Video of the Day: Van Halen, “Tattoo”
Blame our older brothers for blasting them out of their six-by-nine coaxial speakers every morning, or blame the late-1970s rock radio programmers desperate for an American hard rock band to champion, or just blame us, damn it, because for all the cool we tried to accumulate over the course of three decades we just could not let go of them, but at least two generations of suburban kids got the aesthetics of their genetics altered by Van Halen. Most of us only became aware of Led Zeppelin after they were gone, so what we had left in the early 1980s was the popped-up, sexed-up, goofball-adrenaline Sunset Stripped version, and without exposure to punk, Van Halen became a tool of parental irritation supreme and the insanely loud expression of the teenage id, and in its own way, it rocked hard.
And this is why we cut 75 percent of Van Halen so much slack for so long. After David Lee Roth left/was fired/otherwise went solo, we tried to like the Sammy Hagar version for 10 years until that thing ran into the ditch. Then Roth reunited with the Van Halen brothers and Michael Anthony for about five minutes in 1996, recorded some translucently pale imitations of classic-era VH and split again, which is why the dissolute and disposable 1998 Gary Cherone version made 99.9738 percent of the dwindling fan base want to take Edward’s “Pancake” drill to their eardrums: it wasn’t entirely because the Cherone-led Van Halen sucked like a Dyson, although it did. It was because we were tired of being jerked around by guys who could not understand just how uninteresting they were without one another, and hiring the guy from Extreme just felt like the Van Halen Boys had gotten cocky, believing that they could hire any damn guy (or Sass Jordan, apparently) to front them. They were greeted with a collective “no” and got sent to the wilderness for 10 years.
So after the health scares, questionable cures, the wired-up Roth/Hagar cross-country hatefest and a Hagar/Van Halen reunion tour that seemed to everyone watching like something much smaller than a half measure, Roth reunited with the Van Halens, who brought in Edward’s son Wolfgang after Michael Anthony sided with Sammy. The 2008 tour was big, bountiful and full of reasonably convincing love, and Roth seemed more like himself than he had since about 1986.
And now we have “Tattoo,” the first single from “A Different Kind of Truth,” due out on Interscope on February 7. This midtempo slight return about a housewife getting a tramp stamp and some palaver about the Civil War features the band sounding more like itself than it has in nearly three decades, mainly because Roth is present and accounted for, and it works for the most part because our standards for these guys are down somewhere around “just don’t embarrass yourself.” They do far better than that for three guys pushing 60 and another pushing legal drinking age.
Just in terms of population statistics, Van Halen is still at 75 percent, but in real musical math, the new Van Halen is actually about 10 percentage points higher than that. Still, that 15 percent is missed: in our heads, we can all hear those missing drunken choirboy vocals that should be in the background but are conspicuously absent, and the production on “Tattoo” is way too compressed, lacking the built-for-arenas spaciousness that Ted Templeman brought to VH’s classic period. But it’s better than “Me Wise Magic,” way better than anything on “Van Halen III,” and feels more like the real thing than anything since “5150.”
Yes, this amount of attention is nothing but irrational. I know that. But some of us just cannot repair that adolescent damage.
– Lang
Listen: The Shins, “Simple Song”
The Shins’ “Simple Song” debuted today, featuring James Mercer and a mostly new Shins lineup sounding largely as one might expect five years after “Wincing the Night Away” — the production and arrangements continue the “Wincing” direction toward polish and detail, but it clearly sounds like the Shins rather than an extension of the Broken Bells aesthetic. The new album, “Port of Morrow,” arrives on March 20.
– Lang
Video of the Day: Sharon Van Etten Plays “Serpents” on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon”
Sharon Van Etten releases her third album, “Tramp,” on February 7, which is shaping up as the first big release date of the year (Air, Paul McCartney, Van Halen, etc.). “Serpents” sounds amazing in this performance and bodes well for Van Etten’s first release on Jagjaguwar.
– Lang
Video of the Day: Arcade Fire, “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”
Régine Chassagne gets the spotlight on this holdover from December, the final video from “The Suburbs.” Consequence of Sound aptly described the clip as evoking both “Dawn of the Dead” (Romero original) and John Carpenter’s “They Live” — certainly the imagery of decaying suburban slum and the creepy, latex-and-facepaint dancers will remind plenty of viewers of that underrated Carpenter film. Beyond that, Chassagne is having a blast with her tinsel and “Tron”-effect prom dress.
