Three Imaginary Girls - The Clientele

Songs from The Bigtop

Erik Gonzalez — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:52:36 +0000

yes

6.7

http://www.amazon.com/Songs-Big-Top-Various-Artists/dp/B000WGTOJA/wwwthreeimagi20-/

I suppose it must be nice to be a one-man show. Devon Reed, the creator of the movie Bigtop, not only wrote, directed and starred in the movie, but he took it upon himself to write all the songs on the darn soundtrack as well. Now, this would all be just a point of interest to the cinematic obsessives if it wasn’t for the fact that Mr. Reed was able to cajole a veritable modern rock all-star team to record his songs, including the likes of the Clientele, Tullycraft, Doug Martsch and Matthew Sweet. How he got this magic to happen is beyond me, but the occasional TIG reader has put together a pretty respectable soundtrack to his upcoming flick.

I have to say, I really don’t know much about the movie beyond the synopsis that the main character “runs away with the circus, only to become consumed by his desire for power and the love of a woman,” which on one hand sounds like fun and on the other hand could also work as a synopsis of Steve Martin’s The Jerk. (Anyway, to me, circus movies began and ended with Big Top Pee Wee). However, this is not a movie review, this is a music review, and the music contained on the soundtrack leaves me with plenty to say.

I’m not really sure what to make of the idea that many times on the compilation, the bands are able to turn Devon Reed’s songs into their own – is this a sign of the prowess of the artist or the fact that the songs are easily morphed into new works due to their simple nature? This is not to belittle them, but rather to act as a jumping off point for the disc. The Clientele’s “Your Song” pretty much sounds like what you might expect from any Clientele song, just like Damien Jurado’s “Ashes” sounds like a Damien Jurado song. Is this bad? No, not really, but you don’t really get the idea that Reed has a singular musical vision for the soundtrack. That being said, I’m going to try to have my cake and eat it too by saying that in the end, a lot of the songs are just a little bit too similar to make the soundtrack compelling from start to finish.

Sure, there are a number of high points. Matthew Sweet’s contribution, “Wild,” is the best thing Sweet has put to tape in a long time, with Matthew channeling the late Warren Zevon at points, adding a little raspiness to his signature smooth voice, but he still sticks with the wall-to-wall guitars that broke him on Girlfriend. “Cracked and Crazed,” performed by Doug Martsch, is a quiet ballad that is one of a number of tracks that can be bunched together, including Tullycraft’s contribution (“The Girl Who’s Above Us”) and the Owls’ “I Just Can’t Keep Up.” These songs are almost interchangeable, but Martsch brings a little more to the table that the latter two. Only the Sprites’ closing number, “Patience,” seems to really take the music to a different place, turning the song into a synth-pop number that is ultra-cute, a counterpoint to the straightforward modern rock the dominates the soundtrack.

Now, before you get the idea that I didn’t really like the soundtrack, I have to say that on the whole, I did like quite a bit of what I heard. However, what it really lacks is much variation and dynamism, especially considering the lineup that Reed was able to collect for the soundtrack. Although all the acts impart their sound in one way or another, the songs, at their base, are similar enough that you feel like no one really breaks free. It is always hard to judge a soundtrack without seeing the movie, and I have to give Reed credit for taking a chance by writing all the music to his movie. Songs from the Bigtop does have some real gems, but on the whole, it might appeal to the real completists for each act.

A lot of the songs are just a little bit too similar to make the soundtrack compelling from start to finish.

iPod Roulette goes commercial

Erik Gonzalez — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:48:22 +0000

All this talk of selling out your music to advertisers got me thinking. Maybe I'm wrong about all of it. Maybe this is the wave of the future, and I should really be trying to get in on the ground floor. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to stop all this selling out, but trying to help it! This is America, where money can buy anyone and anything! If not, then the terrorists have won!

So on that note, I have decided to find an ad campaign for the next 5 songs that come up on my iPod. Enjoy!

1. "I am a Cinematographer" by Palace - Well, this is a gimme, isn't it? Who but Blockbuster wouldn't love to advertise there wares with such a movie-centric song. Think about seeing people floating in and out a Blockbuster in the ad with Will Oldham's voice drifting in the background. A close second: Any new Sony DVD video camera.

2. "Airbus Reconstruction" by Portishead - Hmmm, well, the obvious choice would be some sort of ad campaign for the new mega Air-whale, the Airbus A380, but really, does an airplane company want to use a song with "reconstuction" in the title? Sounds too much like a post-mortem. So, instead, lets go with a classy ad about jeans or maybe just some schlock telling us its time to think about lightbulbs in a whole new way.

3. "Passover" by Joy Division - Kosher foods! Just kidding. I think this would be a perfect song for a Scion commercial, just to show how gritty and punk a car company they can be, even if they really just a shell company for Toyota.

