Spin magazine's Editor's Blog

"Why I Can't Listen to Elliott Smith's Music"

Matt Kiser — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:13:37 -0500

Today marks the sixth anniversary of Elliott Smith’s death.

For me, it marks the fifth anniversary of not listening to his music. This isn’t because I don’t like it. I actually share the view that Smith was one of the best two or three singer-songwriters of his generation.

When I was in college I’d have XO and Figure 8 on repeat-play, sometimes hearing them three or four times a night. My roommate and I would waltz around the room, singing along to every song, completely unaware of the sentiments spilling from our mouths. We knew his lyrics were “deep,” but we heard what we wanted to hear. To me, the songs were dark but beautiful, haunting yet comforting, stark and lush at the same time.

Then I learned. Way too much.

In October of 2004, a year after his death, Spin ran a feature on the untold story behind Smith’s death. Though it was assumed he committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest, the coroner's report noted that “several aspects of the circumstances… are atypical of suicide and raise the possibility of homicide.”

More on SPIN.com:
>> Elliott Smith Remembered, 5 Years Later
>> 'Elliott Smith' Compiles Photos, Unreleased Live Material
>> Review: From a Basement on the Hill (Anti-)
>> Review: XO (Dreamworks)

Some people believed his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba, who was with him at the time of his death and who pulled the knife from his body before calling 911, murdered him. Most others thought this was ridiculous. While our story by Liam Gowing touched on the rumors, it made a case for suicide. And since I was the research editor of the magazine at the time, it was my job to make sure that case was solid. I had fact-checked hundreds of articles for the magazine, but nothing like this.

For almost a month, I poured over transcripts of interviews with Smith’s friends and loved ones; I read books and newspaper articles; I tried to interpret lyrics of songs like “Suicide Machine” and “Abused,” which would never be released; I spoke with former band mates, medical professionals, music executives, girlfriends -- even Jennifer Chiba, who was so willing to talk that I found it unnerving. Some people hung up on me. Others choked up, sharing particularly troubling memories. People told me things they shouldn’t have, things I couldn’t repeat. I cried a lot that month. Sometimes it was because of stress, but mostly I was crying for Elliott Smith.

In May of 2002 I saw Smith play a private show for Northwestern University students at a club in Chicago. His set lasted 50 minutes, but he didn’t get through a single song. He seemed drunk, high, completely out of it. He kept saying that his left hand hurt -- that his fingers had gone numb -- and that’s why he couldn’t play. “It's like having stuff on your hand and you can't get it off,” he told the crowd, shaking his wrist, trying to remove the imaginary goo.

Elliott Smith

My friends and I thought this was hilarious. We repeated this line for weeks, mocking his slurred, drawn-out speech. But we didn’t know what it meant. We didn’t know that at the time he was addicted to heroin and crack, smoking up to $1,500 worth a day. We didn’t know that he had actually tried to OD but failed, on more than occasion. We didn’t know that he believed he was sexually abused by his stepfather as a child. We didn’t know that three months later, he’d check himself into rehab, get clean, and finally face the pain he’d spent years trying to numb. We didn’t know any of this. We just figured he had smoked a lot of pot backstage.

They say you should never meet your idols. Nor should you get too intimate with their demons. Today, I can’t separate the songs from the story. Each one is a reminder of how cruel life can be -- allowing someone like him, someone with that much talent and heart, to suffer through so much pain for so long. I know I should celebrate his music, be grateful for his life and gifts, and that he shared them with the world, but right now I can’t. Maybe one day I’ll feel different. I hope so. I miss him.

First Take: 'Where the Wild Things Are'

Peter Gaston — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:12:11 -0500

It was a weekend of wild things, particularly of the lupine variety: unfit parents in Colorado cried wolf, SNL guest Shakira howled like a wolf, and a movie about a boy dressed as a wolf opened in theaters nationwide. Had it not been for that balloon rumpus, the latter would have easily been the most captivating spectacle.

I expected to be bored by Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. Unless they were released during my own childhood, I don't typically enjoy movies that are for or about children, and I completely slept on Maurice Sendak's 1963 book (or, at least, have no recollection of reading it). So I wasn't among the scores of people eagerly anticipating this release ever since Jonze began working on it an impressive six years ago. If anything, the hipster trifecta -- director/co-writer Jonze, writer Dave Eggers, and soundtrack composer Karen O -- seemed a tad smug, suggesting, as it did, that their involvement alone would secure the film's popularity. (And when a New York boutique started selling $600 wolf suits for grown-ups, it nearly squashed all interest).

