Turning down, or mixing your women vocalists is a shitty and kinda sexist thing to do. What are you afraid of?
If Mick Jagger left Merry Clayton THAT high in "Gimme Shelter," surely YOU can leave your female backups nice and high in the mic
You’ve already read the title, but I’m gonna say it again:
What is the fuckin’ point of hiring backup singers if nobody can fuckin hear ‘em?
In answer to this question I would say there’s no point at all, but apparently Josh Homme feels otherwise.
Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen might have sat the red-haired cokehead down in 2005 for a minute and explained that backing vocalists are there to back the vocalist but @ the time Springsteen was concocting Magic, which would contain some of his very last great songs, among them the eerie title track, “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” “Girls In Their Summer Clothes,” (a fine piece of symphonic, nostalgic rock…who cares if it’s the equivalent of an old man sadly gazing @ beautiful women as they, slowly and hip waggingly, waltz past his front porch) and a song called “Long Walk Home.”
Anyway, as far as “Girls In Their Summer Clothes,” shit yeah it sounds creepy. Except sometimes people find each other sexy. Woman find other women sexy. Men find women sexy & vice versa (if less often).
The narrator (because all Springsteen songs, have narrators) has been recently hurt.
His last lover “went away and cut [him] like a knife.” So we have established he isn’t a pussy chaser.
He’s a sad man. And he may never find love again.
But girls in their summer clothes are nice to look at. I’m not saying they’re on parade or that the reason the exist is to please men.
But there’s nothing wrong with appreciating beauty. And in real life, like say, the immediacy between a porch and a street, does something to a person, makes the beauty always seems more real…more alive in its intimacy and proximity, not because of some predator-type behaviour lurking in back of the man’s mind.
I have to keep making these assurances (tho I don’t mind).
I don’t want to ever come off as a man who thinks “my kind” is on top with woman & children beneath. I do still believe that maxim for boarding lifeboats from a sinking ship, but I don’t think woman exist for my personal sexual satisfaction. Anyway, “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” was a surprising track to hear from the Boss. He was getting old and, even worse, admitting it.
An admittance of the forward march of time. That sad modulation @ 2:48 as Bruce begs for “just a glance.” He’s not the total hetero hunk he was in the “I’m On Fire” video and he knows it.
The other Twin Tower on the album Magic and the strongest contender for best post-2000 Bruce Springsteen song is “Long Walk Home.”
I can’t write anything about it that will make you like it or love or hate it. You just hafta hear it:
There’s a bit of “Downbound Train” in there, a bit of one of the most underrated American films in years, Hell or Highwater (2016), and a whole lotta Bruce, doin his geetar thing with that eternal Telecaster of his.
One might think that Neil Young never had much use for backup singers after he ghosted Nicolette Larson after gifting her her big hit. But that’s not exactly accurate, Yes, he casually handed her a song from a tape she found his garage full of hundreds of tapes. Again, what are the odds it that the song that made her career was on there?
God they sang so well together. Why he hell did Young ghost her for Pegi, who could barely sing?
She presses play and it’s “Lotta Love,” a song Neil made it clear he didn’t care for but Larson pressed him. She said “Neil, that’s a really good song.”
“You want it, it’s yours,” he shrugged.
The rest is history. Larson’s version never went #1. It went #8. Young’s only #1 is “Heart of Gold,” dethroned a week later by a band that sounded so much like him (the band America) that Young’s father called him to congratulate him on his “first #1 hit,” a song called “Horse With No Name.”
I imagine that deflated Neil a bit.
No, Neil used Pegi Young as a backup singer on a terrible song called “She’s A Healer” from 2002’s Are You Passionate? and she sang backup live for the 2003 Greendale live stuff, from which here’s a half-enthralling, half-embarrassing video:
So let’s be straight here: Pegi Young is a shitty singer.
Patti Springsteen would face similar criticism early on in her tenure in the E-Street band. There’s a video of her saving her husband and Steve Van Zandt in London when Springsteen sprained his ankle doing “Out in the Street." I can’t find the video in question, but it’s @ Hyde Park (NOT the 2009 show. The show is from 1985.) Anyway, Bruce busts his ankle, Van Zandt is too shy to sing lead, so Patti steps up and finishes the song, it’s fucking great.
Patti Springsteen is an excellent backing vocalist and a fuckin’ great occasional lead singer.
ANYWAY I doubt Neil Young had time back in 2005 to give Josh Homme advice on how to use your back-up singers. He was too busy using his own to make a super-topical record aimed @ the Bush administration called Living With War, which would not be released til 2006, but Young was recording it in tandem with Homme’s tracking Lullabies.