4. "Here Comes the Phantom" by the Clientele - This is TOTALLY a software ad, showing us how simple our life would be if we let Windows run our toasters or how an internet-enabled iBlender would be the perfect addition to our lives. It would also work to for HP to tell us that their new printer is great even if it uses solid gold ink that costs $200 for each cartridge.

5. "Parade" by Pretty Girls Make Graves - This song should be for some sort of product that is empowering, something like Zoloft or one of those anxiety drugs. In a sense, the lyrical content might be too political - all this labor unrest talk and all - maybe we can just loop the music and avoid the whole liberal bent. This might also work for some great new sneaker for normal people who want to run 100 miles a day.

marketing.jpg

I think we're all thinking about this marketing thing the wrong way ...

God Save the Clientele

Erik Gonzalez — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:24:21 +0000

7.1

http://www.amazon.com/God-Save-Clientele/dp/B000OMD4GG/

clientele.jpg

At some point in the not-too-distant future, there will come a time when a new genre will need to be born, one that pleases the aging population of modern rockers who might be too old to really rock out yet still don’t want to be relegated to listening to Celine Dion or Michael Buble. Imagine it as a sort of Modern Rock Adult Contemporary and indeed, some of these types of radio stations already exist, heavy in the R.E.M.’s, the Wilco’s, and the Feist’s.

However, when the adult Modern Rock era really arrives, the Clientele will be seen as one of its pioneers – a band that create nice, pleasant music that was vaguely interesting and inoffensive to all, something the whole family could enjoy. God Save the Clientele is a perfect example of the sort of safe, harmless music that will be great to listen to at work or driving your Volvo back from dropping the kids off at soccer practice. There is nothing particularly wrong with God Save the Clientele; it's firmly rooted in the 1960’s pop traditions of the Beach Boys or the Beatles, with lovely arrangements and harmonies. You can tell from the first moments of “Here Comes the Phantom,” a pleasant little song that drifts by like a gaggle of brightly colored songbirds. You can pretty much describe any given song on God Save the Clientele the same way – a lot of the tracks are fully interchangeable; you can almost lose track of which track you’re listening. I can’t really decide if it is necessarily a bad thing.

The overall quality of the songs is good, but nothing really makes any one track stand out. A few are a little more memorable, like “Isn’t Life Strange” that has richly textured strings, or the oddly whispered “The Dance of the Hours,” a song that is pulled straight from the Belle & Sebastian vein. The similarly styled “Carnival on 7th Street” is a little livelier than most on the album, with strangely downbeat melody mixed in. Probably the most distinctive track on the disc is “Bookshop Cassanova,” a song with a real groove formed between the guitar and strings and Alasdair MacLean finally lets his vocals get less breathy and whispered. “The Garden at Night” is also a fun track, taking the Clientele’s sound much more towards the Kinks.

One thing that I was struck with on God Save the Clientele was the fact that some of the songs are really no different than what you might expect on a Chris Isaak album. For example, “The Queen of Seville” or “No Dreams Last Night,” with their quietly brushed drums and slide guitar, are more or less what you might have heard on Heart-Shaped World or “Somebody Changed,” which could be lifted directly from Forever Blue, but with the breathy vocals of MacLean instead of the Orbison-like croon of Isaak. Maybe this is the root of my association of the Clientele with the modern rock adult contemporary genre.

God Save the Clientele is a good album – let’s not be mistaken on that front. I can see myself listening to it again in the future whenever I need something calm and relaxing. However, there's really just nothing that captures my imagination on the album – it is almost too safe for its own good. Maybe at this point, that might be a detriment to the album in my mind, down the road it will be that consistency and safety that could draw me too the Clientele, but for now, I might need a little more kick in music that I listen to day in, day out.

There is really just nothing that captures my imagination on the album – it's almost too safe for its own good.

Strange Geometry

Erik Gonzalez — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:00:00 +0000

8.3

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BB18EK/wwwthreeimagi-20

clientele06jan.jpg

Back in the day when my musical tastes were being constructed, the son of one of my neighbors, let's call him Keith, worked in the local video/music store. He was about ten years older than I was, but I was a music nerd, so we chatted about music and he introduced me to some of the bands that form the foundation of my musical tastes. The most important of these bands I learned from him was Galaxie 500, and I scoured the local record store discount bins for copies of all of their albums. Nothing reminds me more of those days than driving around listening to my cassettes of On Fire or Today. So when I popped in The Clientele's Strange Geometry, it was a little like taking a time warp back to those days when I felt music was all new and I wasn't jaded by years of reading music critics (so watch out!). Refreshing and exhilarating, Strange Geometry is one of the most melodic albums from 2005, or pretty much any year for that matter.