But while it isn't as phenomenal as some diehard fans surely hoped, Where the Wild Things Are is, in my opinion, a pretty lovable movie. Jonze, still a boy at age 39, introduces his sensitive child king, Max, as if he were someone the director had known forever. One minute, the 9-year-old hero is crashing down the stairs like a sugar-smacked lunatic; the next he's in tears over a destroyed snow fort. He's lonely in the way children that age often are and we need only witness his unacknowledged entreaties to his big sister or his impish tugs at the toe of his mom's nylons to sense it.

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It's almost with reluctance that, when Max runs away from home twenty minutes in, we, too, have to leave behind Jonze's hand-held verite and travel to a fantasy land of lumbering monsters because therein lies every potential for the film to go awry. Had Jonze opted for computer-animated creatures instead of using oversized puppets that move with the uncertain awkwardness of Snuffleupagus or had he and Eggers reinvented the Wild Things so that they were an innocent crew of subservient sidekicks, the result would have been tediously G-rated. As it is, they managed to create a believably sad -- perhaps even dying -- world that seems to only exist at dawn and dusk (a symbolism alluded to early on when Max is troubled to learn that the sun will one day expire).

As a manifestation of Max's impulses and anxieties, the Wild Things are a confusing bunch. Since Sendak's original text would fill all of about ten Tweets, it's hard to say how accurate Jonze and Eggers' elaboration is -- but what difference does it make? In a documentary that aired last week, the children's book author told Jonze that he would advise today's children to "quit this life as soon as possible." Things change.

Max forges an immediate connection with the aggressively petulant Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini); they bond when the boy offers to help Carol destroy his woodland house. Soon he meets the oft-overlooked Alexander (Paul Dano), the maternal KW (Lauren Ambrose), and other characters whose expectations he, as king, must manage. The rest of the film drags a bit as Max reenacts the events that led to his leaving home -- the gallivanting and fort-building is fun, and the random decisions to sleep in piles and talk to owls are perfectly child-like in their imaginative absurdity, but there's an aimlessness to the narrative similar to that of Eggers' previous screenplay (last summer's Away We Go).

In the end, though, it's a worthwhile process. Eventually, Max recognizes Carol's destructive impulses as his own and he rejects them. All along, we've been watching Max move from indignation to realization, from selfishness to understanding, from impulse to thought, without having to endure an improbably mature speech that makes the Precocious Child one of Hollywood's least charming devices. The act of investigating one's perspective and desires is, itself, mature. Max returns to a warm dinner and nothing has been entirely resolved, only considered, which is a lesson more adult than any other.

WATCH: Where The Wild Things Are Trailer

Spinal Tap: Is the Joke Finally Over?

Matt Kiser — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:25:55 -0500

SPIN has made no secret of its reverence for a certain iconic film currently celebrating its 25th anniversary. Yet for all the accolades, Purple Rain may not even have been the most impactful rock movie released in 1984.

Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer's metal "mockumentary" This Is Spinal Tap has become the ultimate signifier for rock n' roll excess and idiocy. More to the point, it is the impossibly rare cultural product that's universally beloved. (Historically, the movie's only real detractors have been the real-life rock stars who found the goings-on all too real, and that was more out of embarrassment than outrage.)

But while Prince is marking his movie's milestone the same way he's marked every other career achievement -- by keeping his mouth shut and leaving everything about the project shrouded in mystery -- Guest, McKean, and Shearer have never shown such restraint.

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There were a couple of in-character tours, the 1992 studio album Break Like the Wind, which turned arcana from the fake band's very realistic backstory into actual songs, and numerous high-profile live appearances (the Freddie Mercury tribute in 1992, Live Earth). That's fine -- if a few music fans who have somehow never seen the movie get driven to do so, that's for everyone's betterment.

This year's attempts at brand management, however, fall on the wrong side of the fine line between stupid and clever.

The recent Unwigged and Unplugged acoustic tour, during which the trio played (out of character) not just Spinal Tap numbers but songs from its folk mockumentary counterpart A Mighty Wind, was harmless enough; it was aimed squarely at the boomers who were in on the joke the first time around, and designed as little more than a quiet, nostalgic night out that could have been MC'd by Garrison Kellior.