You can hear the backing singers on each line:
But if anyone could tell Homme how difficult it is to follow a famous trilogy, it would have been Neil Young’s, whose infamous “Ditch Trilogy” contains some of his best songs ever/
Following up a 3-album run like QOTSA’s s/t debut, Rated R, and Songs for the Deaf is a Mt. Everest tall order. The fans knew it. But we were just as patient and understanding as we were excited.
So why resort to what amounted to false advertisement? “Garbage’s Shirley Manson to sing on new QOTSA album?” Hell, if the material as as good as advertised, it would be well worth the wait.
Nick Oliveri told a Rolling Stone reporter not long before he got booted that “Tangled Up In Plaid” was “a good one. Then it turned out to be a shitty retread of “No One Knows” with a chorus that still sounds, to my 35.5 year old ears like Green Day. In that same interview Homme told Rolling Stone that the album’s ostensible closer, “Long Slow Goodbye” “probably the song I’m most proud of ever.”
I said “ostensible” because once Josh got ahold of the conductor’s baton and a few session horn players, he surely felt the right to “conduct” some bullshit sessions like whatever the fuck starts @ 58:02 of the record:
According to Rolling Stone’s January 2005 profile:
Guests at the sessions included sometime-member Mark Lanegan, Shirley Manson of Garbage, Distillers singer Brody Dalle, Dean Ween and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, who appears on three tracks and marks the first-ever known recording of a “beard harmonic.” “I was elated,” said Homme, “because I’ve listened to him since I was twelve, and he’s one of my favorite guitar players of all time. But on a musical level, I thought there was something we could trade with each other that’s vital to us both.”
The new album is also the first from Queens since the exit of bassist-singer Nick Oliveri, and Homme said he feels like an “underdog again.” “Every time you make a record, you’re trying to prove something a little bit,” Homme said. “You can always put it out, but you can never take it back. I’d hate to suck.”
Well, suck it did. But hey, Homme is the keeper of the first-ever (he thinks) beard harmonic in all of music. During Billy Gibbons solo @ the end of “Burn the Witch,” he lifts his guitar and accidentally makes a harmonic with his beard.
The beard harmonic video has been scrubbed from YouTube, but one that hasn’t is Mark Lanegan singin’ “Precious & Grace” from ZZ Top’s Tres Hombres. Even fucking up, he is mesmerizing. The very first thing he says in the video is “Josh? I thought I asked for no comments…”1
Me & my pal Brent love Mark Lanegan. In my addict days, Brent covered for me as long as he could. When I was lying yo my ex-wife, saying we were hanging when really I was chasing horse all over town. I apologize for that Brent. I never shoulda asked you to lie for me.
Of course, in the above video Mark Lanegan assumes he is WAY OFF & asks to be put in a vocal booth solo (which actually doesn’t work when you want a bunch of people doing gang vocals. As in, all singing the same line, note for note.
I don’t mean harmonies. For harmony, the more separation the better, but gang vox? Like Arcade Fire doing that ascending “ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-OOH-ooh” @ in “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” They did that in a single room with every singing member of the band present, singing into one mcrophone. That’s how you get a big “gang” vocal sound, cuz even if one person is off, as Lanegan fears above, the mistake gets swallowed by the sine waves of in-key singing.
You don’t have to listen to the whole song,
But if you have time, but it’s a Tik Tok world, so start @ 3:40 if you just wanna see, I mean “hear, what I mean:
That’s lovely, eh? I’m not even a big fan of this band and that part gives me chills.
Will I EVER get use to linking people to VIDEOS so they can HEAR songs? I’m sure this bothered Richy Rachman for 12 seconds before he signed the contract to run MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball. Our version, MUCH LOUD, was hostless for a long time. Can’t remember if it got a host. But if it did, I’m sure the host either
sucked
was Strombo
or both
Arcade Fire doing that ascending “ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-OOH-ooh” @ in “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”, sounding like God & his angels singin’ while filling the fridge after a MASSIVE shopping where EVERYBODY got EXACTLY what they wanted, is a big reason they’re so popular in Europe.
Merge Records had a guy over there who fought, tooth and nail, to release “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” as Arcade Fire’s first EU single. He just thought it would hit the European sensibility better.
These are the A&R people who used to run things. They fancy themselves pretty smart. But they’re not wrong all the time. Merge’s European A&R guy got his wish & a few months later Arcade Fire were playing 40 000+ venues in the EU.
They were already massive in Canada, bcuz of a few other neighbourhood songs, like “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” and “Rebellion (Lies")” and the unimpeachable “Wake Up.”
But putting out Tunnels first, in EU, shot them into the fuckin’ stratosphere. It made them rockstars.
Where was I? Oh yeah!
The marketing campaign leading up to Lullabies to Paralyze, the fourth (and first imperfect) QOTSA LP, having already announced Shirley Manson’s involvement, was now saying Brody Dalle, of the Distillers, was also going to be singing on the LP!
Holy fuck, this was gonna be great.