Most songs by The Clientele are dominated by interplay of gentle guitar melodies, echoing vocals and drifting violin notes. You could make a solid argument that they are what the Jesus & Mary Chain would be like if they followed Nick Drake closer than Joy Division. Strange Geometry opens with the Beatles-esque "Since K Got Over Me," a pop gem that sounds new every time you hear it, with layer after layer of melody intertwined with bittersweet lyrics: "I don't think I'll be happy anyway," intones Alasdair MacLean. This theme is continued into "(I Can't Seem to) Make You Mine" that slows the pace down. The 60's pop influence of The Clientele is most bare on tracks like "E.M.P.T.Y.", right down to the horn/string blasts and "Geometry of Lawns" that sounds like a Chad & Jeremy outtake. "Losing Haringey" is a spoken word meets Galaxie 500 with a stream-of-consciousness commentary on lone man's day in Britain where he finds himself in a childhood photograph. The album closes with "Six of Spades," a song drifts off into a haze of organs and scratching record vocals like memories into the dark.

Some songs might have a little too much pop harmony in them, such as "Spirit," which sounds a little like a Neil Diamond song on depressants. The orchestral opening of "Impossible" has you expecting Burt Bacharach to appear, but luckily they save the song with jangling guitar before the strings try to overpower them again. However, these transgressions are minor compared to the overall ethereal glow that permeates from Strange Geometry.

The Clientele don't mimic the airy tone and sounds of Galaxie 500; instead they remind us of that sound and then build from that point. Compared to many of the more stripped down and rock-oriented bands in indie rock these days, The Clientele are a welcome change to pop harmonies and bittersweet (but not depressing) moods. Strange Geometry was overlooked on many best-of-2005 lists (including my own) but it deserves mention as one of the best pop albums of the year. (If Keith happens to be reading this, I'd say you might like this disc too. Trust me on this one).

Refreshing and exhilarating, Strange Geometry is one of the most melodic albums from 2005, or pretty much any year for that matter.

No Parachute: A Compilation Of Indie Music Videos

Chris Estey — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:00:00 +0000

yes

8.3

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BYCM9C/wwwthreeimagi-20

noparachute06jan.jpg

This is easily the best compilation of current various independent rock bands I have seen. That said, one must admit that there aren't that many indie video compilations anymore anyways. The rock video seemed to become passe in the music underground with the rise of turgid emo-pop and tepid R&B-based promotional pabulum spread over the various cable television "music channels." (Hell, even those channels themselves seem to feel pained to show videos, convinced themselves how impotent the medium had become.)

So now is a good time to bring the video back for up-and-coming, less commercial bands. Just like the upcoming comic book about Belle & Sebastian or the rise of hipster crafts culture, there are lots of aspiring, creative filmmakers out there probably just dying to create mini-movies and art films around the music of their friends and favorite artists.

Produced by Jayme Guokas, the label Happy Happy Birthday To Me steps out boldly with No Parachute: A Compilation Of Indie Music Videos, a very cheap (eight bucks), very attractively packaged, generous DVD. Featuring twenty-six different indie musicians and groups from a lot of different locales — and ranging in musical styles from the ebullient power pop of Palomar and The Maybellines, to the day-glo Latin bubble-gum of Entre Rios, to the friendly or disturbing folk-punk of Kimya Dawson and Hidden Cameras — it is a wonderful introduction to a lot of new music.

The videos themselves can be broken down into a few distinct categories. More than a couple seem like the sort of meandering but pleasant visual Dada you'd see at an animation festival, such as the opening "Labor Day" by Snoozer. But some use brilliant though cost effective animation to craft a compelling narrative, such as The Maybellines' fuzzy stuffed animal crime drama "Wait For You," and The Hidden Cameras' really depressing over-laid images of Victorian story-book-style childhood illness and vexation in "A Miracle." A few use more advanced computer design play, like Of Montreal's slick and creepily amorphous "So Begins Our Alabee."

A lot use homemade digital or hand-held camera footage and seem like something you'd see on a Public Access channel — such as Nixon's endearingly-homely Stephin Merritt love letter "Snow Day," Boyracer's kinda boring "Now We Have Everything" and "Who Pissed On Your Bonfire," and The Haywains' "Bye Bye Boyfriend," among many others. I have to admit that my favorites are the colorful ones with funny storylines or at least quick images to keep me focused, such as Palomar's hilarious "Albacore" (damn, I love Palomar; this collection is worth eight bucks just for this video of a great song), and My Favorite's sexy and sharply edited "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives."

We had this DVD playing while friends were over for dinner, and they mistakenly assumed just by casually glancing at the screen during our conversation that this was the video collection of a single group of directors, as the feel of the music (a lot of it mope-pop or twee or jaunty femme rock) and the recurring styles had a remarkable consistency. This is no criticism — the aesthetic is an enjoyable one, and the various artists featured here, both video and musical, have collaborated on making an unintentional movie that says more about the fecund creativity of our current music scene than the recent one-band movies about Wilco or Death Cab ever would.

Slurpy kudos to Happy Happy Birthday To Me for an excellent DVD compilation debut, and I can't wait to see the next round of vids they round up!

Happy Happy Birthday To Me steps out boldly with No Parachute: A Compilation Of Indie Music Videos, a very cheap (eight bucks), very attractively packaged, generous DVD.... a wonderful introduction to a lot of new music.