Boffoblog

Unfortunate Band Names

AP tells of Kristin Hersh's new band, which took the now-unfortunate name 50 Foot Wave.  In case you were wondering, it has nothing to do with tsunamis and they distributed a promo disc a week before the Indian Ocean disaster.

For unfortunate band names, the only one I can think of worse than that is I Am the World Trade Center.  Yes, they existed before the attack, and decided they weren't going to let Osama decide their name.  For better or worse.

Another Musical Interlude

I'm heading out soon to wear another hat, college radio DJ, and so blogging will be limited for the rest of the day.  The show, Translocal Underground, is 10am-noon e.s.t. on Wednesdays.

If you care to listen and you're not within 20 miles of Lewiston-Auburn, Maine, you can jump into the webstream at: http://www.bates.edu/wrbc/

All music, no politics (except what's in the song from time to time).

The Real Slim Shady

I've always thought that Dick Gephardt was a good man, sometimes wrong on issues and strategy though always a good Democrat, but just not that interesting.  Guess I was wrong on that last bit.

In one of those quick-hit interviews in the NYT Sunday Magazine (yes, I'm a little late getting to this), when the topic of his new iPod comes up, Gephardt slaps us with this:

What are you listening to -- political speeches?

The collected speeches of Newt Gingrich. That would be NO. I like Josh Groban. I like Tony Bennett. I like Nelly. He's from St. Louis. He's a very good rapper. I like Eminem. I have his album.

Some of the lyrics are a little hard to take.

Oh, I don't listen to the lyrics. I just like the music. I like the beat.

Dawg!

Remember, this is a man retiring from elected politics, so this is not a pander.  He really likes his Nelly.

On a tangent, I had a look at the Amazon listing for a Josh Groban disc, since he is another of Gephardt's faves, and in the always-entertaining customer reviews there is this gem:

[five stars] I have hope in young people again!, October 25, 2004

Reviewer: Barry R. Urry "Sick and Tired of Liberals" (Salt Lake City, Utah)

Josh Groban's voice and music restore my hope in the younger generation. He has a beautiful, well-trained voice, and he sings songs that mean something--that soothe the soul.

Now that's crunk!

CD Review: Tortoise

Much delayed CD review, but events just keep getting in the way.  Now I know how Jon Stewart must've felt writing his book.  Sorta.  (If you want to get straight to the politics, click here).

Tortoise has been saddled by the music press with the unfortunate designation of the founders of "post rock" (a category that, if you believe the critics, includes Ui, Mice Parade, Cul de Sac and others).  In forming the group, the members of Tortoise have maintained their rock sensibilities (members of Eleventh Dream Day and Gastr Del Sol, among others), but abandoned traditional  A-A-B-A and verse-chorus-bridge song structures.  They took on some of the vibe of jazz and jazz fusion, including,well, the vibes (but without the vapid noodling from fusion); they combined Javanese gamelan with post-production dubbing.  All the members are multi-instrumentalists and shift responsibilities from song to song.  No vocalist.

On the opening notes of of the title track on their latest disc, It's All Around You, one guitar weaves a characteristically simple line with a little reverb and distortion and a second guitar adds ornamentation.  Drums begin a gentle groove with the electric piano, and the vibes enter and after a couple of bars interweave with the guitar.  One sound builds upon another.

The final track, "Salt the Skies," starts with walking vibes a la "Vendome" by the Modern Jazz Quartet -- more like sauntering vibes -- which are then interrupted by a roiling bass.  The vibes then return, but even though the melody is the same, now with the bass added the mood has shifted into something darker and more forboding.  From beginning to end on this disc, Tortoise produces a sound that is always distinctive, whether it's an angular melody on "Crest" or the groove of "Stretch (You Are All Right)."  While it is not as adventurous as their earlier discs Millions Now Living Will Never Die or Standards, it is a consistently excellent album and like little else in the record bins.

There are transient moments, like in "Crest," which have the soft pleasantness of John Tesh.  The difference, though, is that Tortoise uses those moments to set up tensions in the music or to really rock; when you take out the pleasantness and the noodling from John Tesh's music, on the other hand, all he has left is a very large chin.

