|
 Foo-Lotta
By
John Brodeur
Foo
Fighters
In
Your Honor (Roswell/RCA)
Dave Grohl has something to prove. He’s already outlasted—and,
to some extent, outwritten—his former band (yeah, those
guys), but here he is, 10 years into a hugely successful career
as lead Foo Fighter, and he and his band have delivered what
they’d like to consider to be their manifesto. Grohl’s gone
so far as to call In Your Honor—the Foo Fighters’ new
double-album—his band’s Physical Graffiti. So does
it stand up?
Let’s say this: It takes balls to release a double album.
Big ones. It’s so rarely done well that it’s a wonder anyone
still tries to pull it off. So in comparison to Physical
Graffiti—one of the few truly great double discs—In
Your Honor comes up short. It is the band’s best record
since the exceptional The Colour and the Shape, however;
had it been pared down to 14 or 15 tracks (I’d do it for them
if asked), it could very well have reached loftier heights.
The main problem lies in the structure. In Your Honor
is broken up by dynamics: One disc is “loud,” the other “not
so loud.” Unfortunately, the hard division makes the band
sound like two separate, less-interesting groups. The first
disc opens strong with the pleading title track, on which
Grohl cries “Can you hear me?” with a polyp-inducing scream.
(Yes, Dave, we hear you just fine.) “No Way Back” is a muscular
power-pop tune, reminiscent of the earlier “Monkey Wrench,”
and “Best of You” is the band’s best single since “Everlong”—that’s
saying a lot for an act who routinely deliver concrete-bunker-strong
singles.
>From
there, they keep it hard and heavy—perhaps a little too heavy.
The volume and tempo are cranked until the eighth track (“Resolve,”
another highlight), and the disc is bookended with some of
the group’s strongest material to date (“End Over End” is
classic Foo). This slights a few songs (“Free Me,” “The Last
Song”) that, under other circumstances, would be standouts.
That said, disc one makes for a strong rock record, if not
a particularly varietal one.
The second disc, if offered by any other band, might have
been a head-turner. It’s got some truly pretty moments—“What
If I Do” and “Miracle” in particular—but its sleepy (by design)
tone grows tiresome at length. The band must have known this
would happen, hence the spate of guest performers (John Paul
Jones, Petra Haden, Josh Homme, Norah Jones, and the band’s
guitar tech and photographer, among others) enlisted to spice
things up.
Again, though, it’s all too much. At times, the set recalls
Alice In Chains’ Jar of Flies and Sap EPs, especially
on the moody one-two of “Over and Out” and “On the Mend.”
However, the water-treading “Still” and the way-out-of-place
“Cold Day in the Sun” (featuring a decent vocal turn from
drummer Taylor Hawkins) proves why those sets weren’t extended
to album length. The overall effect of In Your Honor
is that of a sprinter trying to run a 10K: It’s good in spurts,
but can’t hold it together for distance.
Or, to put it in Grohl’s own terms, it’s no Physical Graffiti,
but there’s at least a Zeppelin III in there.
Various
Artists
Caffe
Lena Historic Stages, Vol. I
Such
is the fame of Saratoga’s Caffe Lena that when I taught guitar
there one summer, I often found myself welcoming tourists
who had dropped by to see the stage where Bob Dylan, Pete
Seeger, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Arlo Guthrie and other
folk greats (as well as lesser-known pickers such as myself)
have performed. Showing them the place was an honor.
With full disclosure made, I can say the Caffe has released
a well-chosen compilation of 16 live performances by several
of the venue’s marquee artists recorded there and at other
locations from 1972 to 2000. Historic Stages, Vol. I
represents what concertgoers at the landmark coffeehouse have
been hearing since 1960: engaging contemporary acoustic songs,
offerings from many folk traditions, and fine playing. As
the Caffe’s only previous anthology, the 1972 Welcome to
Caffe Lena (Biograph), is out of print, the present CD
is long overdue.
The disc opens with two tracks from the 1972 LP. Lena Spencer,
the club’s owner and impresario (she died in 1989 at age 66),
introduces veteran songster and multi-instrumentalist Michael
Cooney to the audience, after which Cooney launches into a
reworked version of “Hannah” by Chris Bouchillion titled “Lena
Won’t You Open Your Door.” Cooney’s voice strains on
one or two high notes, but his bluesy fingerstyle guitar
chops and showmanship are on the money as he hams it up for
an audibly delighted crowd. U. Utah Phillips prefaces the
next song, the whimsical “Daddy, What’s a Train,” with the
sort of short, relaxed monologue that is a staple of coffeehouse
performers but rarely makes its way onto records.
Other gems abound. Robin and Linda Williams and their Fine
Group deliver a stunning a cappella rendition of the traditional
gospel quartet number “If You Love Me, Feed My Sheep,” seamlessly
pulling off ascending half-step key changes. Bluegrass banjo
ace Tony Trischka picks a sparkling original solo composition,
“Garlic and Sapphires,” traveling well beyond the usual harmonic
borders of the 5-string. And humorist Christine Lavin sends
up a hilarious ditty, Harrison Ford, about a fleeting
encounter she had with the actor and his wife in a Wyoming
restaurant.
The mood gets serious soon thereafter, though. Patty Larkin’s
“Metal Drums” is a taut protest song about some children
poisoned by industrial pollution after playing in a toxic
waste site in Massachusetts that is perhaps the high point
of the record. And Gamble Rogers, who died heroically in 1991
attempting to rescue a drowning man in rough surf in Florida,
is remembered with a pair of songs: “That’s All,” an
artfully fingerpicked Merle Travis tune is from what was to
be his last concert. “Song for Gamble,” written and performed
by Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen, honors Rogers and his
sacrifice.
Lastly, Pete Seeger, joined onstage at the nearby Canfield
Casino in 1985 by a chorus of hundreds of Lena’s friends and
well-wishers, salutes the folk maven on her 25 years of presenting
music with the serene “Somos El Barco (We Are the Boat).”
Historic
Stages is a worthy encomium to the Caffe and its troubadours,
and the good souls there who have kept Lena’s legacy alive.
—Glenn
Weiser
Meredith
Bragg & the Terminals
Vol.
1 (Kora Records)
Meredith Bragg & the Terminals play pop music that has
a folkish bearing, but is decidedly not folk music. There’s
a subtle intricacy and orchestral sensibility that is at the
core of Bragg’s 11 songs. Acoustic-based, the music has a
quiet insistency, made all the more compelling by the luscious
timbres of the instruments employed: acoustic guitar, cello,
keyboards and gentle percussives. The disc clocks in at 37
minutes, short by CD-saturation standards, but just right
for the emotionally direct circumstances put forth in the
songs. The centerpiece is the set’s longest number, the seven-and-a-half
minute “I Won’t Let You Down.” Moving at a stately pace, it
picks up momentum without picking up speed, as the urgency
of the lyric’s promise is matched by the swirling arrangement
of the quartet. In particular, the cello offers a potent and
mournful counterpoint voice to Bragg’s unaffected everyman
vocals.
The beautiful letterpress package mirrors the pre-technological-era
resonance of the music within. Recording, manufacturing and
playing the compact disc would not be possible without electricity,
but this is the sound of a living room sparkling with a chamber
ensemble warmed by the embers of a winter stove. Bragg and
his cohorts sound contemporary, at the same time eschewing
the trappings of modernist dictates, going for the timelessness
of human scale, rhythms and emotions.
—David
Greenberger
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