Less innocuous or sensible, though, was Back From the Dead, posited as a "new" album, but consisting solely of glossy re-workings of older songs. (This in and of itself not unheard of -- Camper Van Beethoven recently put out a greatest-hits collection featuring new recordings because they couldn't get the rights to their own songs and Kiss are doing something similar for a Wal-Mart exclusive.)

In Spinal Tap's case, however, this is not merely pointless, it actually strips the numbers of the subtle jokes that made them classic to begin with: The original "Gimme Some Money" was a pitch-perfect mono take on 1964-vintage Merseybeat proto-rock; redone without the jokey low-fi, it barely merits a shrug.

"Big Bottom" punctuated its ode to ample backsides with three absurd, appropriately bottom-heavy basslines; the new version is largely keyboard-driven. If this was indeed necessitated by label shenanigans, the temptation to leave the old versions out of print -- and not for sale -- must have been too easy to resist.

Then there's this: On The Daily Show a couple weeks ago, the reconstituted Spinal Tap performed the former cock-rock homage "Sex Farm," (now rechristened, lamentably, "(Funky) Sex Farm") with a horn section. (See video below.)

Certainly, these guys need to be doing something to make the joke feel fresh after 25 years, but if the only recourse is to destroy the very joke that got them here, wouldn't it make more sense to just, you know, write new jokes? (If it is indeed supposed to be some wonky commentary about the time that, I don't know, Deep Purple recorded a seldom-heard scat version of "Smoke on the Water" in 1988, then I stand humbly corrected. But somehow I don't think that's the case this time.)

Never has satire been delivered with such pinpoint accuracy as This Is Spinal Tap -- only people who understood and loved music as deeply as those guys did could have lampooned its history and its tropes so effectively. But strip away that obsessive attention to genre- and era-specific sonic details, and…well, what's the point?

If this latest move is meant to bring new eyeballs to the movie -- just released on Blu-Ray, not coincidentally -- why would abandoning the very elements that made the comedy so indelible and inimitable be deemed an effective method?

The only answer can be boredom. They would hardly be the first longstanding group to fall prey to that. But Spinal Tap aren't really a band, they're three uniquely talented comic minds with product to promote. The irony, of course, is that no product promotes itself as well as their movie -- its reputation is sterling and unimpeachable and will endure for generations without the three of them ever having to say a word about it as long as they live. All they have to do is not fuck with it. (See: Lucas, George.)

So, a personal imploration to Messrs. Guest, McKean, and Shearer: Indulge that urge to go off and finish your rock opera about Jack the Ripper, Saucy Jack, perform a symphony of your works with the London Philharmonic. Envy yourselves.

Finally, rest well at night, hopefully on a bed of well-deserved money, knowing that you've outshone the bands you were honoring/lambasting. And consider taking a cue from your fellow pop legend from the summer of 1984, who himself might be heeding a line from your fake single "(Listen to the) Flower People" (the original 1967-aping version, not the new "reggae stylee" remake):

"Shhhh."

WATCH: Spinal Tap on The Daily Show

Michael Jackson's Legacy: Neither Black Nor White

Matt Kiser — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:36:33 -0500

Yesterday afternoon, a full 19 minutes after the Associated Press confirmed Michael Jackson's death, a former publicist for the singer sent an e-mail blast to media outlets offering to spill firsthand details of Jackson's "impossibly difficult and often self-destructive journey." And really, who better to sit in judgment of the man's scruples and morals?

But while that offer seemed so repugnantly opportunistic in the moment, even by our culture's standards, before the shock of the news could even settle in, there is little question that someone will take this cretin up on his offer. The dirt is coming, and it's coming soon, and it's coming hard.

	NEWS: Michael Jackson Dead at 50 READ >>
	NEWS: Michael Jackson's Death: The Aftermath READ >>
	EDITORS BLOG: Remembering Jackson's Better Days READ >>
	VIDEOS: 5 Classic Videos VIEW >>
PLUS: >> Musicians React to Michael Jackson's Death

The immediate aftermath, though, is meant to be a dirt-free zone, a time to honor Jackson's immeasurable achievements and talent and to somehow untangle those qualities from the baffling mess of his inner life; to separate these two aspects of his character, as if they were indeed distinct entities. Such was the tenor of the cavalcade of talking heads on the teevee last night whenever the words "molestation," "vitiligo," or "Macaulay Culkin" were uttered: "We're not going to talk about that tonight. That's not how he will be remembered."

But in the case of Michael Jackson, to separate the sublime from the surreal would be to miss the very point of what made him such a unique, otherwordly presence -- you could not have one without the other.

