The Beach Boys - That's Why God Made the Radio

Capitol / Brother

Hacía dieciséis años que Brian Wilson y los Beach Boys no grababan juntos un disco, pero su música parece más actual que nunca. Las armonías del grupo se hacen sentir en los arreglos corales de los Fleet Foxes y en las zapadas cannábicas de Animal Collective; los falsos ingenuos del rock independiente le roban las estructuras de las canciones, y la impronta de sus ambiciosos arreglos puede verse en la labor de Jon Brion, Mark Ronson y casi cualquier productor de pop orquestal que se les ocurra. En este contexto, That's Why God Made the Radio parece un poco surrealista, como si fuera una transmisión desde un universo alternativo donde no existiera la ironía: doce canciones con melodías enceradas y voces sorprendentemente juveniles. Pero una sombra pende sobre el disco: el tiempo, con sus aliados, la vejez y la muerte, temas para los que los Beach Boys parecían diseñados especialmente para evitar. En este sentido, el disco funciona como otro episodio de la larga lucha entre el espíritu solar de Mike Love y los temas más trascendentes y oscuros de Wilson. En parte es una reunión de ex alumnos, y en parte es un réquiem para un beach boy. Abre con un encantamiento sin palabras a cargo de Wilson, Love y Al Jardine, con los colaboradores históricos Bruce Johnston y Jeffrey Foskett (el veterano colega David Marks también participa). Es como el comienzo de una misa y lleva hacia el tema que da título al disco. La primera mitad del disco, llena de flashbacks, está grabada con humor y autoconciencia. Al parecer, Wilson toma el control en la segunda mitad del disco, más oscura. En "Strange World" confiesa estar un poco desconcertado por la vida. La introducción sin palabras del disco tiene su contrapartida aquí con "Pacific Coast Highway", con un título que hace pensar en "Pacific Ocean Blues", de Dennis Wilson, su difunto hermano, y en una visión del final de la autopista. Como parte de una reunión para celebrar el quincuagésimo aniversario de la banda, que también incluye una gira mundial, That's Why God Made the Radio es, hasta cierto punto, un festival de nostalgia y melosidad. Pero gracias al regreso de Wilson, también es una ambiciosa afirmación (tal vez la última) sobre un legado que ha sido tan definido por la confusión y los callejones sin salida creativos como lo fue Pet Sounds. El disco es un trabajo desparejo pero profundamente conmovedor de una gran banda claramente dañada; una banda que, en sus mejores momentos, siempre apuntó al cielo, aunque no siempre lo haya alcanzado.
Por Will Hermes

Overkill: Lemmy's Guide to Life

October 19 2012, 12:17 PM ET
by Harley Brown

Motörhead's mainman shares what he's learned about Metallica, drug busts, and Nazi memorabilia

