2K7 in Review: My Favorite Albums, #5
Oi, mates! Sorry about the long break, but you know how it is. Here's a Smoking Popes chat in honor of the suburban pop-punk legends' first album since reuniting in 2005, along with some punk of a more exotic variety... happy Friday the 13th!
5. Gogol Bordello, Super Taranta! (SideOneDummy)
When you think about it, the archetypal punk rocker is pretty much a "gypsy," at least in the non-ethnic sense of the word. Both groups of unkempt highwaymen are eternally subject to mainstream society's mistrust and disgust, even as the rogues squat among the refuse abandoned by the status quo. Thus, they form clannish, secretive, itinerant subcultures, outwardly marked with signs of their allegiance, always on the move toward a more romantic and daring tomorrow, never missing a chance to gob in the eyes of the upper crust fucks who push them to the fringes. "Gypsy punk" makes perfect sense to me, especially as a musical entity wherein Eastern European folk and simplistically powerful rock can get together and cause a scandalous scene in a chic Big Apple nightclub. Thankfully, Ukraine-born political refugee Eugene Hütz had the spark of genius to bring it into existence with his pioneering troupe Gogol Bordello. The outrageously mustachioed vocalist has emerged as a regular fashion plate, his glitzy thrift-store visual style accidentally born of perpetual displacement and resourceful scavenging. Having moved past hipster world-fusion DJ to increasing mainstream influence (even Madonna's using him as a prop), Hütz is the American dream personified, but unlike the majority of vacantly attractive models, he uses his visibility to comment on the American experience in ways that Andrew Warhola could never have predicted, although he would have understood them. I think that my fascination with ethnically-influenced rock acts has something to do with not knowing what my own ethnic heritage is, and like Eugene Hütz, finding joy in the juxtaposition of cultures that the United States represents rather than the dissonant, irritating jumble many are too often inclined to see. Super Taranta! expresses that with as much enthusiasm - and deceptive intelligence - as anything out there.
Because the band's influence from dodgy electronic club music is almost entirely obscured here, Gogol Bordello's fourth LP (fifth if you count J.U.F.'s Gogol Bordello vs. Tamir Muskat) has a more organic and cohesive feel than their past work. Rather than revealing a disappointingly limited palette, the addictive results are laser-focused on the band's drunken sing-along personality. About a minute and a half into opener "Ultimate," they take off at a breakneck speed-punk tempo that announces this is first and foremost vibrant rock music. They converge on incredibly accessible tunes such as thumping single "Wonderlust King," the jaunty "Zina-Marina" and "Tribal Connection," a sort of Balkan-reggae-Muppet-campfire jam. After a few runs through the disc, you'll be singing these in your head everywhere you go. Even slower moments like the hungover "Alcohol" and the percolating rhythms of "Dub the Frequencies of Love" contain an edgy energy into which one cannot help but be drawn. As frontman, Hütz hollers, chatters and whoops in his charmingly accented, intentionally incorrect English, simultaneously playing into and flouting immigrant stereotypes. He takes on religion ("Supertheory of Supereverything"), political exile ("My Strange Uncles from Abroad") and homogenous U.S. culture ("American Wedding") but he's really just the ringmaster of a dramatic, dynamic circus of accordion, violin, horns, percussion and voices. The tracks that really push Taranta! over the top are the ones where the assemblage of musicians are allowed to really strut their stuff, such as the frantic and somewhat metallic "Suddenly... (I Miss Carpaty)" and "Forces of Victory," the delirious "Harem in Tuscany (Taranta)" and the title track, where after about a minute Hütz limits his vocalizing to the occasional "ya-da-da-da" and lets violinist Sergey Ryabtsev close out the disc with a marathon of Romany revelry. To date, Gogol Bordello has pretty much cornered the Gypsy punk rock market, and this is their best set of smart, gregarious party music yet. I challenge listeners of any taste, age, social class, sexual orientation and national background to come out of it less than totally exhilarated.
Two videos were made for Gogol Bordello's Super Taranta!... see below.