Someone who had reached such an unmatched level of ubiquity would simply have to suffer some sort of commensurate turmoil. To emerge from that life wholly grounded and psychically intact would be far more inexplicable than dangling your kid Blanket off a fourth floor balcony. One simply could not be famous since the age of 8 in what could charitably be described as a toxic family situation and go on to create the most successful piece of popular culture in any medium that the world has ever seen without becoming profoundly, deeply fucked up. He experienced the good and the bad in equal, unprecedented ways.

Further, just as the punditry-elite agree that Jackson's is a talent that the world won't see the likes of again, neither is his inscrutable character. Nothing could shine a brighter light on the numbing dullness and transparency of today's class of pop stars than remembering Jackson's divisive weirdness.

Iconic pop stars should be weird and unknowable, that's what we're paying them for. They shouldn't be typing their observations into their iPhones 140 characters at a time; they should be shooting their televisions and comparing themselves favorably to Jesus and collecting African babies at will and sleeping in hyperbaric chambers with well-dressed chimpanzees and possibly, regrettably, kindergartners. Because we cannot. We need them to live lives we'll never know, lives we shouldn't know; to be, if not above the law, then certainly beyond the pale. We're not gonna get this from Ciara and Ben Gibbard, no matter how much we beg.

Us magazine isn't necessarily wrong: Celebrities are just like us -- smile to the cameras as you buy arugula, Kim Kardashian. The mistake is lumping Michael Jackson in with that phylum. He exists -- present tense -- on an entirely different level, and if you were to count off others who might join him there, you wouldn't make it to a second hand.

So brace yourself for the torrents of bad vibes and strange tales coming to a supermarket checkout rack near you soon, and console yourself knowing that while they may be hurtful to the man, they will ultimately only add to his considerable legend. Then remember how important it was to Michael Jackson to be thought of as a legend and hope that just maybe the last derisive laugh will be his.

Remembering Michael Jackson's Better Days

Eric Nowels — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:10:45 -0500

In the days to come, you will hear a lot of negative stories -- some true, some not -- about Michael Jackson. His squandered fortune. His strange health history. His failed marriages. But I can remember a time when "Michael Jackson" only meant good things.

I remember being five years old and listening to Bad on cassette tape over and over again. I remember being eight and playing Michael Jackson's Moonwalker on my Sega Genesis until my eyes started to tear.

	NEWS: Michael Jackson Dead at 50 READ >>
	EDITORS BLOG: MJ's Legacy: Neither Black Nor White READ >>
	VIDEOS: 5 Classic Videos VIEW >>
PLUS: >> Musicians React to Michael Jackson's Death

I remember going to Disney World with my family and seeing Michael Jackson in the 3D movie Captain Eo. I remember how my friend Adam Litovitz could do the moonwalk better than anybody else in our 4th grade class. I remember the thrill of being allowed to stay up late and watch the video premiere of "Black or White." I remember when Michael Jackson was more than a freak.

I'm 27 years old. Right before I left the office last night, I asked a 21-year-old SPIN colleague if he could remember a time when Michael Jackson wasn't best known as a public train wreck, a punch line. His first memory of MJ was the "Scream" music video from 1995, but even then, he knew about the allegations of child sexual abuse.

I called my sister. She's 19. Her first memory of Michael Jackson? "As someone who looked white but was really black."

It's sad to think that I might be part of the last age group that can recall when Michael Jackson was great.

I can remember when Michael Jackson was magical, charming, kind, and seemed as wonderfully superhuman as Mickey Mouse or a Transformer. I believed in him as a video game character and the captain of an intergalactic spacecraft. That's why all my friends and I tried to mimic his dance moves on the carpet of Mr. Bryk's classroom -- he was a hero.

I remember when Michael Jackson was a joyous spectacle, not a sad one, and when his ubiquity was a good thing. I wish we all could say the same.

Bye Bye Bogle: A Tribute to Surf-Rock Kings the Ventures

Matt Kiser — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:58:13 -0500

Surf, sun, and babes -- it's the California Dream. But its soundtrack was born in a much uglier place: a used car lot in rainy Tacoma, WA.

It's there that Bob Bogle and Don Wilson first met in 1958 and discussed their mutual love of the guitar. Soon they quit their jobs as mason workers and formed the Ventures, instrumental surf rock pioneers behind hits like "Walk, Don't Run," "Hawaii Five-O," "Pipeline," and "Perfidia." The group would go on to sell over 100 million records, notch 17 Top 40 releases, get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- and forge a sound that reached across the globe.