The man, the myth, the mutton chops: Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister — otherwise known as the face, voice, and bass of metal pioneers Motörhead and quite possibly the owner of rock's most iconic facial hair — has been pounding eardrums and breaking hearts as the sole constant member of his trio since 1975. Even at 66, the former Hawkwind space invader's signature growl and amphetamine'd riffs sound as nasty as ever on the new album and DVD The Wörld Is Ours Vol 2: Anyplace Crazy As Anywhere Else (UDR), due out October 22. The man with 1,000 notches in his belt shared his advice on romance, collecting Nazi gear, and the good way to get busted for drug possession.
I learned to play bass onstage.
When I went to the job with Hawkwind, I went as a guitar player, but they decided in the meantime they didn't need a guitar player. Then the bass player didn't show up for the gig, and the dickhead left his bass in the gear van. It's like, "Please steal my gear," so I stole his gig. I'd never picked a bass up in my life before. It's probably much easier than it is to sit around torturing yourself to death trying to learn it note-by-note in front of a little booklet. It's much better if you can make a few mistakes. And the volume's loud so nobody really notices that much.
You had to be there, unfortunately.
As a roadie for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, I learned that I should give up being a guitar player. Anyone who watches Hendrix should give up the idea of being a fucking guitar player, 'cause he was so unbelievably good. He just took your breath away. He would just pull things out of it that you'd never believe, that you'd never heard before. You have to be at these things. Like when I saw the Beatles, you can't describe what it was like. It was great. It was tremendous. You can't really describe the feeling.
Collecting Nazi memorabilia doesn't make you a Nazi.
There's not much to collect of Red Indian stuff, or even Confederates. Arrowheads and a couple of warships, that's it. For me, World War II was only just over my shoulder. Somebody gave me a flag and then a dagger. I don't know why they gave them to me, but that started me off with collecting. I learned that if I had known how much of this Nazi memorabilia there was to collect, I never would have started in the first place. It's crowding me out of my house. But it's a good hobby, because it's so recent, that period, that there's still plenty to collect. This was in the 20th century so there's still all the good stuff. It's only a collection, it's not because I believe [in Nazism]. You do realize that, right?
There are still gentlemen in the world.
I've learned that. Metallica came down for my birthday a few years back, light years back, 16 years now. They interrupted recording their album, I think it was Load, and all dressed up as me with the "Born to Lose" tattoo in Magic Marker on the wrong arm, with wigs and black gloves and bullet belts. They all came to play at the Whisky [in Los Angeles] for 45 minutes.
I hated being incarcerated for drug possession.
Like most people. But luckily they charged me with the wrong drug so I was let go. I was only in there for 24 hours so I didn't really get the chance to form lasting relationships. I was still on the inductee line when they bailed me. And then Hawkwind flew me to Toronto and we did the sound check, and everyone was clapping me on the back saying, "Welcome home!" We had a great show and then at four o'clock in the morning I was fired. I found out later they only got me out of jail because they couldn't find my replacement fast enough. I learned I'd better form my own band because I got fired from every other fucking band I was in.
Just when you think you've got slot machines figured out, you realize that you haven't.
I've learned that I probably shouldn't play them. There was this period in England and London — because we have those machines in the pubs over there, with small rewards like 25 pounds as the top jackpot — when Japanese people would come over on holiday and hang around the machines. They'd either play them themselves or watch people play and make notes in notepads, trying to get the rhythm of the thing so they could predict it. And none of them ever won a dime! It was terrible. And cards? I don't trust anything that has people involved. I'd rather fuck with a machine.
I don't miss anything by being a bachelor.
I don't know any happily married couples, not even my parents. There was a magazine in England who said I screwed 2,000 women and I didn't, I said 1,000. When you think about it, it isn't that unreasonable. I'm not even married, and I've been doing this since I was 16. And I'm now 66, so that's like 50 years. I could've done more if I've tried, I guess. I didn't even fool myself with that. My father was a stranger to me, and I learned that my stepfather was fighting a losing battle with my mother. Almost everyone is unhappy with themselves when they realize what they've done. And the lot of them get married because of the kids and that's a really bad idea. People just rip each other to shreds over the years. Nothing kills a relationship like commitment.

Yoko Ono Thanks Paul McCartney for Belated Beatles-Breakup Exoneration

November 12 2012, 12:11 PM ET
by Marc Hogan

They can (and did) work it out

As a culture, we have a way of absorbing easy-to-remember "facts" that just aren't so. Christopher Columbus discovered America. George Washington could not tell a lie. Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet, and this was funny for some reason. Rod Stewart had to have his stomach pumped after servicing a bar full of sailors. At a certain point, each of these myths becomes so deeply engrained that debunking them only reinforces their status as somehow beyond fact, beyond debunking.
Yoko Ono breaking up the Beatles belongs to this category. There's been no reason for decades for serious fans to hold her responsible for splitting up the Fab Four, but for a variety of reasons we're better off not trying to examine, the narrative of the female Japanese avant-garde artist who disrupts her husband's band has become so established The Simpsons parodied it. And yet just last month, Paul McCartney finally offered his on-again, off-again post-Beatles rival an olive branch, saying in a rare in-depth interview that Ono "certainly didn't break up the group."
Ono addressed the comments in an interview published over the weekend by the Observer. Not surprisingly, she mixed gratitude to McCartney with the basic point that her lack of culpability in the Beatles split should already have been common knowledge. "I thought people knew that I was not responsible, but surprisingly, many people still felt that," Ono is quoted as saying. "He was very brave. So I'd like to say 'Thank you, Paul. I love you, we love you.'" And with a love like that, you know Paul should be glad.

In Praise Of Pop Nonsense

By MOF GIMMERS

Ask any idiot and they’ll tell you that music isn’t as good as it used to be. Of course, music is as brilliant, arousing, puzzling, woeful, tepid, boring and fantastic as it’s ever been. Every decade has been guilty of dreck and wonderment in equal measure.

continued...

