Vox Pox

Performers need their little trademarks - the big hair, the "geek chic" glasses, the setting fire to one's guitar. It's all necessary to forge a brand and distinguish one's wares from those hawked by the competition - but there's a fine line between individuality and caricature, and that line is usually crossed in the vocals.

The first outward sign that a recording artist is disappearing up their own backside is when their little vocal inflexions get exaggerated to the point where the inflexions become the performance.
It's happened in too many contexts to mention, but think David Bowie in the 80's, when he started channelling the wife bashing, single malt ghost of Bing Crosby, and many of his tracks drifted towards a plush, faux velvet croon:

"Leedle Chiiinah guuurll"
"See these eyes so green"
"Whoa, whoa-oh".

Fortunately for those of us who stuck by him, the man eventually came back up for air in the 90s and returned to aping a working class South London accent (we'll get to downwards envy below) . Occasionally he even uses his real voice.

A far greater disappointment was Arethra Franklin, who during her 80's resurgence somehow transformed from the profoundly talented black- girl-up- the- front- of- the -Church- choir into this cheesy, honking disco duck:

"we go -in rah-din- on- da free wayh, ourve lurve ...haing haing haing".

Then there's the artistic train wreck that is Michael Jackson - whose singing (long before encountering the love that better not speak its name) degenerated from the R&B perfection of "Off the Wall" to the fractured neuroses of "Bad". His vocals are now little more than a bizarre collection of squeaks, hiccups and twitches.

Tip: You know you're spending WAY too much time in the company of troubled young children when you start sounding like a Disney character on Ritalin.

A yet more striking example of the syndrome is our very own Missy Higgins. Missy has "gone for gold" and actually caricatured her voice in a debut recording. Seems like a talented girl - can play a mean piano and write a hooky tune, but whose idea was it to pursue the "Oz"angle to such irrational extremes?

The producer?
The corporate A&R bitch?

If Missy actually spoke this way there would be little to complain about - but what no one will acknowledge is that the strine vocals and the indie persona are so completely insincere. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that Missy shall play the crypto- lesbian-Byron- Bay- folk- festival-waif card when pitching to an OZ market:

"Weee'll bleeeeed tagetha".

The known facts are that Ms Higgins went to the flashest girls' school in Melbourne. Her daddy was a doctor. Now unless she was raised by wolves for the first 12 years of her life, there's simply no excuse for any of this. Recall how people fell over with surprise when she suddently glammed up to receive an ARIA. Why? they were suddenly privy to the nice doctor's daughter who (vocally atleast) had been having them on.

I guess that's why they call it show business, but it's symptomatic of the weird feigned egalitarianism often exhibited by the well fed classes in Australia. You will encounter these types in the corporate world, particularly the local entertainment, media, advertising industries - big fishes in a relatively small pond, warily protecting their patch. They are the ones you hear calling each other "maaate" in fashionable brasseries and inner city bars across the country, while suspiciously eyeing off anyone who hints at a more worldly talent or sophistication ("what are ya - a wanker?").

As Donald Horne wrote over 40 years ago, Australia is a luck country run by mediocre elites who benefit from that luck. Hence the paradox of Ms Higgins - whose record company would have you believe she is a searingly honest singer songstress, but in order to sell that she is required to sound like an extra from "Home and Away".

Fortunately, having spent some time in the States, she has now put the lie to that vocal charade. Her new single from album No 2 boasts a more natural, neutral voice. The hokey folkiness of the first album has been toned down too - with some breezy, Supertrampy, west coast acoustic guitars. Nice melody to boot.

Of course this is all about breaking her overseas, but finally someone with a bit of class has suggested that singing through the mouth makes more sense than singing through the nose. Maybe it's the way she wanted to sound all along?

A lot of Oz rock acts could learn from this. If you want to swim the Colorado River, no point trying to do so wearing a platypus suit.

"Template" rock bands

Every so often there comes a rock act which enjoys a “B+” level of international success – not quite reaching that premier league of the Beatles, The Stones, Bowie, Led Zeppelin, U2 etc- but doing pretty nicely for themselves nonetheless, with a sound that somehow represents a commercial “template” for many other B grade acts of their time.

And they’re not “influential” in the manner of a Lou Reed or a Pink Floyd, either. In fact, you’ll hardly remember them 10 years after their peak. They won’t make classic radio play lists either. Rather, they neatly set the water mark for a particular sub-genre at a particular time- analogous to, say, the median 4 bedroom house price in Malibu, or a certain share-market index.
You can pick up one of their records and find yourself thinking : “Ah, yes, that’s what 1997 sounded like – when I was thirty five.. it was a very good year”.