Sadly, after five decades of music, Bogle died June 14 in Vancouver, WA, due to complications from non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He was 75.

Bogle leaves behind a rich musical legacy that has influenced half a century or rock'n'roll bands. From Nirvana (check out the surf beats and guitar work on "Sappy") to Britney Spears (the solo in "Toxic"), the Ventures' sound can be found in many genres and artists.

Two up-and-coming rock bands influenced by the Ventures are San Diego's Wavves, who fuses Phil Spector girl group pop with distorted surf rock riffs and rhythms, and Danish rock duo the Raveonettes, whose sound is a dark, reverb-drenched take on '60s pop.

"Bob basically wrote all the melody to the Ventures songs," Wavves, aka Nathan Williams, tells SPIN.com. "Since so much of it was instrumental, the lead guitar was in a sense singing the vocal melody and Bob did it perfectly -- super repetitive and beached out. Bob played bass in the Ventures later on and you can hear in the songs that same sort of knack for melody."

Raveonettes guitarist/vocalist Sune Rose Wagner is an avid fan of surf rock. One listen to his band's tune "Love in a Trashcan" and the lineage from the Ventures to the Raveonettes couldn't be clearer: “Bob was a huge inspiration for me as a guitarist and songwriter," Sune says from his studio in Copenhagen, where the Raveonettes are recording their new album. "An extremely visionary man, he will be missed.”

More Editors' Blogs:
>> The Tonys' 6 Great Rock'n'Roll Moments
>> Jack White: Not Your Dad's Rock Star
>> What Jay Bennett's Death Made Me Realize About Wilco

Among Bogle's contributions to music was the Mosrite Ventures Series guitar, which he and the band helped design with the fledging guitar co. With its easy playability and sunny twang it became a favorite among surf rock groups -- as well as later bands like MC5, the Ramones, My Bloody Valentine, Franz Ferdinand, and Arcade Fire. A statue of the late Johnny Ramone holding a Mosrite stands beside the '70s punk guitarist's Los Angeles grave. And Kurt Cobain played one, too -- in fact, it was the only axe he never ran neck first into a stack of amplifiers.

Bogle's innovative guitar work led to the Ventures' induction into the Rock Hall just last year. "'Walk, Don't Run' started a whole new movement in rock'n'roll," Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty said when he inducted the band (Bogle was too sick to attend the ceremony). "The sound of it became 'surf music' and the audacity of it empowered guitarists everywhere."

Wilson, who co-founded the Ventures with Bogle and played alongside him for 50 years, told the Tacoma News Tribune: "I run across so many people, guitar players -- famous ones -- and they say, 'the first song I learned was 'Walk, Don't Run.'"

It makes sense: Ever since their explosion in the '60s, the Ventures have gone by a nickname: "The Band that Launched a Thousand Bands."

WATCH: The Ventures, "Walk Don't Run"

The Tonys' 6 Great Rock'n'Roll Moments

Matt Kiser — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:06:45 -0500

On the scale of Rockingness, Broadway's Tony Awards generally register somewhere between Golden Girls and Hannah Montana. But at Sunday night's show (which I had the privilege -- yes, privilege! -- to attend) devil horns outnumbered jazz hands.

Poison's Bret Michaels performed with the cast of '80s hair metal jukebox musical Rock of Ages; dozens of shirtless and hirsute young men from the revival of Hair streamed down the aisles of Radio City, running their hands through the locks of audience members like Anne Hathaway and, err, James Gandolfini; and Elton John, ever the diva, wore sunglasses whlie performing a stirring number from his new musical Billy Elliot.

Of course, some people, like the owlish, tuxedoed, sixty-something man sitting in front of me, couldn't handle it. About halfway through the show, he whirled in his seat and sniffed, without irony and to no one in particular: "Ugh, rock and roll. I should've brought my ear plugs!"

So in honor of him, I herewith offer my 6 Most Rock 'n' Roll Moments of 2009's Tony Awards (jazz hands, please):

6. At the end of the opening montage, the cast members of all the musicals storm the stage and dance it out to "Let the Sun Shine In" from Hair. With all the manic bouncing and hand waving, they look like they're at a Girl Talk concert rather than the Tonys. Except instead of Gregg Gillis at the center of the stage, it's Elton John. Which is pretty girl talk, actually.

