Mr. T create a masterpiece, the Starlings TN turn up the treble, Ani looks for herself, and Courtney claps
MTX
Yesterday Rules (Lookout Records)
San Francisco pop/garage/punk/whatever stalwarts The Mr. T Experience (whose moniker has now been aptly shortened to MTX) is one of those bands who have somehow managed to Catch 22 themselves into a niche that is just barely under the radar of the indie world. Around 20 years since its inception, the band has been “on the verge” from square one to the present.
Sure, MTX has always kept a core of devoted fans. But the unclassifiable nature of the group has been its blessing and its curse.
The band is nothing short of a national treasure. The brainchild of its lone original member, Dr. Frank, MTX has always delivered smart, catchy and heartfelt pop genius throughout its career. The shame of it all is that the band is still stuck in the shadow of the ever-looming punk rock boulder.
Yesterday Rules is yet another masterpiece for the band, perhaps its best effort yet. The album’s 13 tracks are humorous, yet morose. Dr. Frank is sort of a musical Kurt Vonnegut: a sage who encodes the mysteries and miseries of life in a shroud of humor, empathy and panache.
Light years beyond its earlier, bubble gum speedpunk sound, MTX delivers sophisticated musical arrangements and amazing melodies.
Oddly enough, Dr. Frank’s lyrics, melodies and vocal delivery has always reminded me of Knoxville’s musical prodigal son, the inimitable Todd Steed. Like Steed, Dr. Frank’s personality is so much a part of his music that the two, no matter what band name or “solo” project it falls under, are inseparable. Yes, we’re talking about true American originals here. And if that ain’t the highest praise I can muster, well...
—John Sewell
Starlings, TN
Between Hell and Baton Rouge (Catamount/Chicken Ranch Records)
I missed Leaper’s Fork, the 2002 debut of Starlings TN, but I’m happy to catch up with them here. Music City hillbilly spacemen whose songs are forever in danger of dissolving into silvery reverb drone, they color their sweetly traditional melodies with quasi-psychedelic sonics. The result is wispy but winning, sometimes in spite of its blurriness and sometimes (as on the dubby chorale epic that closes the album) because of it.
Primary Starlings and ex-Louisianans Steve Stubblefield and Tim Bryan are veterans of a punky Nashville band called Methadone Actors. Somewhere along the way they took a left turn into bluegrass and old-timey music and acquired a dulcimer guru and part-time bandmate in David Schnaufer. The dulcimer is a tricky instrument to build a band around—its crystalline high tones tend to get swamped by anything noisier than a fiddle—but Starlings TN cushion it effectively with shimmery guitars, mandolins, bouzoukis and anything else that chimes and rings (their treble knob goes to 11).
The studio mucking-about sometimes recalls Wilco’s (ahem, seriously overestimated) Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but Starlings TN are considerably less pretentious than Jeff Tweedy’s po-faced crew. Aside from an unnecessary cover of “Wayfaring Stranger” the album is nimble and dreamy. The live throwdown “Ruben’s Train” shows they can build up steam when they want, but they sound more comfortable ambling, rambling and sometimes wandering off the path altogether.
—Jesse Fox Mayshark
Ani DiFranco
Educated Guess (Righteous Babe)
“I suited up for the long walk back to myself,” the first track of Ani DiFranco’s latest album, Educated Guess, tells us. This line illuminates the album. Always one for integrity and creative risks, DiFranco played all the instruments and recorded and mixed the tracks herself. Raw and powerful, the 14 songs portray some of Ani’s best qualities: her independence, passion, and honesty. DiFranco continues to be an artist to be admired. Yet even with its admirable dynamics, Educated Guess is more of an interesting experiment than a tight, compulsively listenable album.
Much of the disc chronicles the dissolution of her long-time relationship in heartbreaking detail. In the stinging “Origami,” DiFranco sings, “I’ll be your never ending vending machine/ I could never need to be alone/ Never need to be my own/ As much as you need your queen.” Her lover has taken advantage of the strong, self-sufficient image she projects; resignation in DiFranco’s voice betrays a weariness of being the rescuer instead of the recipient of care and attention. Although much of the album is dark, there are lighter moments and powerful political statements as well. The swinging funk of “Bliss Like This” is a jewel. A playful, sexy song about what could be a rebound relationship, albeit with lots of possibilities. Lush and aching guitars propel “Animal,” DiFranco’s finest rebel song of the album, where the central image of the “hawk circling above that strip mall” haunts with what is natural and unnatural about America.
This album’s return to the spoken word and solo guitar work is exciting for any long-time Ani fan. It’s not an easy album to listen to; the songs are sometimes meandering and strange, and only upon repeated listening does one start to become attached to them. With Educated Guess, DiFranco does indeed seem to be walking back to herself. I’m just more interested in where she’ll actually end up.
—Laila Shahrokhi
Courtney Love
America’s Sweetheart (Virgin)
What’s the sound of two hands clapping for herself?
This is the album Courtney Love has always wanted to make, I think, but not so much because of the music on it. I’m not sure Courtney cares so much about the music. I think she cares more that it says “Courtney Love” on it.
It’s called America’s Sweetheart, and it’s on Virgin (ha ha), and I’m sure that all of that—combined with the flattering feathery Stevie Nicks portrait on the sleeve—is a certain kind of fulfillment. But since Courtney is also (believe it) one of the smartest rock stars ever, she figured out a long time ago that getting what she wanted was never really going to be enough. Which is why this album comes up just as frustratingly short as fame and fortune and all the rest of it has come up for Courtney.
Released months after its original schedule, allowing her to accrue another arrest on murky intoxication-related charges in the interim, it arrives embarrassingly dated like last year’s tube tops in a season of chaste button-ups. “I would fuck you up,” she promises, “I would feel no guilt,” and you believe her the way you’d believe a crazy aunt—with sympathy, concern and a little alarm.
It’s not a bad record, not even close. She really does love rock ‘n’ roll, and she really is everything she says she is—the girl with the most cake, the one who’s about to take all your innocence for free, a little bit older than you. I think it’s supposed to sound like Joan Jett fronting Cheap Trick, and at its best (like the lead-off, “Mono”) it comes close enough to make everything OK. But the heroin/suicide/doomed romantic shtick only goes so far. There’s a point where the beauty in “beautiful loser” wears off.
—Jesse Fox Mayshark
March 4, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 10
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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