Shannon and the Clams: Dreams in the Rat House

Without a doubt, today has started off strangely - first the baby woke up at 5 AM, wouldn't go back to sleep, and has been sobbing around the house ever since, and then I nearly began crying while talking to a contractor about a potential basement remodel (yeah, that was as fun as it sounds).  Then, to top it all off, Rhapsody refuses to tell me this week's new releases, which means I've had to brave the wilds of the Internet to unearth new music, a prospect that's as weird as it is exciting.  And while I'll admit that my headspace is totally off today, I'm also not sure if the Internet could get too much wilder than Shannon and the Clams, what with the tripped-out-kids-movie-about-fairies-and-possible-abductions cover art and unusual sound.  But I'm getting ahead of myself - before we dip our toes into the music, let's talk about the band.

So.  First, although this is the band's third release (it follows 2009's I Wanna Go Home and 2011's Sleep Talk, which isn't available on Rhapsody although the other two are), for once, I don't feel too terrible that I've never heard of them before today, as their Internet presence is scanty considering their past (as in no Wikipedia, although they do have a website and an online store which has "gee-gaws, whatsits, doo dads, knick-knacks, weirdies, obscurities, oddities, bric-a-brac & thingies too!").  Luckily, I was still able to put together a rough picture of both Shannon and her Clams, which goes something as follows: they hail from Oakland, and the band was formed in 2007 after bassist & vocalist Shannon Shaw, guitarist & vocalist Cody Blanchard, and drummer & vocalist Ian Amberson met in art school (actually, I'm not sure Shannon and Cody met Ian in art school, but I know those two met there, since Shannon told Impose Magazine, "I hated Cody when I first met him. We went to school together, and I thought he was a pretentious jerk because he would always roll his eyes at our very sensitive teacher") (the other stuff came from a wee MTV bio and an interview on Technicolour Teacup).  And besides that - well, the best thing I found by far was the interview on Impose, where I learned that Shannon used to have a pet rat named Penelope (I named my first pet rat Jaquita, in case anyone's wondering), that Cody can't stand FIDLAR (to which Shannon replies "Noooooooooooooooooo! They’re so nice. That’s terrible. I can’t believe you said that!"), and that Shannon's guitar player before Cody hated her songs and her personality, and thought she was a terrible musician.  Which isn't relevant or anything, but I found it endlessly endearing, especially since Cody references that particular timeframe as "when [she was] just a lonely little turd" (I guess that means I have a soft spot for lonely little turds?  well, and donuts).  Moving on...

Obviously, then, Shannon and the Clams has the personality.  But what about the skills?  To answer that question, I feel like I need to repeat the fact that I'm in a weird mood this morning, and I went pretty much straight from crying with the contractor to listening to this record.  And this record makes me feel like I just ate a fistful of the mushrooms my dad's accordion-playing friends grow in their backyard: spare, garage-y production shows off everything from '60s cusp-of-psychedelic guitar to '50s doo-wop back-up vocals to washed-up, raw, retro girl-group sleaze, none of which would be so bizarre if it weren't also transporting to an unnervingly heightened degree (seriously - where am I right now?  what's going on?  WHAT'S THE DATE, MAN????).  And that's not where the mixed musical craziness ends, either: "Bed Rock", for instance, goes the gritty, salty punk route by aurally embodying the sensation of eating a bag of potato chips that's been dropped in the sand and features a heavy, repetitive bass riff and hoarse, shouted vocals ("I'm never gonna get out of bed/I'm gonna stay here 'till I'm dead/Please go get me something sweet/I'm gonna need a little treat"), and "If I Could Count" evokes nothing if not Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" as performed by an acid-trip version of The Shangri-Las, complete with grunting and clanking ("I hate to wake up/When everyone is gone").  Finally, there's "Heads or Tails", whose galloping drum and sweet background vocals underlie more road-trip-ready, '60s-inspired insanity and jangled percussion ("I'm a real life hobo/I prefer my life on the rails").  And did I mention the creepy-ass cover art yet?

Clearly, then, this album is awesome; if neo-psychedelic-doo-wop were a thing, these guys would be on it like white on rice, with twice the spice.  And while I think the idea of trippy '50s and '60s inspired stuff will give anyone a clear-enough picture of what this record sounds like, I cannot stress enough how out-of-body my experience of hearing it was: during my listens, after all, I went down a rabbit hole of researching the 1958 tune "Witch Doctor" by David Seville, who was actually Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks, because it seemed absolutely imperative that I do so.  And there's nothing on the album that sounds particularly like that song.  So basically - give it a listen, there's really nothing else like it out there (that I know of, at least).  It will be less weird than crying with a stranger in the basement, but only just.