WATCH: Opening Number

5. A very cool and sly Geoffrey Rush accepts his award for best actor for Eugène Ionesco's Exit the King and says, "French existential absurdist tragi-comedy rocks." He then jokes that the other plays nominated are proof the genre is "blowing up," pronouncing God of Carnage, the play starring James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels, with a French accent as "God of Car-NAHGE" and calling Neil LaBute's play, Reasons to be Pretty, "Les Raisons d'etre Jolie." All said with a weaving, loquacious manner that was somehow very Keith Richards.

4. The cast of Shrek The Musical -- including Pinocchio, Humpty Dumpty, and the three little pigs -- perform a song called "Let Your Freak Flag Fly." Connecting the dots between nursery rhymes and the third verse of Hendrix's "If 6 Was 9" ("I'm gonna wave my freak flag high, high, ow").

3. After Billy Elliot is crowned best musical, host Neil Patrick Harris closes the show with a parody of West Side Story's "Tonight," vamping on the evening's events. Sample stanza: "Elton's Billy was all the rage/ What class, what drive/ now Angela won five / And she hooked up with Poison backstage." Said "Angela" being, yes, Angela Lansbury.

2. During the medley of "I Want to Rock," "Paradise," and "Don't Stop Believing" from Rock of Ages, Jarvis Mitchell, the Jack Black-esque narrator of the musical, saunters into the audience, stops before the Liza Minnelli's seat, and, angling his crotch toward her face, calls her "a nasty little Tony nominated freak machine."

1. After leading the cast of Rock of Ages in a rifftastic rendition of his band Poison's song "Nothin' But a Good Time," Rock of Love host Bret Michaels continues to work the crowd, waving and blowing kisses, apparently still deep in throes of the first Bush administration. He's so transported that he misses his mark and gets closelined onto his back by a heavy, descending piece of backdrop. Neil Patrick Harris comments that his performance "gave head banging a whole new meaning." (Ba-dum-bump!)

WATCH: Bret Michaels Get Flattened at Tony Awards

Jack White: Not Your Dad's Rock Star

Matt Kiser — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:18:00 -0500

Always unpredictable and never less than interesting, Jack White has cut a unique swath through modern rock. Here’s how:

1. He’s Willing to Take a Back Seat, Literally
In his new band Dead Weather, Jack White is the drummer. He's leaving the spotlight to singer Alison Mosshart (of the Kills). Rock history is full of famous frontmen who temporarily left their regular gigs to do solo work -- e.g., Mick Jagger, Thom Yorke -- but that move is almost always about setting oneself apart from the band, a way of saying this is my thing, here’s what I can do. But by installing himself behind the drums and teaming up with a spitfire lead singer, White is making it clear that his time away from the White Stripes is no ego trip. (White’s other other band, the Raconteurs, is similarly democratic.) I’m sure White has a healthy self-regard, but his willingness to take his name off the marquee and subsume his identity and talent within a group is a refreshing reversal of what we expect from folks of his stature.

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2. He Sweats the Small Stuff
When we think of rock star activism, what comes to mind? Sting entreating us to save the rain forest? Bono campaigning against Third World debt? Unlike those lofty thinkers, Jack White opts for the local. He has joined Nashville’s "Music Business Council," a panel expected to advise the city’s Mayor on music-related projects in White's adopted hometown. This isn’t pie in the sky stuff either. The council will tackle grassroots issues like music education and advise on the construction of an amphitheatre in downtown Music City. Bono talks with Popes and Presidents. White deals with the Mayor.

3. He’s a Mythmaker
Jack White’s real name is John Gillis. For years, he pretended that his ex-wife was his sister. He claims he was married by a shaman on a canoe in the Amazon River. His bands are as much conceptual art projects as they are musical entities. The dude has no shortage of imagination. Compared to his thirtysomething contemporaries like Chris Martin or Billie Joe Armstrong -- all of whom cultivate the notion that they either speak for, or to, us, mere mortal fans -- White appears otherworldly and mysterious. He doesn’t care about coming across as “regular.”

4. He’s Become a Modern Rock Star While Pretending the Modern World Doesn’t Exist
White’s music is rooted in styles -- rockabilly, blues, garage rock -- that were already looking dusty when he was born in 1975. Of course, there are precedents for young musicians reworking older styles. Beck, for one, relied heavily on folk and blues before stepping into the future with Odelay. By contrast, the closest White has come to 'updating' his sound was with the hard rock riffola of the Raconteurs -- which basically sounds like Nazareth. Early Nazareth. What's more, he's fond of old equipment. He uses analog recording; the White Stripes' breakthrough album, Elephant, was laid down at London's Toe Rag studio, which is outfitted with pre-1960s gear. White's not exactly an Auto-Tune kinda guy.

