Midweek Music News Roundup 2.10.10: Art Rock

Posted by Lucas Wesley on 02.10.2010

DFA and Def Jux face changes, Jay Reatard's cause of death revealed, a Keith Richards movie, Men At Work face some legal trouble, new music from Le Tigre (kind of), Jamie Lidell and Abe Vigoda, along with the debut of the world famous Evelyn Evelyn, Liam Gallagher updates his thoughts on Oasis, Ringo Starr gains a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and thoughts on why old people continue to rock. All that and more in the Midweek Music News Roundup!

I was busy again and there was little news again so Star Power's bleak. Everything else is totally cool, though! See?



- I didn't know record labels took hiatus. But I guess they do. Definitive Jux, lead by rapper/producer El-P and (at various times) housing influential artists such as Cannibal Ox, Aesop Rock and Mr. Lif, will be taking a break in a few months as a creative force. They will still make their back catalogue available, but as changes are made, they will not be releasing new albums. El-P also appears to be stepping down as the label's creative director. I hope this turns out good and not just weird and confusing.

- Speaking of shake-ups at record labels, dance punk label DFA is experiencing some major changes of their own. Co-founder and one of the primary creative forces behind the label, Tim Goldsworthy is leaving. Goldsworthy had produced may albums and remixes alongside co-founder James McMurphy (aka LCD Soundsystem). Details are kind of sketchy, but essentially Goldsworthy left the country, so the label assumes he's out. Seems like awesome fringe labels are going crazy these days.

- Tragedies are pretty tragic. Rarely do they turn out well. This is no different. The cause of death of indie punk star Jay Reatard has been revealed by Memphis paper The Commercial Appeal: "cocaine toxicity and...alcohol was a contributing factor in his death." Though not terribly surprising as most people were thinking drugs, it's still a sad end to a sad story.

- A few weeks ago, I reported that Keith Richards has quit drinking alcohol. There's no update, it's just still really shocking to me. But in other Keef news, Johnny Depp has reported plans to start making a documentary about the Rolling Stones guitarist. Unlike the Milli Vanilli movie, this has a great potential to be very interesting.



- Le Tigre have hit the studio again in order to record a new album. Le Tigre fans were heard to be rejoicing until the story was completed, and they learned that they were working on a new album for Christina Aguilera. I don't really have anything against Christina, but she's not as cool as Le Tigre. Oh well, the songs will probably maybe be cool.

- World famous Siamese twin duo Evelyn Evelyn are finally coming out of hiding and releasing their debut album. They released the huge hit EP Elephant Elephant in 2007, but this is their first full length. The record will feature big names "Weird" Al Yankovic, Andrew W.K., Tegan and Sara, Gerard Way, comic writer Neil Gaiman and what I believe is the first musical appearance by Frances Bean Cobain. Dark Horse comics will also develop a comic book, chronicling the twin's life in the spotlight. Finally, the twins will tour Europe starting in early April. It makes sense, since their overwhelming American fame makes it hard for them to go out in public without being bothered. The apparently self-titled album will hit the streets March 30.

- By the way, Evelyn Evelyn may or may not be (but actually definitely is) Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley having fun. Also, Jason Webley e-mailed me recently and he seems to be an awesome fellow. Just an aside.

- Every now and again something happens that is just catastrophic. The ramifications of the event can shatter everything you've ever known about humanity. Faith can be lost in human decency. Things will never be the same again. Creativity is at a lost. Does it still exist? Did it ever? Alas, we may never know. The most famous song by Men At Work, "Down Under," has been officially ruled plagiarism. An Australian judge ruled the song rips off the children's song "Kookaburra." If Men At Work's finest moment wasn't even theirs...what kind of world do we live in?



- Jamie Lidell, who released one of my top five albums of 2008 in Jim, is readying his follow-up. Out May 18 and titled Compass, the title track has already been unleashed until the world. This is looking to be pretty big, with guest stars including Beck, Feist, members of Grizzly Bear and Wilco and Nikki Costa, amongst others.

- Speaking of indie follow ups, Abe Vigoda are prepping their latest album, a follow up to Skeleton. The first single, "Crush," is currently streaming on their MySpace. It continues the trend of the Reviver EP by holding a more traditional sound structure, but at the same time maintains their more discordant style. The yet untitled album is expected sometime this year.

- Liam Gallagher is such a weird. First he's all "Oasis sucks." Then he's all, "well, I guess it's not that bad a name, and I can't come up with anything better, so we're still Oasis." Now he's all "Oasis was a shit name." Dude needs to make up his mind. He's also hinted a debut-ish album being recorded from April to July if things go well. They won't. I mean, come on, it's Liam. It'll be bad then good then shit. But fans of Our Kid can be hopeful.



- Ringo Starr has received a starr on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This makes Paul McCartney the only Beatle not to have a star on the famous Walk. Maybe he'll get his the same day Ringo gets into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Actually, no. That's not fair. Paul will probably actually get a star one day.

