The Representative Of The Green Party Has The Floor.

Album: The Audacity Of Hype

Artist: Jello Biafra And The Guantanamo School of Medicine

Genre: Hardcore Punk

Year: 2009

Label: Alternative Tentacles

[At the time of writing this you could still get this album for free on amazon. Times have changed though. It's still cheaper than most things in the MP3 store, but it's no longer free. Sorry.]

There are lots of Punk musicians, old and new, who are vital, interesting and worth your time and energy to look up. Some, however, need to pack it in. Where Jello Biafra falls at this point is ambiguous, but I’m beginning to think the man has had his time and needs to hang up the microphone for good.

Jello Biafra is certainly most famous for being the voice of the Dead Kennedy’s, one of the first overtly political Hardcore Punk bands and is, at this point, the only original member of the band who is still even close to artistically relevant. Since the break-up of the Dead Kennedy’s way back in the 80’s, Biafra has collaborated with numerous artists, started a spoken word career, been running Alternative Tentacles Records and generally tried to be a force in the political realm. But if you want to know about his political involvement, you can go read his Wikipedia page. I want to talk about his music.

I’ve had an odd relationship with Biafra’s music over the years. I enjoy the Dead Kennedy’s but in terms of classic Hardcore Punk bands, they’re far from my favorite (that’d probably be Black Flag) and I usually find myself listening to Biafra because he works with other artists I like, not because I just want to hear him. Examples of this include the first Lard album, which was Biafra collaborating with the Industrial Metal band Ministry, and the two albums he did with the Melvins as his backing band. With both Lard and the Melvins, Biafra was backed by heavy Metal music that seemed very appropriate to his political conspiracy ramblings. The boys from Ministry learned to play in a more punk-like style with Lard and the Melvins sounded like a sludgier version of Lard for the albums they did with him. All in all, both worked out pretty well.

Now, at 51 years of age, Biafra has formed a new band called The Guantanamo School of Medicine, which, aside from being a mouthful, is probably, the best backing band he’s ever worked with. Except for the Melvins, of course. Including Biafra himself, the band is a quintet consisting of Ralph Spight (of Victims Family) and Kimo Ball (of Freak Accident) on guitars, Jon Weiss (of Sharkbait) on drums and Billy Gould (of Faith No More) on bass. Of the musicians involved, I was only familiar with Gould before. So in a way, this unusual group of players was completely new to me. Further more, this is the first time since getting Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables that I’ve gotten an album because of Biafra himself and not the band he’s working with.

The Guantanamo School of Medicine has released an album that lets you know right away, in no uncertain terms, that Biafra has not cooled with age and that he’ll be skewering politicians till the day he dies. All you have to do is look at the album’s cover, which features a devilish Biafra in the style of the famous Obama Hope poster and the album’s title under it, The Audacity of Hype, to get the picture: no one is safe from Jello.

Musically speaking, this is a surprisingly solid record. The School of Medicine essentially takes the best elements of the two best bands Biafra ever worked with by combining the speed, energy and punked out agitation of The Dead Kennedys with the mighty heaviness of the Melvins. The result is a classic Hardcore Punk sound with some serious weight behind it, and it sounds pretty good. Spight and Ball’s twin guitars are the stars of this show as they shred their way through all nine tracks with reckless abandon. Gould and Weiss make for a good rhythm team with Gould’s bass as the source of the weight that holds the music together. Their combined energy is manic and provides an excellent platform for Biafra to rant over. Yep. The Guantanamo School of Medicine is a fantastic Hardcore Punk Band and that’s the start of the problems.

Here’s what’s up: no new ground is being broken here. None. Sure the music is good, but we’ve essentially heard this before with the Melvins, with Lard and even with The Dead Kennedys. The Guantanamo School of Medicine is just another in a long line of Biafra’s backing bands and he has a way of infecting his bands so that they all sound similar. More than that, Biafra is getting old and his rants are too. This is umpteenth time I’ve heard him raving about how the politicians are corrupt, how 9/11 was an inside job and how consumerism sucks. All of that may be true (maybe,) but we’ve all heard him say it all before. The only thing that’s missing from that list is a reference to pedophile criminals or drug cartels… actually that second one might be in there, too.