Truth be told, my strongest complaint is of the cover art, which looks like an outtake from that Cuba Gooding Jr./Robin Williams sap factory "What Dreams May Come."

Musical Interlude

Went to see Badly Drawn Boy last night at a very tiny club in town (it's a shame the Skinny is no longer in business).  Good show, excellent songwriting, and I learned a couple of things.  First, there is probably no greater Bruce Springsteen fan in the world than the Boy.  Second, if you stand next to the stage I recommend that you not talk loudly -- in fact, better not talk at all -- because he gets very feisty.

I'm heading out to do my radio show now; all music, no politics.  You can listen online at the link provided in the last sentence, assuming the webstream hasn't crashed again.  My show is 10am-noon e.s.t. Wednesdays, except when it's not.  And there is some other fine programming there, too.  But above all, support your local college, public and independent radio stations!

Political posts will return later in the afternoon.

Jumping the Snark

This blog will not all be snarky commentary on politics.  I plan to do the occasional music and film reviews as well.  Don't care about the latest release from the Criterion Collection or Thrill Jockey Records?  Then scroll down or use the links on the left to find more rants about the latest way the Bush Administration will be the end of us all.  Sick of all that and want to learn what to listen to as the world collapses around you?  Then click on the music or film links and jump the snark.

But don't get your hopes up -- I won't be reviewing all the new releases.  From time to time, I may not review any new releases.  It will be whatever strikes my fancy, whether a disc from a few months ago or a forgotten gem from decades ago.  No reviewing of downloads from iTunes or Bit Torrent, though; these will be actual, physical discs that I bought in a store.  Perhaps I'll even review the cover art and liner notes.

Now on deck: The latest from Tortoise.

Macedonia Rises Again

My neighbor was an election monitor with the OSCE for the recent referendum in Macedonia, and he told me that the Macedonians had an interesting take on our election: It was really all about Balkan politics.  Now, that seems absurd on its face, but the Macedonians aren't simply feeling their oats because of the imminent Oliver Stone biopic of Alexander the Great.  Before we get to that, let's first return to the Bush administration's decision on November 4th to recognize the country as the Republic of Macedonia.

It had been known as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" ever since Yugoslavia was, well, former.  This is how the CIA's World Factbook still has it listed in fact; clearly, they have other things on their minds at the moment.  Under Macedonia's constitution it had declared the name R of M, but no one recognized it as such due to strenuous objections from Greece, which has some clout on matters diplomatic as a member of NATO and the EU. Greece has a Macedonia of its own, a northern province as well as the home of Colin Farrell's next role.  It seemed the FYRoM was stuck with its rather awkward name.

To make matters even more convoluted, the referendum in Macedonia would have overturned a law respecting the rights of the Albanian minority to a semblance of home rule.  For the vote to be valid, at least half of the eligible voters would have to turn out.  The government and the OSCE, therefore, were in the unusual position of asking people not to vote so as to defeat the nationalist proposal.  (The government knew that if it had any chance of getting into the EU, the referendum would have to lose.)  Yes, my neighbor was there to be a poll watcher in the hopes that no one would show up to the polls.

The name change had always been in the back pocket of the U.S. and the Europeans in order to exert leverage over the Macedonians.  The problem, however, was this is a reward that could be given only once.  One might expect that a sensible administration would wait until after the referendum to make sure the nationalists lost and the rights of the Albanian minority were respected before unfurling the Republic of Macedonia banner.  As we have seen on many an occasion, this is not a sensible administration.  Instead, the announcement was made three days before Macedonians (non-)voted.

The Greeks were furious, as were Greek-Americans.  According to Agence France Presse, the Greek president said that the R of M had "historically unsubstantiated, irredentist claims on our country."  Hyperbole, yes, but you see the problem.  So why would Bush do such a thing, and why would he make it his first big post-election foreign policy move?

This is where things get even more interesting.  In the eyes of Macedonian-Macedonians, Macedonian-Americans tipped the election to Bush.  What, you ask?  But I thought the religious right had mobilized their way to victory!  Oh, they did, but this strange little story of Balkan diplomacy can be traced to good ole 'merican horsetrading.