"Wonderlust King"
"American Wedding"
5. Gogol Bordello, Super Taranta! (SideOneDummy)When you think about it, the archetypal punk rocker is pretty much a "gypsy," at least in the non-ethnic sense of the word. Both groups of unkempt highwaymen are eternally subject to mainstream society's mistrust and disgust, even as the rogues squat among the refuse abandoned by the status quo. Thus, they form clannish, secretive, itinerant subcultures, outwardly marked with signs of their allegiance, always on the move toward a more romantic and daring tomorrow, never missing a chance to gob in the eyes of the upper crust fucks who push them to the fringes. "Gypsy punk" makes perfect sense to me, especially as a musical entity wherein Eastern European folk and simplistically powerful rock can get together and cause a scandalous scene in a chic Big Apple nightclub. Thankfully, Ukraine-born political refugee Eugene Hütz had the spark of genius to bring it into existence with his pioneering troupe Gogol Bordello. The outrageously mustachioed vocalist has emerged as a regular fashion plate, his glitzy thrift-store visual style accidentally born of perpetual displacement and resourceful scavenging. Having moved past hipster world-fusion DJ to increasing mainstream influence (even Madonna's using him as a prop), Hütz is the American dream personified, but unlike the majority of vacantly attractive models, he uses his visibility to comment on the American experience in ways that Andrew Warhola could never have predicted, although he would have understood them. I think that my fascination with ethnically-influenced rock acts has something to do with not knowing what my own ethnic heritage is, and like Eugene Hütz, finding joy in the juxtaposition of cultures that the United States represents rather than the dissonant, irritating jumble many are too often inclined to see. Super Taranta! expresses that with as much enthusiasm - and deceptive intelligence - as anything out there.
Because the band's influence from dodgy electronic club music is almost entirely obscured here, Gogol Bordello's fourth LP (fifth if you count J.U.F.'s Gogol Bordello vs. Tamir Muskat) has a more organic and cohesive feel than their past work. Rather than revealing a disappointingly limited palette, the addictive results are laser-focused on the band's drunken sing-along personality. About a minute and a half into opener "Ultimate," they take off at a breakneck speed-punk tempo that announces this is first and foremost vibrant rock music. They converge on incredibly accessible tunes such as thumping single "Wonderlust King," the jaunty "Zina-Marina" and "Tribal Connection," a sort of Balkan-reggae-Muppet-campfire jam. After a few runs through the disc, you'll be singing these in your head everywhere you go. Even slower moments like the hungover "Alcohol" and the percolating rhythms of "Dub the Frequencies of Love" contain an edgy energy into which one cannot help but be drawn. As frontman, Hütz hollers, chatters and whoops in his charmingly accented, intentionally incorrect English, simultaneously playing into and flouting immigrant stereotypes. He takes on religion ("Supertheory of Supereverything"), political exile ("My Strange Uncles from Abroad") and homogenous U.S. culture ("American Wedding") but he's really just the ringmaster of a dramatic, dynamic circus of accordion, violin, horns, percussion and voices. The tracks that really push Taranta! over the top are the ones where the assemblage of musicians are allowed to really strut their stuff, such as the frantic and somewhat metallic "Suddenly... (I Miss Carpaty)" and "Forces of Victory," the delirious "Harem in Tuscany (Taranta)" and the title track, where after about a minute Hütz limits his vocalizing to the occasional "ya-da-da-da" and lets violinist Sergey Ryabtsev close out the disc with a marathon of Romany revelry. To date, Gogol Bordello has pretty much cornered the Gypsy punk rock market, and this is their best set of smart, gregarious party music yet. I challenge listeners of any taste, age, social class, sexual orientation and national background to come out of it less than totally exhilarated.
Two videos were made for Gogol Bordello's Super Taranta!... see below.
"Wonderlust King"
"American Wedding"
posted by SoulReaper at 6:38 PM
1 Comments:
Get down, Stay Down with Smoking Popes
For the first time in more than a decade, Smoking Popes fans can drive around blasting their new songs.
With new drummer Neil Hennessy of The Lawrence Arms in place, the Popes finally debut their fourth proper album, Stay Down. Most of the songs were written after Lake in the Hills-bred brothers Josh, Matt and Eli Caterer reunited for a concert in 2005.