And then the album came out. On a Tuesday (back then, new albums came out on Tuesdays).
I eagerly read the liner notes, scanning for Dalle and Manson. They were on the same song! Track #13? I had to wait the whole fucking album to hear them?
And then when Track #13 came, “You Got A Killer Scene There, Man.”
Try though I did, I couldn’t hear either singer. At all.
Hear it for yourself:
First off, Dalle and Manson don’t even JOIN the fucking song until 4:17, a song that is 5 minutes long. And in the 40 seconds, they are either copying Josh’s oooh-oooh-ooh melody he’d tried out four years earlier on a Desert Sessions song called “The Idiot’s Guide” (I time-stamped it. Go to 0:50 to hear the initial vocal melody idea Homme recycled for “Killer Scene, Man.”
When they’re not mimicking Josh’s existing melody, do you hear ANYTHING save for some “ooohs” amd “ahhhs” mixed at an unnecessarily low level. What is this? Some ASMR shit?
Ohhs. Ahhs. Uhhhs.
These are not significant parts, Josh. Manson and Dalle are little more than wallpaper on this song. You wouldn’t even know they were there unless somebody pointed it out to you. This means:
Homme put Dalle and Manson on his record just so he could tell people they were on his record, even though they are almost inaudible.
Over & over & over, that whole first week I owned the record, I kept listening for something, anything, that would… grab me.
Track 1: “This Lullaby” is medieval doggerel.
“Medication” is an obvious “hey let’s write a song that sounds like it could’ve been on the last album” exercise.
“Everybody Knows That You’re Insane” was…okay…but sounded more like Desert Session material than something for a full-fledged QOTSA album.
Surely I was missing something, right? The moronic chromatic riff of “Burn the Witch” sounds like something you’d do @ soundcheck, not put on a highly-anticipated album.
The chorus of “Tangled Up In Plaid” sounds like Green Day. My god, Homme was reaching here. These were bad fucking songs. From “This Lullaby” to “Long, Slow Goodbye,” there was an emptiness to these I just couldn’t put finger on. Was Nick Oliveri that integral to the band’s sound?
Apparently. But he was around anymore to say “Hey Josh, that song/riff sucks.”
Lullabies to Paralyze is like…the American answer to Be Here Now. The songs are longer, the music more compressed…and the songs are overproduced because they’re not very good and needed some ear candy to dress them up.
But this is a fact I find the most revealing about the record: “Little Sister” was a song deemed too shitty to be on Songs for the Deaf. It was an old song, had been kicking around for a while, not getting better while it marinated, like wine or cheese, just getting worse, like garbage.
And it was the LEAD-OFF SINGLE for Lullabies to Paralyze.
First of all, there’s the misogyny of inviting prominent female musicians on your album and making them inaudible. That’s Dick Move #1.
There’s the sheer hypocrisy of kicking Nick out of your band for hitting his partner, something Brody has sworn Josh himself did. That’s Dick Move #2. There were plenty more to come. Remember Homme’s homophobic tirade @ the 2008 iteration of the Norweigan Wood festival? The one he chalked up to “having the flu?”
I wonder if he had the flu when he smashed that photographer for NO FUCKING REASON didn’t help his cause as a Big Chill Daddy who would NEVER HURT A WOMAN. Check the footage. Homme looks RIGHT AT HER, the photographer, then he kicks her camera which drives itself into her face by the force of said wildly unnecessary kick, fucking her up, costing her a tooth or two and a hospital visit.
Meanwhile, over and over, but not like I’d done with Rated R and SFTD which I enjoyed listening to repeatedly, I kept listening to Lullabies waiting for it to “kick in.”
What Homme had told a journalist was “the song [he was] most proud of writing…ever," ….but all I could hear was a 3-chord whimper ending with a falsetto so fucking bad it could inaugurate the Bad Falsetto Hall of Shame. It’s @ 4:39:
Aside from the “studio trickery” as in “slowing a busy dial tone down to Homme’s rhythmic strum (as asinine jerkoff, not an achievement), the song is mind-numbingly boring.
Josh’s over-reliance on falsetto on that record would be bad enough if the songs didn’t also suck. “Broken Box” is about either a vagina, or vaginas plural, that Homme brags he couldn’t fit into. Bragging about having a big cock and denigrating vaginas in the same 3-minute re-tread.
“Skin On Skin” is more of the same. Sexuality as dominance (if yr into that cool, but I don’t think sex = possession).
The whole album is a fucking retread. A creative dead end.
Homme’s falsetto works fine here, when he covers PJ Harvey:
But on Lullabies his falsetto…just. Sounds. Like. Shit.
Homme took its title from “Mosquito Song” on Songs for the Deaf, apparently unable to think of something “brand new,” the kind of thing he values SO MUCH on “Broken Box” to title his new album. Even the title is recycled material!