John Kerry had received ringing endorsements from the Greek-American community, in part due to his assurances that he wouldn't fiddle with the name of the FYRoM.  George Bush, on the other hand, received support from the Macedonian-Americans.  It just so happens that Ohio has a large (for Macedonians) and well-organized population, including four of the 18 Macedonian Orthodox Church dioceses in the U.S.  The Macedonian American Friendship Association is based in Columbus, though another group called the Macedonian American National Organization is in Chicago.  (The latter group's campaign is "Call Me By My Name."  No word on whether it's sponsored by Destiny's Child.)  Bush, you see, was just fulfilling a quiet campaign promise, though one with potentially strong implications for Balkan politics.  Ah, details.

Granted, we're still talking only a few thousand votes, but it was Ohio.  The ease with which Bush caved on the name, and the very odd timing -- almost immediately after the U.S. election but prior to the Macedonian referedum -- makes it smell less like smart foreign policy and more like a post-election payoff.  Maybe those Macedonians were onto something.

And it makes me dread even more the payoff for the religious right...

A Nattering Nabob No More

The New York Times has announced that William Safire will step down as a regular creep columnist for their Op Ed page.  Now, I'm every bit as supportive of polite appreciation for a long career as the next guy, but what I can't stand is when that career is consistently misrepresented out of some misplaced professional courtesy.

It seems that every appreciation of Safire today calls him a "libertarian conservative."  At least some do justice to that label by adding "self-described" to the front.  Let me say first that, for a conservative, a libertarian is OK by me.  Much more so than their paleo and neo cousins.  But William Safire is about as strong a libertarian as Pat Boone is a metalhead.  Here's what the Washington Post says about the foundations of his libertarianism:

Safire said the late columnist Stewart Alsop offered advice on the art of writing, including "Never sell out, except for a really good anecdote." Safire's passion on privacy and civil liberties issues stems from his discovery that Nixon had him wiretapped during his White House tenure.

I see.  Questions about civil liberties, especially during the years he worked for a White House infiltrating opponents to the Vietnam War and seeking to block newspapers from printing information critical of the administration, didn't really arise until he found his own phone bugged.  That's deep.

To get a better sense of how strongly he adheres to libertarian ideals, consider his spirited defense of gay marriage.  Oops, perhaps not.  That sounded something less than spirited.  Well, certainly he is fairminded on questions of gay rights generally, right?  Try again.  Ok, maybe that's a bad choice.  How about the rights of the accused?  Thank you, come again.  Now, it is true that he opposed the Patriot Act, but that only means he learned something from his Nixon days.  Bottom line: If Safire's columns are what counts as a defense of liberty, then we are in serious trouble.

The Times did say that he was convinced to keep his Sunday "On Language" column, but that thing's been on autopilot for years.  A Lexis-Nexis search for the Word of the Week and a few emails from tweedy, pipe-smoking former English majors, and it practically writes itself.

Did it start without me?

Sometimes I am ahead of the curve, but not by very far.  Oh sure, I spotted Bill Clinton as a hot prospect for president in '92 long before the primaries, despite his gawd-awful speech at the '88 convention.  And it was clear to me that Dean would flame out way back when everyone was going meetup-nuts over him.  I'm hardly alone on either count.  I've been a Pixar fan since Luxor Jr. and Tin Toy, but I never bought any stock.  Anyone who attended animation festivals in the late '80s would say the same, with the possible exception of the stock part.

My record is mixed.   I really thought Ted Knowles would pull out the Alaska Senate race against Lisa "Frank is my dad" Murkowski, and I didn't see the mobilization of the conservative evangelicals until after it was over.  I knew Wilco was a great band several years before Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but somehow their predecessor Uncle Tupelo was never on my radar.  I caught Freaks and Geeks at its very start, but that show -- one of the finest ever to grace American televisions -- didn't last even a full season (though it lives on as an equally remarkable DVD collection).

Now I find out that blogs are becoming just another journalistic enterprise, though one without editors, training, or -- frankly -- scruples.  Glad I'm getting in now.  Heck, I'm not even the first person I know with a blog, and I don't hang out in that tech-hip a crowd.

Well, better late than never, right?