To compare the Now to the Then is stupid, but that’s exactly what people are prone to do. They yearn for the world of music past, only remembering the Super 8 footage when everything looked wonderful and unchained. They stare at the present and tut at the commercial music they hear. Like their sad, incorrect parents, they mutter ‘they just don’t make ‘em like they used to’. And one recurring theme is that, lyrically, we’re a backward, regressing race.

There’s a meme floating around that compares Led Zeppelin to Nicki Minaj (which is like comparing calculators and slippers). Minaj’s lyrics, which apparently are a beacon of dimwittery, are shared: “You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe, you a stupid hoe, you a stupid hoe, you a stupid hoe...” and on it goes. Hardly Chaucer, you’ll agree. It is directly compared to Zep’s “If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. When the mountains crumble into the sea, there will still be you and me. Kind woman, I give you my all. Kind woman, nothing more.”
This has generated untold thousands of Likes, and is meant to serve as an example of how great lyrics once were, compared to what music offers us now. Aside from the fact that Led Zep were responsible for some of the most hokey, irritatingly twee Hippie Poetry 101 lyrics ever committed to an ear, to compare the two is a complete nonsense. And besides, who says being ‘clever’ is a good idea? Rock ‘n’ roll’s very foundation is built on wilful nonsense and often, through musical gibberish, says far more than some berk twiddling their quill getting all dewy eyed in reverie.

Perhaps the greatest lyric ever written features in Little Richard’s ‘Tutti Frutti’. He yells “awopbopaloobop alopbamboom!” Those lyrics mean nothing. They’re gobbledegook. They’re perfect. Sometimes, pop music can’t forge a decent sentence because it is too excited. It all comes spewing out in a stream of nonsense. Go back to Sinatra singing ‘Strangers In The Night’, and no question, the best bit is when he coos ‘dooby dooby doo’. Who cares about the rest of it? The wistful, absent-minded longing is superior to some shoe-horned sentiment. The Crystals said more with “doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo” than anything penned by someone trying to be a smart-arse. Damon Albarn’s most famous lyric? “WOOHOO!”
Nonsense is king in the world of pop. It has always been there and should always remain. Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t great lyricists around today. Nick Cave, Super Furry Animals and Arctic Monkeys are responsible for some outrageously smart wordplay. That’s because music is as clever and dumb as it always has been. Pop needs both facets. Without incoherent garblings, we’d never have the thrill of ‘Surfin’ Bird’ or the immediacy of ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’s ‘La La La’ chorus.
So stop comparing nonsense to prose. It’s stupid, futile and plain wrong. Sometimes you want steak but there’s nothing wrong with burgers either.

Metallica en la tapa de RS: habla Kirk Hammett

Continuamos con la nota que ilustra el número de noviembre; en esta entrega, habla el violero