In theory, there will always be new political conspiracies to get freaked out over, and so Biafra will always have new material, but at the moment, this all feels like re-hash. To cap all this off is the way the album ends. The last track “I Won’t Give Up” is 21 minutes long and is one of those annoying tracks that actually ends about six minutes in, leaving us in silence. After a while, the silence ends and the music starts again, but the secret track is actually all of the songs from the album being played all on top of each other which is just about as big of a waste of time as you can get. I remember when Mastodon did something similar at the end of Blood Mountain and I wasn’t happy with them either.

My final verdict on this album may surprise you though. Despite what I’ve just said, I’ve enjoyed this record for what it is, and that’s a solid Jello release. If you’re a fan of Mr. Biafra, then you’re going to like this no matter what I say and call me a hater for saying anything nasty about it at all. It may not take us anywhere new but it does provide us with a pretty fun time if you take it on musical merits alone. Also, you can get it for free at amazon.com, so if you don’t like it, you don’t have to feel bad for wasting money on it. However. This should be the end for Jello Biafra’s musical career. He’s proven that he can re-make a good record over and over again, so he needs to do something new next or hang it up. Besides, he’s not going to have time to be making music; he’s running for President with the Green Party in 2012. Lookout world. Here comes Jello.

The Guantanamo School of Medicine Myspace

Alternative Tentacles Website

Jello Biafra & The GSM Performing "Holiday In Cambodia"

Buy The Album

Requiem.

Album: At The Cut

Artist: Vic Chesnutt

Genre: Folk

Year: 2009

Label: Constellation

2009 was a murderous year for famous people. Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett and David Carradine all passed from this world and into the undiscovered country. All of these people were fairly well known individuals, some more than others, but still, I think it’s safe to say they all made the headlines when they died. But in the waning weeks of 2009, we lost someone else, someone who wasn’t famous by any means, especially if you compare him to the aforementioned celebrities.

We lost Vic Chesnutt.

And I know you’re going “who?”

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know who he was, I’d only just started getting into his music a month before he died, which adds a level of surrealism to this, my feeling compelled to write something about him. More so because I had thought about writing something nice about him before I found out he’d died. The confirmation of his passing kind of sealed the deal. Vic Chesnutt was a folk singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. He wrote beautifully poignant songs about things like mortality, the imperfections of human nature and other depressing things.

I first discovered his work in a roundabout way. I have a love for the art of David Lynch. Film, music, writings and all. Over the summer I learned of an album called Dark Night Of The Soul by artists Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse that featured David Lynch singing on a few songs. I acquired the album and learned that all of the tracks featured different singers on them, ranging from The Flaming Lips to Black Francis of the Pixies. On the album’s penultimate track, the haunting “Grim Augury,” I was first introduced to Vic Chesnutt. In the song, Chesnutt, singing with his imperfect, weary voice tells a tale of a Lynchian dream sequence and warns his friend not to take it as a sign of trouble ahead. Chesnutt’s appearance on the album is, ultimately, far too short to get a real taste of him, so I decided to do some more research.

It took me quite some time to get around to looking the man up and I discovered he’d been writing and performing music since about 1985. Over Thanksgiving, I picked up his most recent (and now, sadly, his last) album, At The Cut. By this time, I had learned more about Mr. Chesnutt. At the age of 18, Chesnutt was in a car accident that paralyzed him from the waist down which I would guess probably has something to do with the chip he’s got on his shoulder in some of his songs, as well as his obsession with human mortality. Being confined to a wheelchair, he discovered he was still able to play guitar and started writing music. Twenty seven years later, Vic Chesnutt had built up a good-sized following and released his latest album, At The Cut. For this album, Chesnutt reassembled the all-star backing band that played on his previous work, the also impressive North Star Deserter. The band is nothing to sneeze at as it features four members of Thee Silver Mt. Zion as well as Guy Picciotto of Fugazi on guitar. Those players, combined with Chesnutt’s songwriting talents, made for a powerful, moving and now tragic work of art.