Star Power

Old people are old. The latest old person to prove his age is Leonard Cohen, who at 75 is touring the world. Reviews have been great and everyone seems to think he's in tip top shape. But he's already injured himself once and had to cancel some dates, and now he's done it again. After recently injuring his lower back exercising, he's needed to reschedule several tour dates in order to recover and undergo physical therapy. I wish him the best of luck, but this, along with a discussion I recently had about whether or not old musicians can still rock (based in part on The Who), I'm asking myself a similar. Why do old musicians so desire to keep at it?

Firstly, I apologize if this is repetitious. I feel like this discussion has been had many times before, probably including tons of thoughts presented by yours truly. If I've been here before, mea culpa. But I'm sure I'll say different things because my brain rarely works the same way twice.

One reason these artists would desire to continue, of course, is money. Historically, the top selling concerts draws were at their height, at the earliest, thirty years ago. Six of the ten highest grossing acts of the decade (U2, Madonna, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Buffet, Bruce Springsteen, and Eagles) could be called artists of yesteryear. I acknowledge that commercial performance is often completely unrelated to talent and ability, but it's worth noting that if nothing else, people are still interested in these old acts. Let's be realistic: if these artists were really so bad they couldn't even play their instruments coherently, would people still go see them?

Note: at this point I was going to post a picture of The Allman Brothers in the modern day with the caption "Answer: Yes." I could not find a good enough picture, but the point is relevant enough to make anyway.

On that note, I'd like to question whether or not such a thing can at all be objectively judged. The answer, obviously, is that it can't be. Nothing can be done objectively when it comes to creative mediums such as music. It's all relative. But at the same time, I argue that it's closed-minded to stereotype age as something that can prevent one from playing music well. These old artists keep performing for crowds because they refuse to give up the spotlight and desire the adoration of a live crowd, I'm sure. At the same time, though, if at any point they were unable to go on, they'd stop. They would have to.

So perhaps the question is whether or not it's possible for a musician who truly cares about making music to up and stop creating. Many would think the answer is no. However, we can look at the cases of Emitt Rhodes and Vashti Bunyan and see that in certain ways it is possible for creative people to stop creating. Of course, in both of those cases, it wasn't an issue of age but rather commercial boundaries. There is, though, one case that shows a truly creative person can decide to stop creating.



Captain Beefheart, one of the most creative musicians of all time, released his final album in 1982. Then he stopped. He's still alive today. His retirement is perhaps the only example of a true retirement in music. In this musical world where we still see concert performances from the likes of Chuck Berry, B.B. King and Little Richard, it's somewhat amazing that a man could willingly stop himself at the age of 41. Granted, Beefheart moved on to another creative medium, painting. So perhaps the only way to get an old musician to stop creating would be to make them move on to other forms of artistic expression.

If that were the case, would we even want them? I like Keith Richards as much as the next guy, but I don't want to see his wacky rehab scribbles. If Bono painted...good lord, imagine how impossibly pretentious the results would be.

That thought seriously made me forget what I was talking about for a good fifteen minutes. I had to re-read what I wrote up to that point a bunch of times to even think of what the next thought could possibly be. I still don't really know. Some people would edit or restart or try again, but I think this is a brilliant example of my process and thus I'm leaving it.

The point is, truly creative people can't stop creating. Even those that we think have stopped, like the aforementioned Emitt Rhodes, haven't really stopped. They just stopped telling people about it. Case in point, Rhodes, 37 years after completely quitting the music industry, has hinted he may have a new album in the works. The only standout is Captain Beefheart, and I'm sure one day an indie cool Pitchfork artist will come out of the wood work and ask him for guest vocals. I'm waiting for that day with great excitement. Feel free to join me.

Farewell Song

1991, a year where things happened. Not all years have catchy rhymes and lyrical references. But lots of things did happen. Unfortunately, many of them involved Nirvana, so who cares. Other things included Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner uniting to form a moderately cool super group, Ice-T announcing "hey, I was there first, y'all," Public Enemy declaring it was the apocalypse, My Bloody Valentine were loveless, Primal Scream screamed a lot, Teenage Fanclub hit the bandwagon, Slint found a horrifying land occupied only by spiders, Guns n Roses continued the illusion they were a good band, Prince got into jewelry, R.E.M. ran out of time and Sting trapping himself in soul cages. Maybe it's my anti-grunge status or maybe I just don't have much from this year, but that's pretty weak, isn't it? Well, it isn't very important, because the best song of the year came from a classic mainstay. In certain ways, 1991 was the year the King was dethroned. But in other ways, he held onto his crown in style. "Black Or White" was one of those things that proved he still had it.



The album of the year is a bit different. Instead of coming from a seasoned veteran of many years, it was a debut album. Though it didn't propagate a scene that would last forever (in America), it was highly influential and creative. The album of the year for 1991 is Blue Lines by Massive Attack.

Good lord I wrote a lot of this week's article fast. See you next week for a hopefully less stressful Midweek Music News Roundup!