 ¿Qué estás aprendiendo de volver a tocar el Album Negro?
Durante muchísimo tiempo, pensé que "My Friend of Misery" era un instrumental. En 1990, cuando estábamos preparando el disco, lo tocábamos como un instrumental. Antes de terminar, decidimos que James tenía que escribirle una letra. Cuando hablábamos de tocar el Album Negro en vivo, escuché el tema para volver a sacarlo, y dije: "Dios, tenía letra". Cuando lo ensayamos ahora, fue la primera vez que lo hicimos cantado por James.
Pero la simplicidad del disco, su estructura, raya en lo poético. Un buen poema pone la palabra justa en el lugar justo en el momento justo. El Album Negro tiene todo eso. Los solos de guitarra casi se compusieron solos.
Muchísimos fans vieron el Album Negro como una traición al speed-metal.
El metal es uno de los géneros más conservadores. La paradoja es que también es una música rebelde. Se supone que debe ser extremo. Es algo de lo que nadie habla. Las reglas son conocidas. ¿Esto es metal? Sí. O no. Y si es cuestionable, probablemente sea Metallica [sonríe].
El festival Orion fue un emprendimiento ambicioso. ¿Ganaron mucha plata?
Te cuento un secretito. Cada vez que nos embarcamos en uno de estos proyectos, nunca es para ganar plata [risas]. Queremos que sea divertido y estimulante. Capaz salimos hechos. O perdemos plata. No importa. No es algo por dinero. Tratamos de armar algo copado.
¿Y cómo pagan todo lo que tienen montado en este estudio? ¿Con las giras?
Sí. Y el merchandising. Básicamente sacamos plata de donde podemos. Esto es un verdadero lujo. Pero de acá salen grandes cosas. Tenemos un lugar para ensayar, para componer nuestras canciones, para probar ideas nuevas. Tener este lugar no nos ahorra plata, por cómo trabajamos. Nos tomamos nuestro tiempo, hacemos lo que tenemos que hacer hasta que está listo.
¿Tienen años en los que se ven forzados a salir de gira para pagar las cuentas?
Todos los años. Eso de tomarse dos años de descanso ya no existe. Antes teníamos regalías que nos permitían un ingreso constante. Ahora sacás un disco, y tenés una ganancia inesperada una o dos veces, pero no es como era antes, un cheque cada tres meses. Tenemos que salir a tocar, y no tenemos ningún problema con eso. Somos una banda que suena muy bien en vivo, a la que le gusta tocar para la gente. Nunca pensé que fuera suficiente venderles un cd y nada más.
Eso también implica que no han tenido tiempo de componer música nueva, porque están muy ocupados con las giras, el festival y la película en 3D.
Hace dos años que somos conscientes de que tenemos que empezar a componer canciones. Siento como si estuviera al lado de un monte: en la cima hay una roca enorme que sé que uno de estos días va a venir rodando cuesta abajo. Y cuando eso suceda, no podremos detenerla. Pero todavía no empezó a rodar.
Todo el mundo lo piensa. Cuando terminamos los shows del Fillmore el año pasado, pensé: "Dentro de un año voy a cumplir 50. A este ritmo, ¿eso significa que me quedan dos discos? ¿Tres?". ¿Cinco? Lo único que aprendí es que en esta banda no se puede ser muy profético, porque las cosas cambian por completo.
También tienen un curioso sentido de la oportunidad: tocaron el Album Negro en su vigésimo primer aniversario, en vez de en el vigésimo.
Ayer me di cuenta de que mi vigésimo noveno aniversario en la banda fue la semana pasada. Entré en Metallica el 12 de abril de 1983, o por ahí.
Feliz aniversario.
Gracias. No sé si alguno de los otros muchachos de la banda se habrá dado cuenta. Nadie me dijo un carajo.
Por David Fricke

Bomba Estéreo - Elegancia tropical

En la introspección naturalista de "Bosque" está una de las claves para entender el primer LP de Bomba Estéreo post "Fuego" (2008), el hit que le dio proyección masiva y global al electro-cumbé. Una ambición orgánica y ambiental ("Pájaros", "El alma y el cuerpo") convive ahora con la obsesión bailable que encuentra en el MC brasileño BNegão (ex Planet Hemp) y en el combo de kuduro progresivo Buraka Som Sistema dos aliados para conquistar las pistas de todo el mundo. "Bailar conmigo", casi en clave Kumbia Queers, y "Pure Love" (con citas de Marley, Lennon y McCartney) son dos buenos ejemplos del modo en que Li Saumet, con su flow filoso y seductor, puede armar una fiesta cada vez que se lo proponga.

Por Humphrey Inzillo

Kasabian cancela su show en el Pepsi Music

Debido a la enfermedad de Sergio Pizzorno, la banda británica no tocará en Buenos Aires

Qué susto, Pizzorno.

Malas noticias: Kasabian no tocará en Buenos Aires. A pesar de que ayer se dijo que la enfermedad de Sergio Pizzorno no significaría la cancelación de su show en el marco del Pepsi Music 2012 sino una reprogramación de la fecha, el estado del músico empeoró. Según informaron a través de un comunicado de prensa, la banda suspendió su gira sudamericana por tiempo indeterminado.
Las otras dos fechas del festival, correspondientes al sábado 20 y domingo 21 de octubre, se desarrollarán sin modificaciones, y como habían sido programadas previamente.
Para quienes no deseen asistir a la fecha de hoy y prefieran optar por la devolución de su dinero, la misma se realizará a partir del día miércoles 24 de Octubre y hasta el 2 de Noviembre de 10 a 18 hs. en el Club Atlanta, Humboldt 540, debiendo presentar la entrada completa sin cortar.
Quienes opten por asistir a la fecha de hoy del festival, se recomienda conservar sus tickets para una posible reprogramación del show de Kasabian.