The Backbeat Band

It is my opinion that a great many bands, even a great many great bands, peak very very early, in some cases, even before their first album. Pavement's Watery, Domestic, R.E.M.'s Chronic Town, the first Arcade Fire EP, Nirvana's Incesticide-era stuff, all represent those bands at their freshest and most idealistic, and in these cases, I'll take the blueprint of their future sound over the actual building of their eventual songs. At the risk of sounding one of those pretentious instigating hipsters who say such things just to provoke outrage, I think The Beatles peaked with “Twist and Shout.” You can have your Abbey Road and Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper but I prefer The Beatles at this stage of the game, when their brand of rock-n-roll was in its purest form. The soundtrack to Backbeat is representative of this ideal; when there was nothing more exciting and innocent as being in a garage band with your best friends. No drugs, no money, no fame, no ego. No pretensions of changing the world and no delusions behind the meaning of what you're doing; just rock-n-roll for nothing more than the sake and the spirit of rock-n-roll.

The 1994 album is a veritable supergroup of the era's alt-rock stars, with Greg Dulli, Dave Grohl, Mike Mills, Thurston Moore and Don Fleming (with Dave Pirner chipping in), covering some of the best rock-n-roll songs ever recorded before The Beatles came along and changed everything. Twelve tracks of the best singer in rock-n-roll with a dream team behind him throwing themselves with reckless abandon on “Twist and Shout,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Rock 'N Roll Music,” “Please Mr. Postman,” and eight more glorious tracks that capture the purity of rock-n-roll at its most primitive in the days of Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry.

Over the past couple years, this has been my go-to album when I can't decide what I want to listen to or when I don't feel like paying the attention a more sophisticated record may deserve. Clocking in at just under a half-hour, this is perfect record to play when you don't want (or need) anything more than delirious instant-gratification. And I'm so disappointed in the audience who were lucky and privileged enough to see the band live. How the fuck can they just sit there?

The Walkmen - Bows & Arrows

Release Date: February 2, 2004

★★★★★ Tracks:

The Rat

Little House of Savages

“The Rat” is proof some of the best songs written can come out of simple jam sessions. Matt Barrick was fucking around on his kit at band practice, riding his hi-hat at maximum velocity while mixing in some snare and bass in what essentially became the equivalent of playing a four minute long drum fill. I imagine the rest of the band’s ears perked up, and Paul Maroon blasted a few lightning fast chords over top with that signature guitar sound of his, the bass and electric organ joined in, adding complimentary undertones to the sonic mayhem that had just been constructed. Hamilton Leithauser scribbled down a few words in a few minutes and began to scream them as loudly as he could. The session culminated in to a song that has a loud, nervous kinetic energy that only briefly relinquishes for the greatest few lines of the song:

“When I used to go out I would know everyone that I saw
Now I go out alone if I go out at all”

Leithauser sings with such emotion (sounding similar to Paul Westerberg or Greg Dulli) you can’t help but get wrapped up in the heartache he’s experiencing. Bows & Arrows has a few more similarly outstanding tracks in “Little House of Savages” and “My Old Man.” But “The Rat” is the breadwinner, a track that most everyone had near the top of their list of best songs in 2004.

Look out for the Walkmen on Jimmy Fallon this week, 08/12.

The Afghan Whigs

The Afghan Whigs were one of my first lessons in rock-n-roll; liking what you want to like without any regard for what other people think. Post-Nirvana and pre-Pavement, I still hadn't learned to articulate what I liked musically; I just knew I was tired of pretending I actually enjoyed bands like Sponge, Candlebox and Stone Temple Pilots. In these early years when I was first discovering rock-n-roll, I relied on a friend as a barometer of whatever definition of cool I was trying to form at the time. In 1993, Gentleman dropped and the single of the same name got buzz bin attention. "Gentleman" had what few bands had since Nirvana; soul. But when I first saw the video, probably on 120 Minutes on MTV after midnight, I knew I liked it, but I didn't know why. It had a different song structure than what I was used to but to me, the single stood out in the post-grunge wave of singles that, in retrospect, I can't believe were more popular, mostly because frontman Greg Dulli could actually sing. I wish I could find the original video I saw past midnight more than 15 years ago but this is the best I can do: a very very young Jon Stewart introducing the band on his MTV show so long ago.

I remember asking said friend what he thought of the Afghan Whigs. Being the same friend who championed Seven Mary Three and Silverchair and all the other post-grunge crap, he merely shrugged his shoulders. But before he could even finish shrugging, the tall, black, basketball-playing jock in our class had overheard and his eyes lit up. "Gentle men!" he said, and I still remember how he said each syllable as if they were three separate words. "You like them?" I asked, and instead of replying, he started singing.

Your attention please
Now turn off the lights!
Your infection please
I haven't got all night!

He sang with a certain sneer and snapped his fingers and I discovered a beat in the song I hadn't noticed before. "Dude can sing," he said. When my friend changed his tune and admitted that he did like them, I knew I was onto something. I bought the CD and while I only occasionally listened to it (man, "Fountain and Fairfax" still kills me), I found myself coming back to it enough to buy Black Love when it dropped in 1996. While Gentlemen was placed very high on many best-of-decade lists, it was Black Love that made me a lifelong fan, a soundtrack to dark romance noir film that was never made. I don't know why I've never heard "Going to Town" on the dance floor:

I admit I am not very intimate with 1965, the last Whigs album, nor am I as acquainted with the Twilight Singers as well as a self-professed Dulli fan should be, and my venture to the Gutter Twins was unmemorable. As far as his other musical ventures, I'm much more fond of his work imitating John Lennon fronting the alt-rock supergroup on The Backbeats soundtrack, and the Afghan Whig's choice in covers is unparalleled. Any rock band worth its salt can cover The Clash or The Smiths (which the Whigs have done, practically in their sleep) but it takes a special band to cover Barry White, Martha and the Vandellas, New Order, The Supremes, Hole, Al Green, Patti Smith, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Billie Holiday and, my favorite, "Creep," which throws an added curve ball when you realize they're not covering Radiohead, but TLC.

Top 5 Most-Played songs by the Afghan Whigs on my ipod:

"Creep" (TLC) - (24 plays)
"Going to Town" - (22 plays)
"Crime Scene Part 1" - (20 plays)
"Fountain and Fairfax" - (17 plays)
"Come See About Me" (The Supremes) - (16 plays)