That single piano note repeated over and over on “Broken Box?” Homme already stole that idea from the Stooges’ “Gimme Danger” on “Go With the Flow.”
The Stooges did it 30 years earlier…
And these are just the unoriginal things I’ve bothered to notice. Imagine how many more lurk in that dark fetid forest Homme calls one of his best records?
Homme and PJ Harvey’s 2003 collaboration on Desert Sessions 9 & 10 yielded some of his best stuff. “I Wanna Make It Wit Chu” (which of course, Homme plundered for a 5th QOTSA album). But “Powdered Wig Machine” has a power of its own too.
The “hit,” if you can call it that, from DS 9&10 though, was “Crawl Home.”
The song was supposed to have a video featuring an argument between the 2 rock stars turning physical, and Harvey beating Homme’s ass. A still-Print Era SPIN Magazine did an entire page profile on the video’s “making of.” But this video never surfaced. Why? Polly Jean Harvey kicking ass & Homme doing the titular crawl home makes sense to me, given the lyrics. I couldn’t find the video on YouTube, so click this link to watch it. It is…decidedly underwhelming. Instead of a beat down, what we get is a…pensive argument?
Sigh.
I guess they ran outta money? Or Homme simply couldn’t countenance getting his ass kicked, pretend or not, by a woman?
Well, we’ve taken stock of Homme’s music & studio behaviour & he doesn’t come out looking so hot. But at least Homme dips the fader for both men & women!
The marketing for the 5th QOTSA album mentioned a “guest spot” from none other than the inaudible Julian Casablancas you can “hear” only @ the very very end of this song. Sorta like that other QOTSA album that promised guest singers? Dalle & Manson reduced so low they could’ve been anybody. Well, here. good luck hearing Casablancas on the chorus, but you can def hear him at the end, @ 2:35 when he does his “off-key-yet-on-key” thing.
A few years later Daft Punk would show Homme how to actually use a guest vocalist. As in, use their strengths to create a timeless piece of music, not “trade on their names and credibility” or. as he did here, “put Casablancas on the first single as an excuse to book a tour.” Fuck that shit.
This is how you feat. Julian Casablancas:
Famous for fronting Queens of the Stone Age, Desert Sessions, Them Crooked Vultures, Kyuss, and for being a temp member of Iggy Pop’s backing band in Pop’s Post Pop Depression era, Josh Homme looms large in the post-millennial hard rock scene.
He also looms large as a physical specimen. He’s the hulking figure just to Iggy’s right in the front cover photo below. That height difference is not camera trickery, btw. Iggy Pop really is 5 feet, 6 inches, while Josh Homme stands at 6 feet, 3 inches.
Homme has frequently mentioned over the years that he’s a massive fan of Pop’s stuff, particularly the drum sound on Lust for Life, so playing on and producing Pop’s 2016 album wasn’t just a thing done to satisfy his ego. Despite famously taking three whole months to respond via email to Pop’s request that he produce his album, Homme’s tardiness as a pen pal should not be taken as an indication of a lack of commitment.
Putting all other projects on hold, Homme spent the first half of 2016 on tour with this iteration of Iggy’s band, embarking on both a US tour and a European tour that culminated at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris on August 26 2016. If I’m being honest, however, I have to say I don’t find this rendition particularly impressive. The hi-hat sounds too open. The drums need to be tighter, the drummer needs to play more tight-fisted. It’s like the band were so excited to play the song with Pop that they neglected the tight pocket groove the song’s reputation lies on. And, unsurprisingly, Pop’s vocals are pretty bad. He’s more talking than singing, not unlike the way latter-day Bob Dylan croaks through his live commitments. Judge for yourself:
Even when Homme produces other bands’ albums, you can often hear his fingerprints all over them. Eagles of Death Metal, for example, a band I could go the rest of my life without hearing and be happy for it, is a silly-ass cock rock project fronted by a right-wing Junior version of Ted Nugent.
But Iggy Pop is not some wacked-out meth-snorting gun toting weirdo like Jesse “The Devil” Hughes. However you may feel about Pop’s post Lust For Life contributions, you still have to give the man his due. This is the guy who sang “Dirt” like he fucking meant it. (No disrespect to Alice in Chains. Layne Staley certainly ecperienced hell firsthand before actually dying). I have always loved how Iggy sings (I mean snarls that line “Uh do ya feel it…? Said do ya feel it when ya….TOUCH ME? Said DO YA FEEL IT WHEN YA TOUCH ME! Cuz there’s a FIRE!”
I also love when he sing/snarls “Ooooh I’ve been…hurt…and I don’t care” around the 2:20 mark.
I will say though, I am a huge fan of one of Pop’s most 80s sounding songs. It’s called “Cry For Love” from 1986’s Blah Blah Blah. It’s posted directly below. Dig it. I freakin’ love the couplet “to seize the world and shake it upside down/and every stinking bum should wear a crown.” No Homme’s were involved during the creation of this song.