5. He married a model
Actually, that's pretty much rock star status quo, isn’t it? Ah, well. Give him a break. He’s earned it.

MTV Movie Awards: Samberg, K-Stew, Eminem, and More

Matt Kiser — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:03:55 -0500

In case you missed the MTV Movie Awards last night -- or only half-watched it, like I did -- here's our verdict on the night's hot topics:

Eminem v. Bruno -- Was Em in on the joke? I'm about 67% convinced that he was. While Eminem seems far too cranky to willingly participate in a prank that involved Baron-Cohen's gay character Bruno descending from the ceiling to rest his junk in Mathers' face, everyone is fighting for attention these days. Audiences are busy flitting from one YouTube clip to the next, but this stunt has the potential to keep us talking about Eminem at least until Wednesday -- so maybe it was worth two balls to the face. Plus, speaking of balls, does MTV have any? Would they really allow one of the few platinum selling artists in attendance to be ambushed (hee) like this without telling him?

OMG, Miley Cyrus -- She made me squirm when, after winning Best Song, she big upped God and then told Samberg, "I'm on the boat!" Miley is like that girl from high school who thinks she's plucky and popular but, in reality, her classmates only like her because her parents have a pool. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with believing in God, but believing that he had anything to do with who gets a popcorn statuette from MTV kinda trivializes his authority, no? And then reaching out to Andy Samberg like those two could possibly share a joke?

Hottest Actress Around, Kristen Stewart -- The misery of K-Stew needs to end. Yes, she is doomed to complete three more Twilight movies, and while that probably makes the star who's set to play Joan Jett in the Runaways biopic feel lamer with every passing sequel, she isn't doing herself any favors by acting so unimpressed by it all. Last night, she looked like she'd rather be shot into space than have anything to do with the movie franchise that has made her famous. She rolled her eyes at costar R Patz during one of his acceptance speeches, deliberately mumbled an introduction to the clip of New Moon and dropped her statuette for Best Performance. Her unease is understandable -- especially considering that her better movie, Adventureland (a.k.a. the best movie of 2009) was totally ignored last night -- but her undisguised apathy is a little tacky.

Token Apatow alum, Jonah Hill -- In under two minutes, Hill managed to crack a joke about Vanessa Hudgens' and Zac Efron's lack of pubic hair, and then faked a boner when Robert Pattinson took the stage. Considering that all of those stars probably appeal to an audience that has only just hit puberty themselves, it could have been icky. Well, actually, it was icky and I laughed anyway. In the absence of Seth Rogen and Co., all of whom would presumably rather get stoned at this point than attend the Movie Awards, Hill seemed to be saying, "Don't forget me, Apatow!" But his inappropriateness was legitimately funny.

"Old Timer," Cameron Diaz -- Poor Cameron. Like Ben Stiller and Jim Carey, her presence last night felt parental. She tolerated "old" jokes from Abigail Breslin, picked up what looked like the remains of K-Stew's broken trophy, and threw herself into Samberg's skit with Fred Armisen by doing a little dance during their fake intervention. Despite not having much of an aptitude for sketch comedy, she tries (see her multiple guest appearances as a cougar on SNL) and it often feels like she's rushing to beat other people to the punch line before she gets branded the Loneliest Spinster in the World (Jennifer Aniston is waiting to be relieved).

Host, Andy Samberg -- Just like he does for SNL, Samberg brought "youth savvy" to the MTV Movie Awards (read: he referenced Keyboard Cat). And since every year the crowd grows significantly tweenier, it worked. His spoofs incorporated some of the most ridiculous scenes from last year's hit movies (the poop jump in Slumdog, the Edward-smells-Bella's-blood-for-the first-time-and-looks-revolted moment from Twilight). As a comedian, Samberg seems to prefer to get celebrities in on the joke rather than make fun of them, which sometimes seems like a bid for their friendship. But, then again, poking fun at the cast of the Hills, Twilight and High School Musical would mean laughing at half of last night's audience. Of course, Samberg also spent a good deal of time big-upping his own Lonely Island songs. "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions" was an amusing observation that stretched into an over-long skit, but the star-studded performance of "Dick in a Box" was more entertaining than either live guest Kings of Leon or Eminem. He should host every year until he, too, is deemed too old (which will be in about two years).