That show, also at Metro, legendarily sold out in 36 minutes, proving a local audience still cherished the band's sophisticated pop-punk. A bit of successful touring further convinced them that their 1990s albums Get Fired, Born to Quit and Destination Failure had captivated the rest of the nation as well.
The appeal as always came from a combination of economically catchy punk rock hooks and Josh's swooning singing, inspired by not-very-punk vocal icons like Frank Sinatra and Mel Tormé. With many well-known acts (including local stars Fall Out Boy and Alkaline Trio) claiming Smoking Popes as an influence, their comeback could not have been better timed.
Kansas City-based indie label Appeal Records releases Stay Down, which follows a compilation, a pair of live CDs and an all-covers album originally rejected by Capitol Records when the Popes were under contract there.
Bassist Matt Caterer, who recently began acting as the quartet's manager, was most concerned with not embarrassing himself like so many other reunited rock bands. He needn't have worried. From the band’s muscular melodies to Josh's unmistakable croon, lead single "If You Don't Care" is trademark Smoking Popes.
Following is an edited conversation with Matt Caterer regarding Stay Down, which sports the band’s least pessimistic album title to date.
Q: How does it fell to finally have a new album coming out?
A: It feels good, man. We recorded this thing a while ago. It's about 2/3 songs we’ve been working on since we got back together, and then it's got a couple of songs we’ve had since the '90s that never made it onto an album. They were just kind of lying around, we forgot about them. When we reunited, we were thinking about our history and remembered that we had a handful of these songs. We thought we'd take the good ones and give them a second chance.
For some reason, our previous manager worked at a pretty glacial pace as far as taking care of things. He moved to New York, and I ended up taking over management of the band a few months ago. I decided that we should get this album out at all costs so we could have something for our summer touring. Having made that decision, we're totally behind the eightball as far as promotion goes. We're going to put the album out and then promote it. That's the reason why we don’t have promo copies yet. I have to go over and get the final master from the dude at Colossal this afternoon. We're pretty much going to be in crisis mode the whole time (laughs).
Q: It's coming out through Curb Appeal Records?
A: Yeah, but they had to change their name to Appeal. I think they got a cease and desist from Curb Records, who I guess are assholes. I went and saw Hank Williams III at Metro years ago, and he had a huge banner behind him that said "Fuck Curb Records." So I guess those guys really are assholes. Anyway, they challenged Alex at the label about the name, so he changed it to Appeal, or is going to have an imprint called Appeal. For our purposes, it's coming out on Appeal.
Q: Where did the title Stay Down come from?
A: It's just from one of the songs on the record, it's got a lot of imagery we liked quite a bit. We were going to have it be the single, but the people at Q101 and XRT, radio people, thought "If You Don't Care" was a better first single.
Q: From "If You Don't Care," it definitely sounds like the band hasn't changed much.
A: When we first got back together, I was at a bar with my brother Josh because he called me and said, "Hey, let's get together, I'm going to be in the city." Then he was like, "I've been thinking about getting the Popes back together," and my response was, “Well, how's that going to be cool?” In my opinion, it's a risky proposition for bands to reunite because it always seems a little weird. Especially once a band comes together to make a record again after an absence. It never seems as cool.
So this was my fear, but shortly after we decided to do it again, we played that Flower15 show at Metro, and we were going, "Geez, is anyone even really going to care?" But that show sold out in 36 minutes, so we were like "Well, I guess people do care," and the whole experience of playing shows has been great. They tease me sometimes about saying, "Well, how's that going to be cool?" because it's been totally cool.
My other fear was making a record that totally sucked. I'm thinking of that album Television made when they came back in the early '90s. It had that song "Call Mr. Lee," it was pretty bad. So, you know what I mean, my biggest fear was that we were going to do something that would totally embarrass ourselves. But once we started playing together and getting into it, we started working on new songs pretty much right away. I think that maybe separately we have a different sound, but once we get together we have this sort of telepathic Smoking Popes sound or something that comes through. The songs that Josh started bringing, he's got his style of songwriting, and when you combine that with the style of the band, that's the Popes' sound. Once we got into it, it seemed like it was at least going to be in the same ballpark of being good as something like Born to Quit.