Now these acts needn’t have created the sound by which they are identified - that’s not the point. What they (and their producers) do is "reverse engineer" a particular song writing and production approach which , once successful, gets flogged to death by the major labels - much the same way that American TV networks squeeze the life out of a good TV show until we wish that it had never been born. All bands have their influences, of course, but these acts seem to have sacrificed all artistic discretion to "stick with the program" - slavishly chiselling their albums from the prevailing (commercially successful) sonic reference points, in a way that almost "codifies" them for that particular sub genre.

Put shortly – these bands are as annoying as fuck.

1. Pearl Jam

A stool wrapped in a plaid shirt. For way too much of the 1990s Pearl Jam were a staple of male menopause FM radio around the world. Awful, awful stuff. The interesting thing about Pearl Jam is that those acts accused of imitating them were consistently shit loads better. Exhibit A for the prosecution: Stone Temple Pilots.

2. Live

The scourge of the new century. Yet another clown with a shaved head and butt-clenchingly earnest "EMO" vocals poured over bechamel thick overdriven guitars. A bombastic drummer who just can’t keep those high hats closed - except for the mandatory “quite bit”. There’s a superficial presentment of something passionate and powerful going on- but in substance its all about as meaty as a Wagyu beef smoothie.

Production wise, this is corporate rock at its most inane - comprehensively neutered for the benefit of nervous A&R men and the band's suburban fanbase. Live's songs are often described as “anthemic”.

Hitler did a nice line in that, too.

3. Nickelback

All of the above, with extra maple syrup please! No one does corporate rock like the Canadians, but these guys seem to be omnipresent at the moment. Lyrics are so exceedingly obvious that he simply must be taking the piss.

The Nickleback sound represents, I think, the most strident rock template in the market at this time – five string bass with guitars pushing out a glossy take on late California “nu metal” power chords. So as not to disorientate the listener, the lead vocal is always treated with the same effect chain and doubled in the verses, tripled in the choruses. It’s intended to be at once assertive, yet sensitive, but the overall effect is like a 6 ft Racoon on steroids with a sore throat - neither scary nor funny.

The situation in the UK ?

Is a little more complex. 90% of UK rock bands sound like Coldplay, except Coldplay themselves, who have decided to sound like U2. The artsy minority tend to skate between early Who, MC5 and the Velvet Underground, with a production vibe that reliably oscillates between London's two golden eras - the swinging sixties and the synthy/indie early 80s (albeit with far greater recording technology and way less talent).

Hillsong sung blue

As a childhood refugee from the Sydney Bible belt that spawned the Hillsong Church, I know first hand the horror that is Christian Rock.

My skin still crawls when I recall my narrow escape from the clutches of a “youth group”. For the sake of the uninitiated, I don’t mean that erstwhile indie band, now condemned to playing its cover of Alphaville’s “Forever Young” since it appeared on “The OC”. No, I refer to those creepy, vampiric front organisations, almost exclusively run by insecure university aged males as an artifice for picking up impressionable young girls. Gather round ladies! dig my acoustic guitar (especially you two - the pretty ones)... “Mr Bo- jangles…”

Not that “sexual relations” (in the Clintonesque sense) was ever on the menu. As we all know, suburban Christians of the charismatic, snake charming variety are apt to “saving” themselves for marriage.

Decoded, this means “anything goes except straight sex”. I know people who delved more deeply into that world than I who'll admit, when pressed, that each and every day, Godly young men and women are blowing, fingering or taking it up the dirt box in the name of their saviour.

An incredible conceit when you think about it. As if Jesus wouldn’t have better things to worry about than some kid’s sexual choices pertaining to friction and odour. You can forget Sudan, Iraq and the West Bank - the Good Lord has teenage nookie to police.

Sexual hypocrisy is one thing, but the real creep-out is the soundtrack. Who the hell decided that Christian Rock must sound like Toto without the hooks? For some reason, the songwriting and production always harks back to Los Angeles circa 1983, and I don’t mean in a good way.

And its dead easy to write this stuff. Just grab any Mariah Carey or Air Supply album and play the chords backwards. Unlike your hit machine template, you need only fashion a mediocre melody and insert the word “Jesus” where the lyrics once referred to the lover/lovee in question. It's no accident that capital “C” Christian Rock is far and away the most Satanically calculating, manipulative, contrived and formulaic of all music genres. If I was the devil, I'd set up shop producing Hillsong records.

Best of all, you can get your clever accountants to structure your record label under the umbrella of one of those “Anthony Robbins” style churches that keep popping up – capital intensive, cultural moonscapes where the parishioners somehow confuse Judeo Christian ethics with the "Rich Dad’s Guide to Property Investment", and where the Pastor’s idea of social work extends only to browbeating desperate teenage girls out of terminating unwanted pregnancies (see creepy white males, above). And you can forget about “give unto Ceaser” – this is seriously tax effective. We’re a registered charity, don’t you know?