And there’s another really great one called “Beside You” drom Pop’s 1993 effort American Caesar that I think has been overlooked a little bit. “Beside you everything is new” is a pretty romantic lyric, no matter which way you slice it. Those sad Jesus and the Mary Chain synths are so mournful and pretty gutsy considering what was dominating the radio at the time, groups like Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc. Check it out:
Or listen to how creatively Neil Young uses his choir here. Creepy and right on the money. Again, no Homme’s needed.
ANYWAY, Homme may have been able to steer the musical direction with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones into what amounted to a sixth QOTSA album, but he was smart enough to know he couldn’t boss Iggy around like that. So he very wisely set his ego aside and let the iconic singer pick the songs he wanted to sing and take the lead vocally, and the result was Post Pop Depression.
The resultant record got the best reviews Pop enjoyed in years2, but it should be remembered that anytime an artist from “back in the day” manages between bankruptcy court proceedings to make a record, that record is inevitably hailed as a “return to form.” So take the praise with a grain of salt and listen to it yourself. The whole album is embedded below. I think the first track is a much better song than the one the ended up choosing to be the single.
Many Kyuss fans, including myself, were bemused to learn that the first single of Post Pop Depression was titled “Gardenia,” which many (including myself) took as a deliberate swipe at Brant Bjork, Homme’s old Kyuss bandmate who he’d been trading barbs with in the press for years. “Gardenia” is one of Kyuss’ most famous songs. It’s track one on Sky Valley, and it was written by Bjork, not Homme.
Despite having a hand in most of the songs on Kyuss classic 1992 album Blues for the Red Sun, Bjork’s only contributions to Sky Valley were the above track “Gardenia” and the album’s majestic closer “Whitewater.”
Both of those songs are fan favourites, and given how involved Brant Bjork was in the writing of the previous Kyuss album, many were wondering why Bjork’s songwriting contributions to Sky Valley were so slight. Well, according to Bjork, it had to do with money. He told Blabbermouth the following:
“Josh and I were the creative force within the band and after the completion of our second record, Blues For The Red Sun, we developed an opposing view on how the band should exist and operate. In 1992, Josh discovered publishing, which is the financial revenue stream for songwriting. After that, he wanted to write all the songs. As a drummer, I couldn't make him play my songs. I wasn't going to compromise my heart and soul and play drums for Josh to make money in a band I started. So I left the band. I was a confused, angry and sad 19-year-old idealist who sacrificed my love of my band for what I believed in. Two and a half years later, Josh would break up the band after John confronted him about the same thing; his need to control the band for personal gain.”
Now, this kind of accusation is impossible to prove, but considering Brant Bjork’s precipitous drop-off in song contribution (he was back on drums within a few years and made 3 or 4 records with Fu Manchu, writing none of the songs. His 1999 debut album Jalamanta, has some great songs like “Low Desert Punk,” which is posted below. (Notice the similarity to Kyuss’ “Gardenia” riff). I love Brant’s little “get a load of this man,” a 0:44.)
“Too Many Chiefs…Not Enough Indians,” & “Automatic Fantastic.” But it’s the drumming that shines the best, given that Bjork is a natural drummer. Listen to that carpet he lays down on the verses of the latter song (starting @ 0:48) or the barely perceptible change in the riff @ 1:19 of “Low Desert Punk.”
ANYWAY, Bjork’s reason for quitting Kyuss certainly seems plausible.
And the fact that Homme would, 22 years later, pen a song for Iggy Pop called “Gardenia,” which is Brant Bjork’s best known Kyuss song, definitely seems like a fuck you, doesn’t it? What do you think?
Now Homme, just like his ex-pal Bjork, has a song called “Gardenia” too in his music publishing catalogue. My only qualm with this, is that’s a pretty passive aggressive thing to do for a man who tends toward active aggression.
Fans of QOTSA, particularly Songs for the Deaf, probably remember the name Kip Kasper. It’s the first known rock artist’s voice we hear on the record. Before Nick Oliveri, before Mark Lanegan, before even John Homme.
The first actual voice you hear is some robotic voice advertising a fictitious radio station called Clone Radio. “KLLN, Los Angeles, Clone Radio. We play the songs that sound more like everyone else than anyone else,” is that of Blag Dahlia right at 0:25: “Hey alright it’s Kip Kasper. L.A.’s infinite repeat. How we feelin out there? How’s your drive-time commute? I need a saga. What’s the saga? It’s Songs for the Deaf. You can’t even hear it!”