It is bizarre to listen to this album now and think, “the first time I heard it, he was still alive.” Especially given the subject matter of some of the songs. The album starts with “Coward” which begins simply enough with just Chesnutt and his guitar. As he plucks, a violin enters and then his voice. Listening to him sing was haunting before, when he was alive, now that he’s dead, it seems even more ghostly. Chesnutt proclaims that “the courage of the coward is greater than all other” before crying “and I am a coward!” Bold statement. The way he sings it, it sounds like he’s trying to work up the guts to say anything at all, likes he’s physically dragging the unwanted words out of his mouth. It makes for a powerful image of the broken man. And that doesn’t even describe the music. As the song builds, the intensity rises and the other musicians enter the picture. Picciotto and Efrim Menuck’s guitars sound like the lament of the fall of a great man, and the whole band sounds like they’re in mourning for something. Which is, as I have said before, made even creepier by Chesnutt’s untimely death.

“Coward” provides a good example of the full band songs, and the second song “When the Bottom Fell Out” contrasts starkly with it because it features a lonely Vic Chesnutt and his solo guitar. The song is another sad one (really, he didn’t have happy ones) about falling from a great height. Impossibly though, Chesnutt begins to glide before eventually smashing into the ground below. But the song really feels to me like it’s about being at peace with your situation, even if death is fast approaching. Chesnutt falls and feels terror, but as he approaches the ground, he comes to a place of peace with himself and says, “It’s been pretty great going.” I promise this is the second to last time I’ll say this: It’s freaking me out just how much of this album is about death and how it was his last one. Especially with a song like “When The Bottom Fell Out.” I’ve got chills.

My favorite song on the album by far though, isn’t really about mortality to my knowledge. I’m not honestly sure what it’s about, but I know it’s the most beautiful song on the album and in some ways, the saddest. That song is “Chinaberry Tree,” a full band arrangement that features some of Picciotto and Menuck’s best guitars as well as Jessica Moss’ soaring violin. The song features Chesnutt simultaneously disparaging about and lamenting his need to cut down a great chinaberry tree. The chorus is what get’s me every time, with Chesnutt howling “chinaberry tree” at the top of his mournful voice.

Not to be callous or anything, but it’s nice that Chesnutt went out on such a good note, musically speaking. At The Cut doesn’t have a bad… uh… “cut” on it and that’s a damn rare thing. But there’s something that I just can’t get past. The ninth song on the album is titled “Flirted With You All My Life” which at first appears to be a song about unrequited love but as it progresses reveals itself to be about Death. In the song, Chesnutt traces his close relationship with Death and how it’s hounded him all his life and taken those close to him. More than that, he says at one point how he’s kissed her “once or twice” referring to the times he’s attempted suicide. However, the song’s chorus and end have Chesnutt singing the words “I’m not ready” over and over again. This album came out last year! In less than a year of this album’s release, Chesnutt died. More than that, his death may have been the result of suicide, which makes “Flirted” both incredibly ironic and incredibly sad. Chesnutt was never destined to be super famous or idolized by millions and I’m one of the few people I know who listens to his music. I’m hoping that this review will, if nothing else, convince you to look into this sad but brilliant musician. Oh Vic. If you’ve been flirting with Death all your life, it looks like you’ve kissed her for the last time. I hope sincerely that wherever you are, you’re in a better place. R.I.P.

Vic Chesnutt On Myspace

Vic Chesnutt On Constellation Records

Buy The Album

Radio Broadcast 3: 21st Century Schizoid Birthday.

Hey folks. Today I have a very special broadcast for you. You see, today is my friend Mr. Murren's birthday and in honor of that awesome event, I'd like to play for you a song we both like called "21st Century Schizoid Man." The original version is by King Crimson and I'm going to play that, along with two excellent cover versions. Happy Birthday Murren! Something Classy! Enjoy.