I know it’s early. I know they just finished up a tour. But I’m ready for more Arcade Fire. The initial release picture for 2012 is looking bereft. I hope there are some surprises in the offering.
– Lang
Video of the Day: Air, “Sonic Armada”
The French avant-pop duo Air recently scored a restored and retinted version of Georges Melies “Le Voyage Dans La Lune” (A Trip to the Moon), an early masterpiece of science fiction most recently featured in Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” and its source material, Brian Selznick’s “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” Air’s new soundtrack is available Feb. 7. This marriage of modernity with pre-talkie cinema recalls Giorgio Moroder’s colorization and new wave score for “Metropolis” back in 1984, but let’s be honest: Moroder’s soundtrack has aged dreadfully — what Moroder, the electro-disco producer who scored “Midnight Express” and produced much of Donna Summer’s early disco catalog, was doing producing Loverboy, Billy Squier and Pat Benatar is the stuff of cocaine-fueled 1980s nightmares. Where was Kraftwerk when you needed them?
Air is a great fit for Melies — “Sonic Armada” bodes well for the rest.
– Lang
Video of the Day: James Blake, “A Case of You”
Blake, the post-dubstep singer-songwriter whose debut full-length won critical raves this year, premieres this video for his version of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” featuring Rebecca Hall (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “Frost/Nixon,” general awesomeness).
– Lang
OK Sweetheart soundtracks “TCM Remembers, 2011″
Turner Classic Movies, which recently added an HD channel on Oklahoma City’s Cox Communications, generally does a much cooler, much more stylish and reverential remembrance of departed Hollywood players than the “Bring Out Yer Dead” sequence at the Oscars, but it’s even better this year, thanks to OK Sweetheart’s beautiful “Before You Go.”
TCM HD is on Cox channel 797. Congratulations to Erin Austin and OK Sweetheart for their inclusion on this project.
– Lang
Shins Announce New Album
As reported by Pitchfork, “Port of Morrow,” the Shins’ follow-up to 2007′s “Wincing the Night Away,” will be released in March on James Mercer’s new label, Aural Apothecary, the imprint he created after leaving Sub Pop. In an interesting point of stylistic departure — perceived, at least — “Port of Morrow” is produced by Greg Kurstin of The Bird and the Bee, who produced Lily Allen’s “It’s Not Me, It’s You” and the upcoming album from New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra.
Video of the Day: Trent Reznor and Karen O, “Immigrant Song.”
Possibly the best cover of a Led Zeppelin song in this history of Led Zeppelin covers. From the “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” soundtrack.
– Lang
Trent Reznor and Karen O - "The Immigrant song"... by taimurl
Beastie Boys, G N’ R and Red Hot Chili Peppers To Be Inducted Into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 14
No question about it: the induction of the Beasties, Guns N’ Roses and the Red Hot Chili Peppers has potential to liven a traditionally stodgy event for the following reasons:
1) We need more Beastie Boys activity right now. The comparatively low-key promotion for “Hot Sauce Committee” is possibly due in part to Adam Yauch’s recent health issues. StaticBlog loves the Beastie Boys and wants to hear them play “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” in its entirety when the April 14 awards ceremony is shown in May on HBO.
2) G N’ R rumors and, er, lies. They should start about, oh, 30 minutes ago. Sure, the new-model Guns N’ Roses sounded great at Lloyd Noble Center last month, but for the rock hall, let’s put the old band back together.
3) A full-scale reunion of all former RHCP guitarists and drummers. Granted, the ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria might not be able to handle the crowd, but wouldn’t it be great to see Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Josh Klinghoffer and Chad Smith joined by former drummers Cliff Martinez (best film scores of 2011), D.H. Peligro and Jack Irons, along with guitarists Jack Sherman, Jesse Tobias, DeWayne “Blackbird” McKnight, John Frusciante, and Arik Marshall, and have the whole thing haunted by the ghost of Hillel Slovak? That’s kind of how an RHCP show feels to me, anyway — the last OKC show was notable for the paucity of pre-BloodSugarSexMagik material. However, StaticBlog is excited about the upcoming Tulsa and OKC dates, featuring special guest Janelle Monae. That will be amazing — that is, unless the show gets rescheduled and we end up with Mickey Avalon again.
In addition, Donovan, Laura Nyro and the Faces/Small Faces will be inducted, making it a second induction for Ron Wood and Rod Stewart and a perfect time to keep Stewart from wrecking the Great American Songbook.