Blag Dahlia was decidedly in Nick Oliveri’s camp, having played with him before in Dwarves, so when Queens of the Stone Age’s hugely disappointing fourth LP was released in 2005, the Dwarves released a song called “Massacre” in which Dahlia sang, or rather, rapped: “this one goes out to Queens of the Trust Fund/You slept on my floor/And now I’m sleeping through your motherfucking records.”
He even slips into his “Kip Kasper” role right before slagging off Josh. I time stamped it, but again, if it didn’t work, go to 2:20 to hear the whole thing.
Homme, who has admitted anger problems, heard that Dwarves were playing at a club called Dragonfly in November 2005 and showed up in full rock start regalia (motorcycle, leather jacket, bottle of beer in hand) waltzed backstage and poured the beer over Dahlia’s head, cooing “whatcha gonna do? whatcha gonna do?” over and over.
Well, Blag, being the true punk rocker he is, dialled the police, who came and took Homme away and forced him to take three months of anger management classes to avoid lockup time in the county jail.
Homme later said this to a reporter for the Los Angeles Times: “I learned nothing through anger management.” He even went so far as to say, likely against the wishes of his management: “I went there to attack and humiliate [Blag].”
“And that’s what I did.”
Homme ended up on probation for a few years and had to take three separate anger management courses,
Regardless of the hows or the whos or the whys, Homme and Dahlia now hated each other. But in one sense, Dahlia was correct. The first three QOTSA records are fucking flawless. Lullabies to Paralyze was a massive disappointment for Queens fans.
So it’s obviously not just in the mix. Especially not just in the mix. That problem is so fucking easily fixable. Just turn up the fucking fader so that the male and female voices are equally audible. I mean, how old a song is “Some Velvet Morning?”
When did Slowdive put out that fantastic Souvlaki? “When The Sun Hits” is one of my favourite songs of all time:
3rd fav Slowdive song (again, from hours of heroin withdrawal)?
“Here She Comes.”
Pendulous bubbles of snot coming out of me as I sing to myself, rubbing my arms to stay warm, over & over & over.
“It’s so cold now. I swear it will be warm.” I don’t hear a woman’s voice, do you? That doesn’t make it less great. Subtle and beautiful.
I’m not saying a song requires a woman’s to be great. Yes, Rachell Goswell sings part of my favourite Slowdive song. But Neil Halstead sings 2 of my top 3.
2nd fav Slowdive song is “Dagger.” Nary a woman to be found.
Now, I know there’s a lotta fake woke motherfuckers looking to get a blowjob from a feminist like it’s some kind of fucking Olympic medal. If you think I’m pulling that shit here, fine with me. Just mix the records right.
It’s not rocket science. Like drug dealing isn’t. You deal drugs? Sell me some drugs. You mix albums? Make it so I can hear each contributor to the song. Don’t bury certain singers because of male insecurity. Because you got outsang by a…gasp! woman.
I’m not saying there has to be a woman in your band, or helping produce your record, to make great music. I’m saying, don’t bury the female vocals beneath yours because you’re afraid of being outshined. That’s the story of the Pixies, man. I do not know what Frances Black’s problem was. He was in a great band with catchy songs, but a few people like Kim Deal more and he has a fucking identity crisis? That’s…just kinda sad.
Woman don’t have to be the singer only, either. Have you heard Galaxie 500’s rendition of Joy Division’s “Ceremony?” It’s one of my fav live performances on YouTube and, as far as I can hear, Naomi doesn’t sing a fuckin note.
I’m saying that back in 2005, Queens of the Stone Age’s 4th LP was the most anticipated record of my life. I was excited to hear that the respective lead singers of Garbage and the Distillers would be singing on a QOTSA song. But I was also skeptical, given how low in the mix Homme had put his “guest star” Julien Casablancas on the first single for Era Vulgaris. Have a listen to the song. You can hear Casablancas, but just barely, and even then, only when he is left alone at the end of the song to do his trademark sandpaper-effect-on-vocals thing.
And of course, Shirley Manson and Brody Dalle are nearly inaudible at the end of “You’ve Got A Killer Scene There, Man.” That could be anybody cooing and exhaling breathily. Now, I have personal history with Manson. And the “Push It” video.
When she takes her hood off and licks her reflection in the “Push It” video, that was the moment I knew I was heterosexual. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
As for Brody Dalle, I couldn’t care less. I was never a Distillers fan. I never even checked out Spinerette, so hell…they might be amazing. But advertising them on your album, and then having them mixed so low NOBODY can ever pick who is who…
I used to have 3AM arguments with my friends. “No…that’s Shirley!” “No it isn’t!” For the purposes of the song, both Manson and Dalle could have been anybody. I could not barely hear them, and I could not discern them.
And for a rock star who presents himself as one of the last “tough guys,” that is not a tough move. That’s a scared move by a frightened loser who thinks he might get outshined on his own song. (A song, that by the way, dates all the way back to 2001 with “The Idiot’s Guide.” In the chorus you can clearly hear Homme latching onto the vocal idea that would grow into the chorus for “You Got A Killer Scene There, Man.”
