules are rules and I can’t help but wonder what other kinds of indiscretions the police are guilty of. Case in point: it hasn’t been a month since I read about a corrections officer bragging online about savagely beating a prisoner on several occasions and exaggerating the justification for doing so. Nothing beyond a slap on the wrist has come of it yet. While I recognize the need for a police force and realize that the situations they’re involved in aren’t exactly cut-and-dry and may require a little flexibility, I still wish that they’d stick to the rules they’re enforcing. Watching the HBO series “The Wire” has kind of opened my eyes to the patently flawed way the police department and justice system works. It makes me wonder, as many others before me have, who will police the police?

tempted by the fruit of another

Mick Ronson was a shredder! Not only did he kill it in Bowie's Spiders from Mars but he contributed epic solos to some Mott the Hoople songs. There's this unreleased Hoople track called "(do you remember) saturday gigs" that he slays! He's not a super technical player, he just chooses the perfect notes and lets them take him and the listeners as far out as they wanna go. Listen to him mess about on and after the last verse in Bowie's song "time" off Aladdin Sane. It's otherworldly!That's him on the far right next to Bowie. I think he died of cancer; he got the bad news and it got him.

LISTEN TO "STARMAN" OR "MOONAGE DAYDREAM."

settin' the woods on fire

What is it about a steel guitar that makes me feel so good? Am I that inherently American? It seems that the sweet sound of that pitch-shifting twang has been bred into me; I’m predisposed to it. Country music, I think, is one of the uniquely American musical styles. It’s earned this distinction, along with hip-hop, rock and roll (which came from country) and the blues, by being forged in an environment uniquely American. Like America itself, country music is a melting pot borne of different cultures and influences. When immigrants came to the Southern Appalachian Mountains, they brought the music and instruments of their native homelands along with them. The Irish fiddle, the German dulcimer, the Italian mandolin and the Spanish guitar were some of the most common musical instruments of 19th century America and the interactions among the musicians from different ethnic groups produced a previously unheard musical style. This early Appalachian music along with early recorded country music is often referred to as old-time music or, perhaps more aptly, as hillbilly music. Country though, is a more fitting descriptor because it's kind of a national thing. Over time, the music spread and evolved into bluegrass, western music and eventually, genre-crossing country-pop. That’s all fine I guess, but I like Hank Williams better. He played a big role in bringing it to the masses in the late 1940s and setting the standard. He died at 29 after dealing with the demons that pester many a man: alcohol, drugs and women.

LISTEN TO HIM DO "RAMBLIN' MAN" FOR THE STEEL GUITAR AND SOME SERIOUSLY TORMENTED SINGING.

ramblings on an industry in decline

The New Music Economy, as it’s come to be known, is a far different landscape than the old goes-down-smooth record business. The sales slumps are forcing labels to downsize drastically and seriously rethink the way they do business; indeed, it’s a hard pill to swallow. Before now, labels would release an album, do some promotion, maybe pay some radio guys to play it, and if the tunes were accessible, they’d move units and everybody would get payed. Granted, it wasn’t that simple, but those days are gone. It’s not as easy to be heard as it used to be. Moreover, it’s harder to compel people to buy music even if they’ve heard it. But despite the sales numbers, people are still consuming music, more than ever in fact. It’s just that with so many new ways to get that music, people are avoiding the traditional means. The internet, long blamed for the lack of records being sold, is not the be-all and end-all of the record business as we know it. Forward-thinking individuals are recognizing the power of the internet and utilizing it. Other enterprising folks are exposing artists and breaking new acts by placing songs in advertisements, television shows, movies and video games—not just on records that gather dust on a station manager’s desk or the shelves of a music store. This, among many other things, helps create buzz about a band. And buzz is big these days. Buzz is big enough to get people to buy records again, if only for a short while and in limited numbers. The trick to the music biz, as in any other business or industry, is to be able to adapt and roll with the changes. I'm not pretending to be an expert though. I'm just a casual observer trying to figure it out.

LISTEN TO THE ROLLING STONES' UNDER ASSISTANT WEST COAST PROMOTION MAN. "I'm real real sharp!"

time will tell

Joel Patrick Courtney was officially charged with the alleged kidnapping, rape and murder of Brooke Wilberger, who disappeared from Corvallis in May 2004. Horrible acts to be sure, and ones to which he’s no stranger, having been charged and convicted of them in New Mexico. What I find puzzling though is the fact that they haven’t found Wilberger’s remains, if in fact she’s even dead. How can they charge a man with rape and murder without a body? Just because he has a deplorable history of similarly heinous deeds doesn’t mean he’s guilty. What’s more, he’s facing the death penalty if convicted. I am all for punishing guilty criminals to the fullest extent of the law, but pinning bogus charges on a man suspected of a crime with a lack of physical evidence just seems wrong. Most of the court records remain sealed despite the efforts of news agencies, including The Oregonian, that sued unsuccessfully in 2005 to have the records opened. This leads me to believe that we’re missing some relevant information that links Courtney to Wilberger. During the arraignment, Courtney’s attorneys refused to even enter a plea so the judge was forced to plead not guilty on his behalf. The prosecutors are confident but the case against the accused still seems flimsy.