I haven’t had an opportunity to review anything this week because I’m on a corporate team-building retreat with the entire bait shop staff.  But I had to offer just a few thoughts on Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson was an incredibly talented artist and a singularly gifted entertainer.  I can’t say I was a fan, because I was a hard rock and metal kinda guy at the height of his career.    But I do remember bopping around to the Jackson Five as a kid, being awestruck the first time I saw him moonwalk, tuning in to MTV to see the premiere of the Thriller video, and watching with a growing sense of revulsion as he transformed himself into an other-worldly, grossly disfigured caricature of a man.  He was a train-wreck of a human being.  But he and Quincy Jones crafted an almost perfect pop album in Thriller, and nothing will change that fact.

Sitting in my hotel room, watching the unfolding news coverage, I realized that upon my return I’d be listening ad nauseum to my superstitious friend go on and on about how these things always come in threes.  First Farrah, now Michael, and whoever died next.  Then it hit me: I had forgotten Ed McMahon.  She already had her trio, and I’d just have to grin and bear her nonsense.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking Spinal Tap’s new album Back From the Dead makes me feel old because it contains new recordings of songs from the soundtrack to their 1984 mockumentary, which led me to reflect on the fact that 25 years have passed since we were introduced to Spinal Tap.  But no, that’s not why I feel old.  I feel old because as I was struggling mightily to assemble the diorama that comes with the CD/DVD package, I thought to myself, for the first time ever, that maybe I should get bifocals.

That diorama kicked my butt.  I still don’t have it set up properly.  I kinda tore it, too.

The album, of course, is good.  Spinal Tap is, was, and always will be pure gold.  After reviewing the Jonas Brothers, it’s refreshing to listen to an album that’s intentionally funny.  There are some good new tracks, and the lads have done some interesting things with the rerecorded songs.  But really, why rerecord all the old songs?  CJ Vanston, producer for the new album, says,

“Spinal Tap is re-recording the entire first album because they thought the original album was a hatchet job, just like the movie.”

The real answer, I suspect, is money.  Note that the band is releasing the album themselves, without a label for distribution.  I question the wisdom of their strategy in today’s climate of internet file-sharing.  But hey, $9.99 for a CD, DVD, and a diorama is so cheap that maybe people won’t go the Pirate Bay route.  You can’t find a genuine torrent for the diorama anyway.

Oh, speaking of sharing, a heartfelt thanks to all the readers who shared stain-removal tips with me.  My Rush ’74 tour t-shirt is recovering nicely from the Pad Thai incident.

So yeah, if you’re down with Tap, give this a whirl.  Eleven stars.  If you don’t get the reference to eleven, than forget this record; trust me, it’s not for you.

Of course, those are British stars.  At today’s conversion rate, that’s three-and-one-third American stars.

A few months back, as I looked through the day’s mail, I found that the cover was missing from my Rolling Stone. Turned out that my 16-year-old had hung it on her wall, and then my seven-year-old had swiped it for her own bedroom. There was much screaming, hair-pulling, and gnashing of teeth for the next 48 hours, until my wife brought home a hi-res scan for each of them.

Oh, did I mention that the Jonas Brothers were on the cover? Because that’s pretty important to the story.

Fast forward to last week. I was perusing my stack of promo cds and saw that the JoBros had a cover version of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid on their new disc Lines, Vines, and Trying Times.  I normally eschew bubble-gum pop (Hold on – I just really cracked myself up with that pun!), but I loves me some Black Sabbath, and I remembered these kids being kinda funny in a SNL skit with Alec Baldwin, and Alec is really good on 30 Rock, and his cameo in Glengary Glen Ross is pure gold, so I decided to give the disc a spin.

I quickly realized I had been duped. There were exactly –zero-point-zero– Black Sabbath covers on the entire disc.  Paranoid is an entirely different song, which they co-wrote.  Even worse, I splattered pad thai sauce on my white Rush shirt, the one with their debut album cover art. That stuff does not come out. So now I have that to deal with.

The album is competently produced and engineered, and it’s mastered perfectly for a 128kbps stream played through your cellphone speaker. But the music was… not so good. In fact, I really struggled to find a suitable metaphor for the music. I decided to sleep on it, hoping something would come to me.

The next morning I walked into the bait shop and recoiled in disgust, eyes closed, as I was hit with a wall of dead fish stench that made me dry heave for about twenty seconds. One of the live-well aerators had failed overnight, & about 400 chubs were floating belly up.

Once I recovered from the shock and got the windows open, I smiled for the rest of the morning.

[Edit – I had my bro read this. He didn't get it, and he's a pretty smart guy. I mean, he watches Battlestar Galactica, listens to both indie and prog rock, and wears American Apparel t-shirts. On the other hand, he started reading A Confederacy of Dunces and didn't like it enough to finish it, so his sense of humor is somewhat suspect. So anyway, if you didn't get it, don't feel bad. I'm saying that the music stinks like dead fish.]

One star.

Agree?  Disagree?  Let us know – leave a comment!

This is Chickenfoot's album cover. Awesome.

I’m going to review the Chickenfoot album, but I have to warn you right now: I have nothing original to say.  But if you’re reading a review of Chickenfoot, you’re probably not all that concerned with originality.

If you’re a rocker of a certain age, you doubtless have fond memories of the very first time you heard Eddie shred on Van Halen’s eponymous debut album.  Eruption was a watershed moment, a sea change, a cataclysmic occurrence.   The rest of the band was pretty good, too.

