New Fox Cartoon Needs Night Class in Comedy

I never was a 'King of the Hill' fan. Nothing against it– I watched it when nothing better was on and it was funny, but not my type of humor. I like 'Frasier', if that helps. No wonder I didn’t notice that FOX has canceled the show, the second longest-running animated show in America. D’oh! 'The Simpsons' are first. Hank Hill fans can watch creator Mike Judge’s new cartoon on ABC this Fall. In the meantime, ‘Arrested Development’ is back on FOX. The critically-acclaimed– no, critically dry-humped show was canceled by some network exec, likely the same cokehead who axed ‘Futurama’, ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Gumbel & Gumbel’. But enough fans complained that FOX had to return the show to the air. Except now instead of ‘Arrested Development’ they’re calling it ‘Sit Down, Shut Up’ and instead of it being about the Bluthe family it’s about a school. And it’s now a cartoon, all the characters are different and it’s no longer funny. But other than that, exactly like ‘Arrested Development’.

‘Sit Down, Shut Up’ was conceived by ‘Arrested Development’ creator Mitch Hurwitz. Based on a live action Australian ‘The Office’ knock-off, Hurwitz eventually changed to an animated format– another example of outsourcing the jobs of American actors to third-world animators. Mitch recruited writers from ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Two and a Half Men’, which I am told is some sort of sitcom and not, as I had supposed, about two police detectives, one of whom is a conjoined twin.

Jason Bateman returns as the leading man. Will Arnett and Henry “The Fonz” Winkler, who worked with Hurwitz and Bateman on ‘Arrested Development’ reunite to provide voices, adding Kenan Thompson, Will Forte and Cheri Oteri, all from Saturday Night Live, to round out the cast. Oh! The guy who does Spongebob Squarepant’s voice is on the show too!

However, from the beginning the show fails to deliver on all that potential. The pilot episode introduces the characters, replete with double entendre names– Principal Sue Sezno and a German teacher named Mr. Deutschebog, just to name a few. But that’s it– nothing funny happens. Subsequent episodes do the same, build up hope for a great pay off of funny, but never deliver. Watching this show leaves me with comedy blue balls. Luckily it’s part of FOX’s ‘Animation Domination Sunday’ lineup, so Seth McFarlane can give me some release. I won’t give up on ‘Sit Down, Shut Up’ just yet– FOX plans to air the full season before deciding the show’s fate. If a coked-out executive can be that patient with a show that delivers cheap, easy, high-school level jokes, I can too.

Grizzly Bear comes home to Veckatimest

Off the coast of Massachusetts, between Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard lies the tiny island of Veckatimest. Owned by the Forbes Family (as in quadrillionaire Steve Forbes and former presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry), the tiny island is home to, well, nothing. It’s a completely uninhabited speck in the Elizabeth Islands. It also happens to share it’s name with the new Grizzly Bear album. Veckatimest (the album) is not tiny and definitely not nothing. At times stripped down, at others fully orchestrated, Grizzly Bear’s third album offers not just scenes of sound, but full landscapes.

Ed Droste began the band in his Brooklyn apartment. His homespun D.I.Y. effort took on new life with the help of multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor. Add guitarist/pianist/songwriter Daniel Rossen and Christopher Bear on drums and you have Grizzly Bear. Their 2004 debut, Horn of Plenty, began to explore the layering and variety that Veckatimest perfects. Rolling Stone magazine wrote of the first album that "The pure atmospheric power of the songs is more than enough to hypnotize." Their sophomore effort, Yellow House, is their first as a quartet and to feature material written by Rossen. Yellow House is named for Droste's mother's house where it was recorded. The New York Times called it one of the top albums of 2006.


Before listening to the album I took Benjo’s advice and listened to the band’s National Public Radio Studio Session performance, hosted by David Garland. It aired live on the radio and web, but I was at work and only got to listen to the stream later. (Go to NPRmusic.org to hear the one-hour bare-bones performance.)