Such rapturous, "me, me, me" jerk fests are testament to the seemingly limitless capacity of affluent societies to generate bad art. The community deserves a break. The time has come for a constitutional separation of religion and pop music - with a suitable amendment exempting Afro-American musicians born before 1950.

It’s just as they said in Ghostbusters – “don’t cross the streams”.

Cred and Cowardice

A recent edition of "Q" magazine ran the cover story: "115 records its OK to like". It was all about the rehabilitation of soft rock - the latest in a long line of confessionals which began popping up in the UK press about a year ago, whereby some music journo or former journo belatedly admits to liking material from a whole host of "not cool" genres/recording artists. From Foreigner to Phil Collins, from Hall and Oates to Ronan Keating, no "guilty pleasure" is off limits.

It's worth noting this because, on past performance, you can count on the Australian press writing (that is, plagiarising) similar pieces sometime in 2008.

In my experience, the one trait that distinguishes musicians from the music loving public, or those more austere guardians of "street cred" in the press is this: musicians are open to a broad range of "commercial" music, always have been and always will be - and will happily absorb anything from The Carptenters to the theme music from "Callan" without so much as a second thought. No pre-conceived policy positions, no tribal loyalties, no academic neurosis about whether the clothes/scene/city of origin/renowned producer are "sound" at this particular point in time.

Real musicians, especially the ones who actually write the tunes, are not only "through being cool", they never gave cool a second glance. This is because "cool" in the pop music sense means not giving a fuck about what people think of you. Yet its suprising how often this trite little fact gets overlooked by the punters.

When you're a musician, you don't hang around waiting for an authority figure (like the NME, etc) to tell you what's OK to like this month. And yet, time and time again, we encounter these people - you know the type - who will insist until blue in the face that they only listen to Leonard Cohen, The White Stripes, or [insert latest credible blues/roots performer here]. They stick to their annointed hipsters through some crippling, late adolescent self - consciousness that pervades their adulthood, like so many "sophisticated" novels placed strategically around their apartments.

These are the same people who pretend they don't watch television "except for the occassional movie on SBS". They are not to be trusted.

Those of us in the game know that art imitates nature - subtle variations on extant themes. Only a journalist would be stupid/lazy enough to have you believe that new songs or new "scenes" suddenly materialise out of thin air. More importantly, those of us in the game can admit to liking a great tune when we hear one - and not be swayed by some figurative "man in a white coat" who instructs us to push the "not cool" button - as if we're test bunnies in The Milgram Experiment.

Most importantly, those of us in the game dont need Bon Jovi to appear in "Sex in the City", some twenty years later, to decide that there's an ironic retro cachet to the man. We knew "Bad Medicine" kicked ass in 1986, thank you very much.

So even with this belated outpouring of "honesty" about "guilty pleasures", you still have:

(a) the false premise that we got somethin' to be guilty of,
and
(b) the implict reassurance that the tribe has spoken - and its now OK to like Boston - but so long as you do so in a suitably ironic manner.

Hence you get this curious discord between those whose business it is to fabricate an air of expertise and those who actually have the talent to produce music. Why is it so?

The trouble with writing about pop music is that it's a bit like being an ice cream critic - it takes something akin to genius (and often years of hard work) to create and successfully market a "Magnum", yet in substance, there's suprisingly little to talk about - you either like the damn ice cream or you don't.

Unless you get into a chemical analysis of the ingredients (in the same way that say, sound engineers can talk about the equipment used in a studio) then any discourse about the art itself soon evaporates, like so many mouthfuls of fairy floss.

I think the best a music critic can hope for is to become a kind of "funny librarian" - you know, the "Jack Black" schtick. Demonstrate to us your historical linking tendancies by all means, but for fuck's sake, spare us the ideological bad faith.

The first time I heard Bob Dylan I remember thinking, 'Wow, you don't have to sing, play or write good lyrics to succeed in music: you just need to learn how to mesmerise really thick, greedy hippies'. It was an inspirational moment: I became a social psychologist and studied the art of confusing sheep. Eventually, though I could not play a single instrument, I began selling buckets of records and even winning awards for my pseudoprofundity. Thick, greedy hippies comprise about 90% of the baby boomer generation, and about 80% of their children, so even now I am not short of dupes. Thank you, Bob - and thank you, too, Satan.