George Strait: Love Is Everything

So the weather in these parts has finally started to warm up, and I woke up thinking that the change in temperature should also warrant a change in outfit - or in other words, I realized I should probably trade in my yoga pants for skirts.  As I was digging through my closet looking for a skirt or a dress, however, it occurred to me that I've hardly worn either since the birth of my first child, although I couldn't quite remember why (well, the time I was wearing a maxi skirt and he pantsed me in the grocery store comes to mind, but I couldn't remember any OTHER reasons).  Of course, it only took me about five seconds after I put it on and started cleaning the house to remember why I stopped in the first place: every time I paused for longer than a second, after all, the baby took the opportunity to climb inside.

My life is so glamorous.

So is the baby's, obviously.

 
And as fun as it is to pick up toys with a two-year-old's head jammed up your dress, the sensation gets old quickly.  So I guess it's back to the yoga pants.

And then there's George Strait.  So look - I'm gonna be honest, here - as this is Strait's 28th studio release (per Wikipedia), and lead single "Give It All We Got Tonight" is his 60th #1 hit (per USA Today), it's very unlikely that I will have anything to say about Strait that hasn't been said before, especially since I'd never knowingly heard any of his music before today (that's kind of an accomplishment right there, though, right?).  And if you've gotten this far you probably also know more about the man himself than I do, especially since I'm falling-over-exhausted and the first article that turned up in my search for interviews was this piece on K-FROG which states that "A George Strait interview is a rarity. It’s not because he’s shy or a diva. It’s because he just doesn’t like doing them. He prefers to keep a low profile and focus on his family and his music", and I pretty much took that as license to give up (although I did learn that he was raised by his father, can't remember all of his own songs, and is a veteran).  So if you want to know more than that, by all means, have at it: here's his Wikipedia page, his CMT page, and his website.  Let me know if you find anything good.

In the meantime, let's talk about the tunes.  As I mentioned earlier, I don't know anything about Strait or his music, and was almost deterred from listening to this album on the basis of that alone (#28 is pretty daunting, you have to admit).  But then I realized that I'd rather listen to this record than any of the others I have yet to review, so I forged ahead.  And I was pleasantly surprised almost immediately - Strait's voice is deep, emotive, and twangy, and many of the songs layer in a healthy dose of steel guitar (and who doesn't like steel guitar?).  Furthermore, although many of the tracks have a rambling, informal vibe which tends to make them blend together, the record's overall impression is one of intimacy and enjoyment, like you're sitting in your favorite rural dive bar enjoying a cold one with friends while uncle Strait puts on his show on the dusty stage.  For instance, first track "I Got A Car" combines plucked-string trills with expert storytelling, painting one of those decades-long arcs that keeps the listener engaged even through the beer and conversation ("Got lost in the miles lost track of the days/Till we finally found a stopping place/When the doctor said you know what's on the way"), and "I Thought I Heard My Heart Sing" is plain, fiddling fun with a beachy ambiance and cute lyrics that still sound good coming from a 61-year-old's mouth ("Yeah I do what my heart says to/And right now it's pointing at you").  And finally, there's title track "Love Is Everything", which probably wasn't one of my favorites on the record, but captures the deeper sentiment present on a few of the tracks nevertheless, delivering a laid-back, nostalgic atmosphere and more steel guitar ("Love is everything/It's a whole lot more than going to the store for a wedding ring").

Overall, then, I enjoyed this record more than I expected, especially its understated charms.  And although the songs aren't super-different, they are memorable, and popped far more on my second listen than my first, kind of like how you can walk through your neighborhood a thousand times and still occasionally see a house you never remember seeing before.  Or in short, this is an enjoyable album that proves that even 28 records in, Strait's still got gas in the tank and his head in the game.  And more power to him: better the game than my skirt, after all.

Demi Lovato: Demi

So I know I drop random tidbits about my life in the course of this blog, and regular readers have probably gleaned that I'm married to a largely absent grad student, I have two small, screaming children, and, besides that, I have very little going on.  And while all of that is true, I also feel that I haven't yet emphasized ENOUGH how slobbily all of these things make me dress: I wear yoga pants until all of my pairs are dirty, at which point I switch to sweats, and I literally don't even bother to check if my shirts match my pants (sorry, I should probably call them "pants").  And while I don't give a hot fuck how I look (sorry, dear!), I'm starting to get really bummed out that none of said "pants" have pockets - while there's obviously no way to make a yoga-pant pocket look GOOD (external?  fanny-pack-like?), it should be evident that if I wanted to look good, I wouldn't be wearing them in the first place.  So please, yoga-pant makers of the world, do a mom a solid and start throwing in a random pocket or two: that way, I could quit storing my cell phone and keys in my waistband while I wander around the grocery store, and I would never again have to fish either one out of my socks after they slipped down my pant leg in the checkout line.  Not that any of this has anything to do with Demi Lovato.