I would say most of the record sounds like that, but some of it comes off a bit more mature, more ballad-y sounding. Although, we've had ballads in the past, like "Megan" and "Follow the Sound" off Destination Failure. I know what you're saying, though, it definitely sounds like us. It's not like we got electronic drums, or because we influenced all these emo bands we were going to make "our emo record."
Q: You guys did have a huge influence on that scene, especially around here.
A: I guess Josh and Eli knew about it more than I did because they were out on the road with their band Duvall. But since we got back together, I've realized that we're a really significant band for a lot of younger musicians. It's everywhere, it's kind of remarkable. It's something I didn't know about until we got back together, but I guess in the interim, the songs were still out there and people were into them. At shows and stuff, I meet musicians all the time who are fans. Like, on the first leg of our reunion tour, we went out with Bayside. [Vocalist/guitarist] Anthony [Raneri] would always talk on stage about how we were his favorite band since he was 14. That was really gratifying, especially since they're nice guys and quite a great band themselves.
Q: Matt and Eli had Duvall, but were you playing with anybody in that time off?
A: Yeah, I played with a bunch of people. Little jams here and there, nothing major. It's weird, because nothing I did would gel into something I thought was cool enough to really do. I was like, "I'll just keep hanging out in bars and nightclubs and I'll end up running into people that I'll jam more long-term with." Which is exactly what happened, it was just... my brother (laughs). It was the Popes again.
Q: I know that Josh is the main songwriter, and in the past he had trouble reconciling his faith with the band's music. Has he worked that out?
A: When we talked that initial night, that's something we discussed. I didn't want to be in Duvall for several reasons, one of which was that I have my own spirituality and I didn't want to be in a band that's essentially about someone else's spirituality. When we talked about getting the Popes back together, it was pretty clear that it was going to be a secular band, and that's the way it has remained. Although I've noticed, I've actually never asked Josh about it, but some of the imagery is about fire and stuff, which to me seems a little bit Biblical. Which is cool, I've been reading the Bible since I was a little kid, I like that stuff. I'm not trying to get him to deny that, I'm proud of him and I'm happy for him. But for our band, we all agreed it should be secular. It's his life, so I'm sure his perspective seeps through somehow into the newer songs, but I'm not the best source to talk to about that.
Q: That kind of imagery is kind of elemental, it's there in our culture. Even if you're not devout, you know where it comes from.
A: If you start reading and thinking about the Bible, you realize those lessons, like you say, are in the culture. I mean, the moral of every sitcom is based on Biblical stuff.
Q: Do you feel the lyrics are the main difference between the Smoking Popes and what Josh and Eli were doing in Duvall?
A: I guess so, because that was the point of Duvall from talking to him. You can tell the lyrics are more from a Christian pop band, even though his singing and his songwriting style sounds a lot like the Popes. Obviously, the band wasn't as good (laughs).
Q: Regarding Smoking Popes lyrics, you’re the oldest guy in the band, but do you still relate to the tales of romantic trouble that seem to come up so often?
A: Yeah, I think he's really got a gift for capturing the trials and tribulations of love and romance. Until very recently, I was single most of my adult life, I've been out on the dating scene. Obviously some of the earlier stuff was kind of "teenage" or whatever, but it's because we were actually that age then. I'm thinking of a song like "Not That Kind of Girlfriend," he's talking about heartbreak and troubles in a relationship and he's going, "I don't wanna fall in love 'til I'm 35." Then we played a show last year, and he's going, "We’re going to do this song which I wrote when I was 19. It contains the line 'I don't wanna fall in love 'til I'm 35,' and I just turned 35." But he's just got a real knack for distilling those kinds of emotions and placing them into popular song context.
Q: What does Stay Down have to offer for old fans as well as people who might know the band name, but never heard your music?
A: For older fans, I feel like we have not let them down. That was our main concern going into this record, because at that point we knew that we still had fans from back in the day. I'm excited about the record. I'm not going to sit here and say it's our best work, because I don't know that, but it's good. It's our sound, we put a little different spin on it with some slower songs and stuff, but it seems to me like a very natural progression from the sound we had before. For younger kids, check it out, and if you like it, you'll definitely like our other ones. From where I'm coming from, it'll be a good introduction to our sound.
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