What Jay Bennett's Death Made Me Realize About Wilco

Matt Kiser — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:48:58 -0500

A few Sundays ago I hosted a Wilco listening session in my apartment.

The only guest was my husband, a casual listener more conversant in Jeff Tweedy's migraines and squabbles with sidemen than the band's actual musical catalogue. As a longtime Wilco fan -- who first heard A.M. on a dorm boombox freshman year at college in Chicago -- I took it upon myself to school him.

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I pulled out all six of their albums, put them in the carousel (they're one of the few bands whose records I always buy on CD) and walked him through each song. By the time we moved from the atmospheric pop of A Ghost Is Born into the jammy folk-rock of Sky Blue Sky, I had a sudden realization: I liked Wilco better with Jay Bennett in the band.

When I heard that he died last Sunday, this wistfulness turned into something worse. Bennett, who released a handful of quirky and gorgeous (but largely overlooked) solo albums after his dismissal from Wilco, had emerged in recent media as a vengeful and troubled soul. Just three weeks prior to his death, he filed suit against Wilco for breach of contract and unpaid royalties, possibly to help pay for hip surgery he lacked health insurance to cover. While a toxicology report has yet to determine the cause of death, his drug history and the pain he was likely in certainly raise the specter of an overdose. Which only makes his clouded reputation as an artist seem more unfair.

To me, Bennett got a bad rap. Much of this comes from his portrayal in the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: as a crazy, dreadheaded, obsessive, control freak -- a guy all but explicitly blamed for sending Tweedy into the bathroom stall to puke his guts out, overwhelmed by the angst of working with such a nightmare. That Tweedy then fired Bennett only cemented the latter's rep as an albatross cast from Tweedy's shoulders so that Wilco could rise to glory.

The film is a must-see (especially for anyone considering a career in the music industry), but it has its distortions. (Watch the trailer here.) Even Tweedy complained that it focused too much on his and Bennett's relationship. And the Bennett-as-creativity-squelcher throughline sort of obscures the fact that he co-wrote eight of the eleven songs on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the album that propelled Wilco to become one of the most critically lauded and obsessively followed bands of their generation.

Bennett joined Wilco in 1994 just after they recorded their debut, A.M. While it's not always easy to pinpoint one musician's effect on a band's sound, I think Bennett's contributions were audible and distinct.

LISTEN TO WILCO:
"Can't Stand It"/"Shot In The Arm" (Live Indiana, '09)

"I'm Always in Love"

"She's A Jar" (Live at Austin City Limits, '99)

"My Darling" (Live at Austin City Limits, '99)

A multi-instrumentalist and studio wiz, he helped Wilco shed its alt-country tag and move into the immersive, unclassifiable sonic territory they become known for. Bennett's Wilco debut Being There was a huge step forward, and by the time Summerteeth came out in 1999, they sounded like a completely different band. The songs were fuller, warmer, the standard guitar-and-drums set-up of A.M. had been supplemented by a lush psychedelic impressionism that was largely a product of Bennett's masterful work with farfisa organ, bells, Moog, lap steel guitar, banjo, synthesizer, and other instrumental exotica.

Yesterday I listened to Summerteeth and tried to imagine it without these contributions. How would "Can't Stand It" sound without those dramatic bell chimes that double the guitar chords at the opening? Would "I'm Always in Love" be half as good without the chirpy, Cars-ish analog synth? And would "She's A Jar" be anywhere near as heartbreaking without that soft, sighing organ that coos through the verses? Or those stately, orchestral synths that rise to bring in the chorus? Or that gentle oboe-like keyboard phrase that caresses the line "dry your eyes, you poor devil"?

Go listen to that song now, think about Jay Bennett's passing, and try keeping your own eyes dry.

I'm not trying to take glory from Tweedy. Wilco is his band, and boy has he earned the rep they enjoy now. But I really think Bennett made him better, and at a crucial time in the band's career. I still love Wilco. I've enjoyed all their post-Bennett albums and think their new one, Wilco (The Album), is the best of those yet. But I haven't felt that way about any of them. It always seemed like something was missing to me. Maybe it was just a certain deeply musical understanding of the songs' shapes and colors, a certain way of setting off a phrase or building a gorgeous aural frame. I'm not exactly sure. But now that something is gone for good.

Free download: Jay Bennett's album "Whatever Happened I Apologize".