1. "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson

2. "21st Century Schizoid Man (feat. Robert Fripp, Maynard James Keenan and Jeff Fayman)" by The Human Experimente

3. "21st Century Schizoid Man" by Shining

Radio Broadcast 2: Seattle Rocks.

Welcome to another installment of Sound Guardian Radio. Today we've got some excellent music local to the Seattle area lined-up. Seattle has been and is still home to a great music scene and I thought I'd take some time to play you some local favorites of mine. Hope you enjoy.

1. "Paralyzer" by Past Lives

2. "Final Heart Beats Black" by Sleepy Eyes Of Death

3. "I Want A Lot Now (So Come On)" by The Murder City Devils

4. "Blackheart Vs. Captain America" by The Lonely Forest

Jaguar Love Part 1: Two Steps Forward.

Album: Take Me To The Sea

Artist: Jaguar Love

Genre: Indie Rock/Art Punk

Year: 2008

Label: Matador

[Note: I wrote this well before Hologram Jams was released. I plan on doing a follow up piece to this one where I review Hologram Jams. In the mean time, please excuse the speculative ending, I meant to publish this a while ago but got sidetracked. Still. Enjoy!]

The Blood Brothers were the best Seattle band to ever be mis-labeled as Screamo, and that inaccurate description of them annoys me to no end. Just because a band has screamed vocals does not make them a Screamo band. The distinction is that a Screamo band is effectively just an Emo band that screams the words instead of singing them. Both genres are pretentious, insincere and, thankfully, seem to be waning in popularity, at least from where I’m standing anyways.

Back to the point.

The Blood Brothers were not a Screamo band but an arty Post-Hardcore band with screamers for vocalists. Note that last part. The Blood Brothers were blessed with two excellent screamers, Jordan Blilie (the whiny one) and Johnny Whitney (the super whiny one.)

In 2007, The Blood Brothers announced to the world that they were calling it quits, but all of the members of the band have continued forward in music. Actually, all of them still play with each other, but they’ve split the camp down the middle. The two bands that have risen from the ashes, Past Lives (formed by Jordan Blilie, Mark Gajadhar, Devin Welch & Morgan Henderson) and Jaguar Love (formed by Johnny Whitney, Cody Votolato and Jay Clark of Pretty Girls Make Graves,) each feature one of The Blood Brothers two voices and each band sounds distinctly different from the group that spawned them and each other. I plan on talking about both of these bands in time, but for now I’d like to start out with Jaguar Love as their only album thus far, Take Me To The Sea, has been in heavy rotation over the last few days.

The Blood Brothers final album, Young Machetes, aside from being their best, featured a song called “Laser Life” which I feel pointed in the direction of Jaguar Love’s first album, Take Me To The Sea. Like most of The Blood Brothers music, the song was an aggressive screamer but it was also the most Indie sounding and possibly poppiest song on the album, featuring a bouncy keyboard driven sound and hooky vocal lines. Take Me To The Sea, instead of sounding directly derivative of The Blood Brothers usual music, takes on a much more Indie Rock feel, shedding the jagged guitars and unrelenting aggression in favor of cleaner, less spiky guitars and an overall sound that is far more hook laden than The Blood Brothers ever were. Furthermore, the rage that seemed to propel The Blood Brothers music is essentially gone. But thankfully, none of this spells bad news for Jaguar Love’s sound.

The fury may not be there, but the hectic energy remains and Johnny Whitney, Cody Votolato and Jay Clark put it to fantastic use as each track on this album brims with dynamic vigor. Though Clark may have played the majority of the instruments on the album and produced it as well, this is without a doubt Whitney and Votolato’s show. The two… err… “blood brothers” take lead positions on vocals and guitar, respectively, and both prove that they haven’t lost anything since leaving The Blood Brothers. Whitney’s possessed vocals are at the heart of the fiery music and he makes the most of no longer having to share stage or vocal time with Jordan Blilie. Someone once described Whitney’s voice as sounding like “Perry Farrell after a sex change” which is similar to what I thought, that he sounds like Perry Farrell if his balls never dropped. His voice is definitely not for everyone and will be the thing that scares some people away from Jaguar Love’s music, which is a shame.