So what does have to do with Demi Lovato?  Well, here's a list: Albuquerque (her birthplace), Dallas (her hometown), and Barney & Friends (her first acting gig) (per Wikipedia).  Since I'm of The Mickey Mouse Club age instead of the Sonny With A Chance demographic, however, the only thing I've seen her in is Princess Protection Program, which I watched by myself like a big sappy loser (note: I am a big sappy loser, or at least I have been since I had kids).  While she may remain kinda-bitchy Princess Rosalind in my mind, however, the vast majority of America probably knows her for her stint on The X-Factor, her highly-publicized romance and bust-up with Joe Jonas, or her history of depression, bipolar disorder, and an eating disorder (and subsequent stints at rehab).  Which is neither here nor there, except for the fact that these things make Lovato a public role model and inform her viewpoint, or as she tells ABC News, "My goal in my life is to break that mold of perfection that all young women have.  I was able to get help, because I wanted to be that person to break the mold for other people, and, with that, not only has it, has it taught me to really accept myself, but also, I've had tons of young girls say that I have saved their lives, and that's something that I can't really fathom, at all."  And if that isn't enough, according to this piece on MTV, she also wrote 10 out of the 13 tracks on this new album.

Which brings us to the tunes.  So first - I've gotta say it.  The first time I heard the lead single off of this record, "Heart Attack", I knew an album was coming, and I knew I would have to say how truly god-awful I think the lyrics to this track are - between the heart attacks, basketballs, hair-washing, and cries for help, I can't tell if she's trying to sound 7 or 75, and I go into a too-many-bad-metaphors coma every time I hear it.  Musically and vocally, on the other hand, I enjoy this song's earnest but poppy guitar and lilting build-ups, as well as Lovato's singing, elements which are present on many of the other songs on this album (including the virtually identical and equally horribly-metaphored "Made in the USA").  And while I think you can probably guess what the rest of this record sounds like based on that song alone (a few ballads, a few similar tracks, etc), I'll talk about a couple of them anyway.  "Without the Love", for instance, begins with some "woo-ooo-ooo"ing and a comfy guitar before settling into a catchy, mid-tempo, synth-y keyboard-driven groove ("You pull my strings/And push my soul/You fool my heart/With every note"), and "Really Don't Care" featuring Cher Lloyd has a pounding drum machine beat and a clipped vocal delivery that borders on angry girl-rapping ("Now if we meet out on the street I won't be running scared/I'll walk right up to you and put one finger in the air") (also, this track made me realize that Cher Lloyd is the British personality Nicki Minaj wishes she had).  Sadly, however, the mostly-piano ballads on this record fare a little worse, in my eyes at least, with the most egregious example being "In Case", where Lovato actually sings the lyric "I took that dirty jacket/From the trash right where you left it/Cause I couldn't stand to see it go to waste" over a hushed piano background.  DUDE.  Even the best-case interpretation of this lyric is scary (the "dirty jacket" smells like homeboy and she wants to drag it back to her cave to snuffle his scent and sob), and the literal interpretation is freakin' TERRIFYING (she "couldn't stand to see it go to waste" because she has been driven from her home by this douchebag and wants to use Dirty Jacket as a pillow in her new dumpster dwelling).

As you many suspect, I'm getting to the end of this post, but I still haven't touched on many of this record's issues.  For instance, I never got a strong feel for who Lovato is as a singer or a person during either of my listens even though she wrote many of the tracks, and a bunch of them are quite derivative as well ("Two Pieces" is all Christina Perri, all the time, "Never Been Hurt" is basically Robyn's "Indestructible", a song which actually has the lyric "I'm gonna love you like I've never been hurt before", the exact theme of this track, and final empowerment number "Warrior" mimics the message of everything from Christina Aguilera's "Fighter" to Ke$ha's track of the exact same name).  Then there's also the HUGELY erratic subject matter, which has her going from snuggling Dirty Jacket in "In Case" and wailing "I'm tired of being so sad" on "Shouldn't Come Back" to flipping an ex the bird on "Really Don't Care" and telling an overly-attached guy to shove off on "Something That We're Not".  That being said, and as crazy as it may sound after all of my critiques, I actually enjoyed this album, and found Lovato to be a talented-enough singer to (mostly) pull it off.  Or in other words, if she bought herself a quality rhyming dictionary, ditched the metaphors, and dug a little deeper, she'd probably be unstoppable.  And until then - well, I suspect Dirty Jacket is anxiously awaiting her return even as I type this, if only in hopes of getting a bath.