Everything, even the album art, is narrative. Each song is a mini journey to the next, all set in the big picture of the album. As such, there is an easy flow to the work. The responsibility of album cohesion falls squarely on Chris Taylor’s shoulders. In as much as he produced the record, he admits many things that make the album so ‘comfortable’ are out of his control. “The acoustics in a home add familiarity to the sound,” says Taylor. “Like singing in your bathroom, or playing guitar in your living room- it makes for a comfortable recording process.” Taylor talks about using distance to achieve layers, saying “Bigness, smallness, closeness, distance- someone whispering in your ear versus someone talking further away feels different.”

Incorporating incidental sounds, like a girl’s giggle and an adult’s subsequent ‘shoosh’ as well as the sound of logs crackling in a Cape Cod cabin’s fireplace– all these layers enrich the sound scape of Veckatimest. Expanding upon that theme, the band recorded this album in several sessions at various locations, eventually spending three weeks at The Glen Tonche Estate in the Catskills for final mastering.

Many tracks also feature arrangements by Nico Muhly, a twenty-eight year old contemporary Western classical composer from the grain belt. For some tracks Muhly uses the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Listen for them giggling in ‘I Live With You.’ Ed considers it an Easter egg– “Dan (Rossen) had those samples, he was like ‘ I really want to put those in there.’ They had an amazing way of sweetening things and at the same time totally scaring me.”

It’s not at all scary, though. Says Droste, “It’s just got a few poppier songs, a few darker songs a few stripped-down tracks, and a few really orchestrated lush ones. More dynamics, essentially.”

The work has longevity– songs you don’t get sick of quickly. Each listen reveals more of the layering that you’d barely notice on first listen. It stays interesting because even though there’s a lot to get to know, each track is still easy to recognize. Veckatimest is at once surprising and familiar, a hard feat to master for an album that encompasses a world of sound.


Famous fans of Grizzly Bear include band Band of Horses, who covered a GB song for there 2007 EP Friend. After GB opened for Radiohead in a summer 2008 tour guitarist Jonny Greenwood confessed on stage that they were his ‘favorite band.’ I’m not famous or talented in any notable way, but I find myself so enamored with the band that I’m contemplating how to get to the Saturday, June 13th show at The Tabernacle in Atlanta. Show starts at eight, bring a date. Oh, did I mention TV on the Radio is also playing that gig? Or, just see them both along with a hundred other bands you’ll love at Bonnaroo. The Manchester, Tennessee show runs from the 11th through the 14th of June.

Webphiles, find the band’s 2007 cover of JoJo’s single "Too Little Too Late." The band performed it on Droste's twenty-ninth birthday and on the NPR show I mentioned earlier. It’s proof that even Disney teen idol clone songs can sound haunting if rendered properly. Freebie! Go to Grizzly-bear.net to download 'Cheerleader,' track five on Veckatimest.

The Boys of Summer (Nothing Gay)

John Gay, self-professed nerd here. I’ve admitted as much before– I’m a trivia-playing, karaoke-singing, Lord-of-the-Rings-quoting nerd. Suffice it to say I never played sports as a child. In high school I lettered in debate. I know nothing about sports. During trivia at O’Corley’s I depend on my team mates to cover that subject. I cover obscure eighties television shows and nineties one-hit wonders.

Watching me play Madden ’09 is like watching a quadruple amputee play pin the tail on the donkey, both sad and hilarious. I don’t understand the plays or the positions. I don’t know a nickel zone from a nickel back, a blitz from a wide receiver, though that last one sounds a bit gay. I wouldn’t know how to handle a blitz from a wide receiver or a tight end for that matter. That's not mentioning the complex scoring system nor the extravagant end zone rituals.

Marathons I get– running the fastest to the finish line. But that’s not a sport, its exercise. If running is a sport then so are jumping jacks.

There is one sport I do understand– baseball. When I was little we had country cable– also known as broadcast television. Where are my manners? I forgot that most of you are too young to know that archaic term. Broadcast television is what we watched before cable, satellite and the internet. People used to put antenna arrays on their roofs to receive radio transmissions. In the country only four or five stations came in, usually CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS and occasionally ABC or UPN. Summer nights when I was a kid were spent watching baseball on one of these stations.

Finally I discovered a sport I could understand. The rules are so simply elegant– hit the ball, run the bases, score a point. Every position is named logically– the pitcher pitches, the catcher catches, the pinch hitter walks up and down the bullpen pinching the hitters. They don’t like it but they respect that he’s doing his job. The only position whose name throws me a little is short stop. Do I have to stop, if only briefly, as I pass this player? Do I wave to the short stop, say hello, or simply nod? Am I obliged to engage him in conversation as I round first? “Lovely weather we’re having!”