Whitney doesn’t have a classically “good” singing voice, but he’s mostly dropped the harsher elements of the war cry he used with The Blood Brothers and makes far more effort to actually sing a lot of the songs, rather than just screaming them. His falsetto is something to marvel at, but his lyrics are the real draw. The Blood Brothers always had surrealistic lyrics and it’s nice to see that Whitney hasn’t lost his proclivity for abstractionist turns of phrase. It is also nice to see the expansion of sound that started on Young Machetes continue in Jaguar Love’s music. In addition to some excellent electric guitar and drum work, Take Me To the Sea features washes of Wurlitzer organs, occasional string sections and even a marimba and acoustic guitars on “Bats Over The Pacific Ocean” which is one of the best songs on the album and also one that best differentiates Jaguar Love’s sound from both The Blood Brothers and Past Lives.

My favorite songs on the album are straight rockers though. “Jaguar Pirates” begins with a rolling intro that then erupts into a bombastic, hook loaded fist-pumper that features some of Whitney’s most… well… jaguar-like screeches. Another great one is the organ drenched “Georgia” in which Whitney gives crooning a try, and it works out pretty well. But by far my favorite song on the album is “Humans Evolve Into Skyscrapers” which begins misleadingly with programmed drum beats before Votolato’s lightning charged guitar rips in, quickly followed by Whitney’s adrenalin rushed vocals. The song is an anthem and may not feature Whitney’s most inspired chorus in “everybody, get the fuck out, everything is so fucked up now” before screaming “mass exodus! Black streets bleached black” at the top of his voice, but the rest of lyrics in the song convey his usual surrealistic bent. I don’t really know what the song is about, but I like it and the chorus features my favorite vocal hook of anything on the album.

With Take Me To The Sea, Jaguar Love proved their worth and that they’re more than just The Blood Brothers-light. The album had great sound, lyrics and execution but we’re unlikely to ever hear it live. Here’s why: for reasons I don’t know, Jay Clark left the band and Whitney and Votolato decided to continue on as a duo, playing to a drum machine. They also declared that they would only ever play three songs from the album “Highways Of Gold,” “Bats Over The Pacific Ocean” and “Jaguar Pirates” and that they had gone so far as to completely re-work them for the new setup. The new Jaguar Love material moves far away from the Indie Rock direction of their first album and into more dancy-electroclash territory. Having heard the first single from their forthcoming second album, I’m not sure what to think of this. It’s good, but it’s not better than Take Me To The Sea. But one single doesn’t always spell doom for an entire album and who knows? Maybe Jaguar Love will do the move to Electroclash correctly and it’ll be like if the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had produced a good album with It’s Blitz. We’ll have to wait and see.

Jaguar Love On Myspace

Band Website

Buy The Album

Radio Broadcast 1: The Holy Grail Of Hardcore.

Welcome to Sound Guardian Radio. Uncensored and Commercial Free. And since we don't have to pander to our advertisers, we're going to get things rolling with Hardcore. Tonight I'm going to Neumos to witness Converge and their stellar set of opening acts which include Coalesce, Black Breath and Lewd Acts. So for our kick-off broadcast, I'd like to play you some of their music. Enjoy!

Playlist:

1. "Wide Black Eyes" by Lewd Acts

2. "Escape From Death" by Black Breath

3. "The Plot Against My Love" by Coalesce

4. "Dark Horse" by Converge

Welcome To Sound Guardian Radio

Ladies and Gentlemen. In an effort to bring you new and exciting music, I'm going to be starting up Sound Guardian Radio. It will be through the same media player I use to read you my reviews, only it will feature more music and less yammering from me. Don't be alarmed though, I still plan to continue to write reviews and other pieces, this is just an expansion of what I want The Sound Guardian to be. First broadcast will be later today. Enjoy!