So has it occurred to anybody that the guy who let the dogs out might be the same guy who stole the keeshka? (Who might be the same guy who's on first?) Just a thought.
MYSTIKAL "Shake Ya Ass"
(Jive)
photo: Courtesy of Alternative Tentacles Records
Rock'n'roll-nurses-going-to-your-head Causey Way
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Most gluteusly maximal butt song since the also-Louisianan "Back That Azz Up," mainly because of how wound-tight it is: It grunts more like James Brown than any hit in the 20 years of hip-hop that JB made possible. Turnip greens and pork'n'beans and crawfish (which the artist pulls heads off of) and soil trod by Wilson Pickett inhabit those hard backwoods squeals and "lawds," too (the reformed No Limit soldier's equally crunk OutKast collaboration last year was called"Neck Uv Da Woods"). Though, weirdly, "S.Y.A." is also one of two currently notable rap smashes (the other being Nelly's "E.I.") to use the word "iceberg." Gotta admit I prefer my daughter's rewrite: "Take a bath! Wash yourself!" But I still bark along when Mystikal shouts out to a "full-grown German shepherd" once his throat starts ryding rougher. Maybe he figured out where DMX's dogs are at.
STILLWATER "Fever Dog"
(DreamWorks)
Is the dog scratching and howling outside this guy's back door a groupie, or what? (As ridiculous as Almost Famousis—it has even less to say about the '70s than That'70s Show, and barely more about rock critics, seeing how the hero is a celebrity journalist with no opinions—at least Cameron Crowe identifies enough with groupies to treat them like human beings.) Or maybe the fever dog's allegorical: you know, a hellhound on the golden god's trail. Personally, though, I'd rather think of it as hayfever, which makes this the best allergy ode since "The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count" by the Divine Comedy, if not "Achoo" by Sparks or the theme from Green Acres. "When the Levee Breaks" drums cavalcade under propulsive Robert Plant—okay, Ian Astbury—wailing, all the way to the fake orgasm. (Zep dog songs, if you're interested: "Black Dog," "Hot Dog," "The Rover.") So how come all the movie reviews compare Stillwater to Lynyrd Skynyrd?? Weird. Who they looklike, really, is Foghat.
R. KELLY "I Wish"
(Jive)
The crossroads Kelly claims he's camped at come from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, not the king of the Delta blues singers—he's one more hard guy getting teary-eyed over dead homies, boo hoo. What matters, though—and what most sets the song apart from Carl Thomas's r&b ballad hit "I Wish" from earlierthis year—is soul-stirring high notes that channel both the sacred and secular sides of Sam Cooke. Stevie Wonder used the same title for a song about a lost childhood of nights hanging out with hoodlums and Sunday school money spent on candy, but R. swears he used to spend his own Sundays in church. Voices in his head tell him to go back there; then voices in his background build to an "I Want to Know What Love Is" gospel chorus.
NEUROSIS Sovereign
(Neurot EP, neurosis.com)
The individual titles ("Prayer," "An Offering," "Blood," "Sovereign") on this multimedia-CD-ROM-but-who-cares suggest a Catholic mass, but these arty San Franciscans open with a meditation session: Let your mind rest, your mind is a conduit as vast as the universe, yikes. Pagan-ritual drums kick in at funeral-march tempos, then Steve Von Till's vocals stretch out into a yawning chasm; neither M. Gira nor Nick Cave ever allowed themselves this much openness or generosity. Cellos, bagpipes, woodwinds, violins, Moogs, tick-tocking clocks, and grinding little worms of guitar spiraling up from miles below the earth's surface provide interludes of calm and stillness amid the bloody murder—Neurosis might be the only American metal band able to make the vomit-vocal thing tolerable, even tranquil. Since this loud music functions mainly as Muzak, Steve Albini's vocal-camouflaging production shtick actually makes the sound sharper—for once.
PARIS, TEXAS Brazilliant!
(Polyvinyl EP, polyvinylrecords.com)
Not even back in Big Black's Anglophilic mid-'80s heyday—i.e., also the era of Hüsker Dü's Metal Circusand Breaking Circus's The Very Long Fuse—did Midwestern bands (Paris, Texas come from Wisconsin) sound this post-punk-British. The opening breakbeats are pure Neil Peart rush, but after that Scott Sherpe's vocal spew is all Mark E. Smith, the guitars jangle pretty in pink, and the taut Wire/Only Ones/Magazine rhythms come to grinding halts. More reference points? Think Smiths as Buzzcocks, maybe, or mid-career goth-schlock Cure reconciling with their urgently Arab-unkilling beginnings. Hard to tell whether the title "Le Tigre" means Scott's a Kathleen Hanna fan, since its words concern being a tiger in a cage. And though there's no mistaking when everybody's begging him to "undress, undress, undress," is Scott saying love is "lost like polished brass," or "like Hollis Brown"? Either way, when his staccato whine-yelp softens in the last song as the melody roils toward New Order, oh he's got green eyes.
CAUSEY WAY WWCD
(Put It on a Cracker EP, putitonacracker@hotmail.com)
Hyperbolic vocoder hiccups, '50s robot-movie effects, oingo-boinging angles, and miniaturized prog-rock changes, all clicking together into a well-hooked wall of voodoo: mostly keyboards (Farfisa, Moog, Casio, Univox), but also theremin, "various pedals," secret-agent-man guitar, and a manual typewriter. In other words, jokey chemistry-major rock by woofers in tweeters' clothing who complain that "it's so hard to be a sissy" and that "science made me a Homo . . . [dramatic pause] . . . sapiens." Which is in their catchiest song. Which they open the record with. Which means they want a novelty hit.