I even like baseball movies. Other than Varsity Blues I’ve never seen a sports movie I liked. No, not Rudy. Not even Radio, and that had Cuba Gooding Junior going full tard. But I haven’t seen a bad baseball movie yet. Other than Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Waterworld only one Kevin Costner movie does not feel like a case of douche– Field of Dreams. The secret to making this movie an classic? Three words: James Earl Jones. Put him in the flick and it’s instant gravy. Tom Selleck’s character in Mr. Baseball has a great one-liner– “Got any naked pictures of your wife? Wanna see some?”

To me the funniest is Baseketball. Sorry, Bull Durham. Baseketball comes from Matt Stone and Trey Parker of Team America/ South Park fame. If you haven’t seen any of their live action work this is a great one to start with, if only for the nude locker room scene with Matt and Trey. Don’t freak out, prudes, you don’t see anything. It’s what you don’t see that’s hilarious.

I don’t mean to imply that I’ll be watching baseball by choice. I just realize that in the bar it will be on and since I at least understand it I can appreciate it more as a sport, as a cultural phenomenon and as a metaphor for consensual sex. You know, rounding third… sliding into home. SAFE! Try that with football.

Green Day: making anti-Bush albums since 2004

Note to Billy Joe: if you’re going to write a political album, make sure there’s an appropriate political environment. If you don’t, you may end up making “21st Century Breakdown.” It portrays America as a country of disillusioned cynics railing against censorship, corruption and manipulation.

Sound familiar? It’s what the band told us about their 2004 anti-Bush album American Idiot. The difference? Back then, we were disillusioned cynics railing against censorship, corruption and manipulation. Remember, in 2004 it was the top of the fourth inning in Bush’s eight-year ballgame. Now, we are the most hopeful we have been in generations. Not even a near economic depression nor a foreign war on two fronts can rain out our game. Green Day's storm clouds don’t reflect that hopefulness we expect for a band touted as the anthem writers of change. The album’s point of view is more infuriating when contrasted to how brilliant the songs are– hefty melodies, an emotional range in Billy Joe’s voice that challenge the riffs to crest in Who-like proportions.

Had the album come out before the 2008 election it might have found ears hungry to hears it’s rebellious message. Maybe years from now the world will sync up with its pessimistic landscape. Either way, the music will stand on its own regardless of the propaganda.

CD Review- "Beware" by Bonnie Prince Billy

Bonnie Prince Billy’s latest album “Beware” should have been titled “Lonesome Crowded West,” but Modest Mouse beat singer-songwriter Will Oldham to that one. The set epitomizes a romanticized view of American folk music. Upon listening to the album, unbidden images of sun-bleached cow skulls and tumbleweeds come to mind, not just because of Oldham’s twangy voice, nor the use of country-western instruments– the mandolin, a wood block, sparse drums, a meanding steel guitar and a slow fiddle (sometimes called a violin). Because each instrument is playing skeletal scales each note takes on more importance. Instead of building a wall of sound by layering an orchestra of music, Oldham highlights the emotional heights his voice evokes by turning up the echo effect on most of the album. Female backing vocals, a bluegrass staple, have the same effect. Not every track has the minimalist feel– “You Don’t Love Me” even adds a hefty brass section to the mix, livens up the drum and manages to turn once-haunting steel guitar riffs into peppy, clappable verses.

Some tracks, like “Beware Your Only Friend” and “I Don’t Belong to Anyone” could be played from horseback. The love-lorn “Heart’s Arm’s” could be a camp fire tribute to a still-burning torch. This is my favorite track. Oldham’s lyrics do their part to emphasize the heart-on-sleeve effect:

Why don't you write me anymore?
Have you found something as good just next door?
I open this awful machine to nothing
where once your intimacies came pounding.

Not a single song on the thirteen track album is over five minutes long– the shortest is just over two minutes long. This is a good thing– the songs build quickly, the music swells, crests and then wraps up. There are no long intro or outros, just soulful singing and masterful instrumentation.

playlist for May 6, 2009