It starts @ 0:51
Meanwhile, in Canada, you’ve got a so-called “blue collar” band pulling the same shit Homme did.
This below song is supposed to have female backing vocals. Can YOU hear em?
The Constantines used to delight in revving a crowd up with simple guitar parts, an idea borrowed from Fugazi and Springsteen, the only 2 band they agreed on. They made 2 glorious albums of deconstructed rock n roll. Listen to the end of “Tank Commander.” How the descending chords follow a certain “rock & roll” pattern until they don’t & hit a dissonant one. This is what the Cons did. They deconstructed rock ‘n roll.
Then, after 2 albums of punky, fucked up rock ‘n roll (the second one, Shine A Light, is their best) they broke their own rules with a song called “Soon Enough,” the gist of which was, fulfillingone’s obligations made you a man. “Soon enough,” crooned Wedd, “Work & love will make a man out of you.”
I don’t know what this did north of the border but the effect up in Canada was seismic.
After that Constantines song came out, every single emo and punk band in the 905 and 416 areas decided to emulate the Constantines as closest as possible, with mixed results. Remember Sleeper Set Sail? They were like...a progressive tech emo band? SOOO cheesy. The first line: Darling won't you join me out here on the balcony?
Oh it gets worse and worse.
ANYWAY, AS SOON as the Constantines became a country band (& stopped being Constant Teens, singing songs about how obligation fulfilled was enough to make a man) every band in the 905 (Toronto and environs) became a country band. Charlemagne became The Arkells.
This was 2005. But the effect was viral back before viral was a word for “fast moving fad.”
The Constantines, like Ween, are a “band’s band,” meaning their fans were chiefly musicians. Unlike Ween, the Constantines did some revolutionary shit on their first 2 records. I argue, along with my fellow members in Sleep for the Nightlife, who did not agree on much other than Shine a Light and Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
I swear to God every other fucking band in this country.
So Sleeper Set Sail became Casey Baker & the Buffalo Sinners. I guess they really wanted people to know they were a country band now, out there in Prince Edward County hunting…its numerous Buffalo and whatnot.
Attack in Black followed suit. They made a few albums of really fast punky stuff, BUT melodic enough that if you turned the tempo down, these songs were basic rock songs, or country songs:
but I don't think that was authentically "punk" enough for them, so lead singer of Attack in Black quit and made some seriously Nashville, gospel-inflected country. This song is my fav of his:
Even the Cons seemed to realize they'd created a monster, but that didn't mean they started approaching albums differently. On their last album, two country-ish tracks stand out: There's this one, "Our Age."
I'm sure if the Cons hadn't done it, somebody else would have. I mean, The Weakerthans were playing country stuff years before the Constantines & had even invited the Cons out to open for them on the creatively titled Rolling Tundra Canadian Tour). But The Weakerthans were aleady flirting with country music, especially the title track on Left & Leaving:3
And the Cons were already flirting with pop song stuff too, with this song, On To You:
Anyway, the last song on Tournament of Hearts was this hobo strum, sung by just Steve Lambke (the other, hopelessly tone-deaf singer):
and if you listen carefully, the song “You Are A Conductor” has the same chords as “Streets of Philadelphia.”
Anyway, my point is this: If even the Constantines can’t be relied on to mix their female vocal contributions high enough to be heard, and Homme can boast about them, but nobody can hear them, who the fuck is gonna let these women be heard?
If you ask somebody to sing back-up on your album, like Mick Jagger asked Merry Clayton in the middle-of-the-night, who sang so hard she had a miscarriage, do them the the courtesy of turning their vocals up high enough so humans can hear them. Or at least tell them why you think their singing doesn’t fit your song. Here’s Merry Clayton on the Stones “Gimme Shelter.” The “YEAH” you hear in the background is Jagger telling Clayton to keep going, don’t spoil the take. It’s the finest voice crack in all rock ‘n roll:
We’re not making music for grasshoppers. Or dogs. Or whatever animals can hear things we humans cannot.
Ever hear “Cinnamon Girl”?
I hate the song. Hate it. But I bring it up to make the point that Danny Whitten is mixed higher than Neil Young. Why? Cuz he sounds better.
Alright now, I’ll leave you with my all time favourite vocal performance by a woman. Simone Schmidt fronting $1004 with uncombed hair, once sang me through 36 hours of heroin withdrawal with this beautiful piece of music. (I once listened to “Realiti” by Grime for 12 hours straight for the same reason).
ANYWAY. This is ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS playing “Where the Sparrows Drop.” Please enjoy:
Schmidt has an album out about the sufferings the women in Kingston’s Rockwood Asylum may (may??? DEF!!!) went through, voiceless and tortured, considered too insane to even converse with. It is an ambitious piece of work. In came out in 2014 but all good music is timeless. It’s called Audible Songs From Rockwood & you can hear it on Spotify here but I recommend purchasing it here from Idee Fixee Records.