Why Melbourne music sux

No-one's denying that Sydney is full of wankers, Brisbanites are lazy, dishonest and unreliable, Perth bands, remarkably, manage to be pretentious and mediocre at the same time, you just don't admit you're from Adelaide, and no-one gives a fuck about the rest of the country, especially not Tasmania. But the worst place for music in Australia is Melbourne. Everyone knows this, but can you be bothered telling them? No, of course not, and why? Well, you have better things to do, like eating the boils off your dog's arse. Anyway, if you told those sad sack depressives that they sucked, they'd be so hurt, wouldn't they? Because they've spent over a century persuading themselves that they are the cultural centre of the Southern Hemisphere, and one senses that if their little grey ball of rainy day wishfulness is shattered, there will be mass suicides. All the more reason, in our view, to adumbrate the key reasons that Melbourne's music really, really, sucks:

1. It's OK to wear a collared shirt on stage.

2. Sense of humour perceived to be antithetical to the making of serious art.

3. Melbourne: it could almost be Europe! Yet, somehow, it isn't. Aha, I know why! It's because it's on the other side of the world! And there are no kangaroos on the streets of Venice! There are no galahs either.

4. What's happening in Detroit? What's happening in London? Berlin? Tokyo? Hey, we are doing it too, two years later, and that makes us cool! No sell-out!

5. I get on forum site, rave about shitty, boring, generic bands from Melbourne all day long.

6. Nothing important to sing about: therefore, I am dwelling on my complex state of mind. But I am also wearing a beret.

7. I write the history of a style of music invented somewhere else: my Melbourne friends feature prominently as 'key players in the scene'.

8. My entire record collection is composed of white Anglo-Saxon artists, yet I claim to be culturally broad-minded.

9. Jah roots mon! I am a white rasta! Seen?

10. All my lyrics are about how I would rather be somewhere else. Well, so would the rest of us, that's why we haven't moved to Melbourne.

Settle down, Carlos

When I was a masturbating teenager (as opposed to a masturbating adult) I would spend many an hour locked in my room, "Linda Blair" style, obsessed with practicing on the tobacco brown Stratocaster copy made from rather exotic Schecter parts that my father had brought home from some fragrant east Los Angeles music shop.

I don't doubt that my tourist dad paid over the odds, but it was a rare and character filled instrument nonetheless, and it still sees the occassional work out in the studio.

Any spare hour after high school and all weekend I'd be plugging my guitar and effects into the parents' late 70s Hi-fi, which (conveniently enough) boasted two quarter-inch microphone jacks on its front panel - purpose built for Karaoke singing along with the radio or dual tape deck.

The drill would involve turning on some top 40 FM station or my favourite workout cassette (often Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll Animal" album or its sister work "Lou Reed Live"). I'd learn all the chords and solos, usually improvising my own lead lines . It was one endless, sweaty, hairy palmed, testosterone-squirting solo.

The trouble with Carlos Santana is that he never quite moved beyond that.

Not being a vocalist, the man feels compelled to spray his scent on every record, by interlacing his predictable jazz/blues licks throughout the entire work (you can almost hear him pulling that face, top lip over teeth). He'll usually announce his appearance in the first few bars and only leave the mix (kicking and screaming) in the inevitable, moaning fade out.

Of course he can play - but does he have to play so much? Just because your custom built Paul Reed Smith is worth more than most people spend on a new car, doesn't mean you can't give it a rest between verses.

The man is not without his merits - he boasts more Latin (and vanilla flavoured) Grammys than Gloria Estefan - and his badass 70s reworking of Buddy Holly's "Well alright" can still raise a smile. When he collarborates with others, the underlying songs (when you can hear them) often boast a cruisey west coast infectiousness.

But can you imagine being his record producer?

Producer:

"OK, Carlos, these are the ground rules, baby. You can play an opening riff of no more than, say 4 bars, one big solo in the middle - which may or may not bleed into the third verse - and just a little bit of impro as we fade out."

Carlos:

"I got a better idea - why dont I just play through the WHOLE DAMN SONG. That shit worked last time"

Producer:

"You da man, Carlos."

Explain the Pixies to Me

One of my pet hates are people who think the Pixies are the most important force in the musical universe.

I mean, they're OK. But its that same OK, slightly artsy grunge that polluted "alternative" music throughout the late 80s and early 90s. They are one of those "compulsory" bands that the fat comic book shop guy from The Simpsons would cite - because he feels that he must.

I recently saw that creepy head honcho from triple j FM (you know, the Music Director) on ABC2 TV, being interviewed by Myf Warhurst (who you can't help but like) seeking The Great Man's opinion on the Pixies, to introduce a 2002 live reunion concert in France.

The Great Man kept going on an on about how incredibly influential this run of the mill outfit was. He said "Dolittle" was one of the great albums of all time. He said they pioneered that style of "having songs that start off very quite and then suddenly end up really big and loud " (he actually said that).

I watched the concert for 15 minutes and it sounded like a lot of Australian indie stuff that was being churned out in the late 80s at the Trade Union Club. The girl bass player has a distinctive vocal, but unlike Sonic Youth, who delivered some very impressive grooves in their art-school kinda way, these guys have only one great song: "This Monkey's Gone to Heaven" and the rest is deeply, deeply ordinary.

Are we supposed to think they're credible just because they aren't very good looking?