Then, a lot of big egos collided, David Lee Roth got kicked out, Sammy Hagar (of I Can’t Drive 55 infamy) came & went, Roth came & went again, Charone came & went…

Meanwhile, we all got older, got jobs, had families, got divorced, went to rehab, got laid off, got our MBA, got a new job, & went on with life.

Sammy Hagar, however, decided his new career as a nightclub and tequila impresario was somewhat unfullfilling.  So he hooked up with fellow Van Halen exile Michael Anthony, über-talented Joe Satriani, and some guy from some other band primarily known for wearing socks on their genitals to recreate his glory days with Van Halen.

Now, Sammy Hagar seems like he’d be a great guy to drink with.  He’s plenty good enough to serve as the next Jimmy Buffett for the just-turning-forty alcoholic crowd.  But as a singer, he has all the range of a Keanu Reaves character.

The musicians all have great chops.  The band is a fairly tight, cohesive unit.  The songs are well-crafted, somewhat catchy, & slickly produced.  Unfortunately, just like me, Chickenfoot has nothing original to say.

Two stars.

Bitte Orca - Every time I watch Gone With the Wind, I genuinely hope & pray that this time, Atlanta won't burn. Sadly, no matter how hard I wish otherwise, Atlanta burns – every time.

Every time I watch Gone With the Wind, I genuinely hope & pray that this time, Atlanta won’t burn. Sadly, no matter how hard I wish otherwise, Atlanta burns – every time.

Every time I listen to Bitte Orca, I genuinely hope & pray that this time, David Longsteth won’t insist on taking really good songs & driving them straight off a cliff, just to show us that he can. Sadly, no matter how hard I wish otherwise, songs needlessly unravel – every time.

Look, I get it, D-Lo: You’re not merely talented. You’re not merely capable of producing good music. You’re a beautiful genius living in a world above us mere mortals, and we ignorant masses should be grateful for every ort you toss our way. You’re e.e. cummings, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Prince, Yoko, & Celine Dion all wrapped up in one enigmatic package. How very.

News flash: Beautiful geniuses do not drop out of Yale; beautiful geniuses never set foot in New Haven.  The Tracy Flicks of the world end up in New Haven.

I do commend you, though. You’ve gotten the entire indie world drinking the kool-aid, just like a musical Jim Jones.

Two-and-a-half stars.

</rant>

“There is a central committee in Reykjavik whose responsibility it is to invent new Icelandic words… the Icelandic word for ‘computer’ is tölva, a combination of the words tala (number) and völva (prophet).”

– Deanna Swaney in “Iceland, Greenland & the Faroe Islands”
© 1997 Lonely Planet

I’m not quite certain why, but the Number Prophets find this etymological tidbit highly significant.  Look, if any number prophets were living in Iceland, they’d have seen the 2008 financial collapse coming, shorted the Krona, and gotten the hell out of Dodge.

But I digress.  Let’s focus on the matter at hand: Simple Songs for Dangerous Times, the non-eponymous debut from the San Francisco-based Number Prophets.

Several years ago, we were all skating this miniramp my bro John-David had in his back yard.  It was a pretty sketchy ramp, we were drinking mass quantities of vodka, his dogs kept getting in the way, and I ended up with a cracked rib.  Over the next several weeks, I realized that a cracked rib is probably the worst “minor” injury imaginable.  Every breath I took was painful.  I found no position that alleviated the pain.  I couldn’t sleep.  I was generally miserable and irratible for six weeks.

I’m pretty sure the Number Prophets have had a cracked rib for the past ten years or so.

This is not a Walking on Sunshine, Good Day Sunshine, Here Comes the Sun kinda disc.  This is a dark, brooding, disc.  This is the disc to listen to when you’ve watched all the CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN you can take, and you’re mad as hell, and you’re not going to take it anymore. It’s a damn fine album, but it’s not going to spawn the feel-good hit of the summer, ya dig?

Check it out, but up your dosage first.  Five stars.

Maybe you heard Decades, the debut album from Columbus-based band The Receiver. Based on their sales, though, I’m guessing you probably didn’t. No matter. Their sophomore album, Length of Arms, is stronger, more polished, and more enjoyable in every respect.

Why is it that second albums are invariably referred to as sophomore albums? Debut albums are never called freshman releases, nor are third albums ever called junior releases. Odd…

Let me get this out of the way: The Receiver are clearly influenced by Radiohead. This raises a couple of questions:

• What up-and-coming band isn’t influenced by Radiohead?
• Why don’t we all just listen to Radiohead and forget this making new music nonsense.  Really, what’s the point?

Luckily, The Receiver provide the answer to the latter question.  This album is so good that… so good that…  it reminds me of this one time when I was over at my buddy’s place watching the Reds play Chicago, and after the game he played this disc, and I said who’s that, and he said it’s Radiohead, and I said I’ve never heard of them, so he tossed me the jewel case, and I looked at the artwork and liner notes, and we listened to the rest of the CD .  This was back when I was still drinking, and I’m pretty sure we were drinking Maker’s Mark.  Odds are I brought the bottle with me, because Greg is too cheap to share his booze.

So Length of Arms is a great album.  Five stars.

Check out The Receiver on MySpace, and check out their award-winning video for their single, Visitor.