Here’s one other song, men-sung but everyone-for, called “Before Tonight.”
The slowing down @ 1:22 i brilliant. I used to mishear the words “found that girl of mine.” Ooops. But at lest before @ last. I’m there. I’m yearning & learning. I just nodded off on my drool-covered keyboard. I’m putting the lyrics in the footnotes to get ‘em smaller. Just go to the end of the line.5
Just don’t forget the NOFX song, k?
Lol. “The light was red, son.”
Mark Lanegan is, according to many, the “nicest mean guy” you will ever meet. If you meet him. I esved t him and called his named outside a Falafell place @ Bathurst & Queen back in ‘05. Does that count? But you don’t know the true measure of a man, woman, or person who identifies otherwise until you see how much $ they tip.
If they tip generously, reel ‘em in.
“With Lanegan, it’s like…ice to meet you,” Homme is fond of saying.
The #1 song on my funeral playlist, I’ve told my Twitter pal @_rkgg whom it seems less likely with each passing day we’ll meet IRL but I really want to bcuz she’s an old soul & I think I love her. If not her, her soul. I think I’ve known her for years, if yer into past lives & stuff that. I think me & RG have swum in the Mediterranean together. Don’t ask me to explain it. Anyway, I told her all this, that Lanegan’s “100 Days” is my funeral song.
I love how he mentions sex workers, leaves them their dignity, & moves on. They’re not invisible.
Parsing the words, I think that the whole “One day ship comes in. From far away ship comes in” is death. Death comes for all of us. One day ship comes in.
It’s also about a guy trying to dry out in the tropics who has got a good friend to yank open a teddy bears guts and fill it with heroin.
“I’d stop & talk to the girls who work this street but I’ve gut business farther down.”
“There is no morphine, I'm only sleeping/There is no crime to dreams like this/And if you could take something with you\It would be bright.”
Lyrics site say “right” But I KNOW in my heart’s basement where files and hymns are kept, he is singing the word “bright.” As in…illuminated,
If you doubt me, just check his ad-libbed line @ 3:34. He is CLEARLY & AUDIBLY singing BRIGHT.
For a long time, there was (oh shit it’s still extant! onewhiskey.com)
The line is taken from an interview I can’t find on Google or the Wayback Machine, where Lanegan, asked about his sobriety & clearly not pleased @ such a private inquiry, tells the nosy journalist he hadn’t a drink in years, and that the last one was a single whiskey. neat, ordered on an airplane shortly after signing (that’s SIGNING not singing, an odd verb to write in association with Lanegan until I remembered he wrote and released a memoir last year.
Now, I don’t mean to pry (wait…yes I do) but from this particular Tweet, it seems like, as of Oct 1 2018, Mark was married to someone named Shelley Brien. Not sure who his first wife was. I only know that it drove him to drink his final drink. One whiskey.
As for me, I just mailed out my divorce thing yesterday. We separated July 16 2020, and she filed for divorce on July 10 2021. It’s almost like she cannot wait to get me outta her life.
Can’t blame her, but still. I know that, at some point, she loved me. And that helps.
Here’s a line from Train Dreams, a hallucinatory novella from Denis Johnson, one of my fav authors who also lost a decade to drugs & alcohol: Living alone with plenty of small chores to distract him, he forgot he was a sad man. When the hymns began, he remembered, and often cried.
I cry constantly to music. Lately? Deftones “Xerces.” Souled American’s “Before Tonight,” Blue Rodeo’s “Me & Baz.” (Busking in front of the LCBO near my place I ran into a funky character who claims he used to sell heroin to the titular Baz. That would be Basil Donovan, of Blue Rodeo sorta fame. I hope he kicked it, if what this weird man says is true. I did not ask if he had any “down” to sell me. No one calls it horse anymore. Too bad.
Horse is my fav synonym for heroin. So graceful. “Horse.” My 2nd fav is “down,” for what it does to ya. Too bad it doesn’t clip & clop ya. It flies you places. It shits when it wants, but only when yr in 36+ hr withdrawal. That’s all.
“As the day grows dim I heard you sing a golden hymn. Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-OOH-ooh.”
with Regine and that disco, but somehow lighter delivery? Like an indie rock “Got the Life.”
Which isn’t saying much. This man made an album with Sum-41 for fuck’s sake.
how much more “country” would the album have sounded, or just come off, if titled Left & Leavin’. Or, as a nod to the 80s most infamous hard rockers, Left ‘N Leavin?
Going from fronting a band called $100 to a band called Fiver is more indicative of the declining value of music and musicians than anything I could write or say. That a $95 decrease in wage.