Jonny Saliva & the Maggitz; Mellow is a French Pop Band?ro;”And That's Good!; Ladytron's Masterful Recycling
Did you ever know two guys who sat around on their couch all the time and got wasted? Well, mine just rented studio space, so now they're no longer the dudes who never keep anything besides an empty roll of paper towels next to the toilet, they're a band. When these boys told me they made an album on someone else's four-track, I was dubious. But after listening to the results a few times, I believed in it so strongly I even started playing the thing for people who weren't blacked-out drunk. When I mentioned the possibility of a review to Scott (the Maggitz), I was sure to include the following stipulation: he and Jesse, aka Jonny Saliva, would need to make the CD available to the public, as opposed to Scott's idea, which was for me to make the record sound so cool that in a few years he could sell the five existing copies for thousands on eBay. I suggested a P.O. Box, where fans could send their orders. "Okay, man! A P.O. Box!" Scott replied. "I'm gonna go out and get one of those tomorrow!" And that's the kind of people you're dealing with here, the kind of people who will go out in the middle of the workday and get a P.O. Box to accommodate fans who will in all likelihood never exist?in other words, real musicians.
If you do get a hold of I Don't Give a Tinker's Damn, you'll get the gems "San Louis Padosie," "Sobriety," "Brain," and don't forget "Brain Fart." Not to mention lyrics like, "1969 was the day I was born/31 years of talking out my ass/Can't make my rent/My neighbor's knocking at my door/Landlord's givin' me the shit/That I deserve...couple codeine and a Heine/couple Percoset at 9 O'Clock/I said don't talk too much/Friend wild turkey/keep the buzzards from the turkey..." And then the bridge, "I'm a slug on the sidewalk/I'm a bird in the air." I say "lyrics like" these because those lines are disputed by both Jesse and Scott, so I'll have to go by the Jim Morrison rule for accuracy?i.e., "If it sounds like 'Did a little line about an hour ago' to you, then it's 'Did a little line about an hour ago.'"
Although the best part about "Brain Fart" is the killer, stripped-down Van Halen guitar. Hey, fuck the White Stripes taking on Dutch minimalism! These guys don't even own curtains!
Other notable tracks include an ode to the Pogues, "Sea Shanty," and the Jonny Saliva tribute to the blues, "Encephalitis," which goes, "Well they told me/To close my window down/Told me to close my window down/Oh encephalitis bug tonight/They told me they're gonna spray/Told me they're gonna spray/Tonight."
Tanya Richardson
It must be something in the water. Not since Gainsbourg and his busty blonde ye-ye gals has French pop exploded upon the scene with quite the same je ne sais quoi. For Gainsbourg it was bubblegum bounce and rockabilly grind copped from the Brits and Yanks but turned up a notch until it became a playful sort of mockery, an homage tinged with traces of the smug irony that the French do so well.
For a band like Mellow, the new Franco-pop means mining the funk grooves of late 60s Stateside and the psychedelic remnants of Swingin' London, and straining the sound through three decades of burgeoning technology and experimentation. But don't call them retro.
Mellow, who can be linked to a host of fellow French popsters (Etienne De Crecy, Alex Gopher), is of that fortunate Euro-club generation weaned on both tech toys and healthy doses of music history. From Martin-era Beatles to the future-sounds of Stereolab, Mellow tends to wear their influences on their sleeve, but they make the transition from paisley Nehru to silver vinyl and back again with a surprising smoothness. Of Mellow's compatriots, the most popular on this side of the sea is arguably their neighbors Air, whose dreamy Moon Safari has earned them cred with America's hipster elite. The two bands share a similar adoration for tripped-out grooves and a seal of approval from the Coppola kids (Air scored Sofia's Virgin Suicides, brother Roman directed Mellow's first video). Their similarities have also extended to creative partnerships, with Mellow's frontman Patrick Woodcock cowriting Moon Safari's "Ce Matin La."
Having emerged from the same birthing place, a hothouse of mellotrons, Moogs and vocorder whispers, Mellow leaves the nest and takes a path littered with the lysergic-soaked genius of Syd Barrett and the whimsical explorations of Sgt. Pepper, staying low to the ground, to the crunch and the groove, while Air, well, takes to the air. That is not to say that Mellow doesn't occasionally lift its head to the stars. On Another Mellow Spring songs like "Shinda Shima" and "Mellow Part 1" lift off into the nether regions and float, but there is always a backbeat or a prog-rock organ grind to bring you gently back down again. And while Another Mellow Spring doesn't quite reach Moon Safari's dreamy center, it still offers a similar high, from the gorgeous-layered grooves of "Mellow Part 2" to the irrepressibly cheerful pop of "Paris Sous La Neige."
Despite the preceding, it seems too easy and a bit unfair to combine all of France's fine exports into one bulk package. Mellow is not Air is not Alex Gopher is not Tahiti 80 and so on. It's better perhaps to think of these various offerings as spices in a rich and satisfying cuisine, each one complementing the other while still retaining its own unique taste. Whatever the analogy, there certainly is a sweet breeze floating across the sea and if I'm not mistaken it looks as if it's going to be yet another mellow spring. The rains are soft, the tulips push wet soil and the summer of love is just around the corner.
Jessica Hundley
Last July Ladytron (one of two current bands named for the Roxy Music track) made their first U.S. appearance via a four-song EP on Emperor Norton. Now comes the full-length, which incorporates three of the songs on the EP as well as some even earlier singles.
To describe this band, which hails from Liverpool and Bulgaria and has played almost exclusively in France and Japan, is not difficult. Early 80s-style synth blurts and noise and rhythm boxes; lyrics in several languages and accents; knowing, impassive, sexy female vocals. Think Le Tigre/Chicks on Speed/Add N to (X)/Stereo Total rolled into one and dressed in black with geometrical haircuts. Somehow Ladytron is able to achieve more while aiming for less than any of these contemporaries.
To be sure, they aren't as serious a band as Add N to (X). I'm not even sure how much of a "band" they are: the official bio says they were started by the boys (Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu) who subsequently met up with the girls (Helena Marnie, Mira Aroyo) and voila, instant high-concept, When Kraftwerk Met the Go-Go's. Ladytron are far less arty and tongue-in-cheek than Chicks on Speed and Stereo Total, and they'd recoil in horror from the messy hollering that distinguishes Le Tigre.
Despite the recycling, 604 is a fun album. There's no harm in hearing winners like "Paco!" and "Commodore Rock" again, and Ladytron's inversion of the high life is still arresting: "Playgirl/why are you dancing when you could be alone?" There are some exquisite new songs here, notably the devastating, mournful "Another Breakfast with You," with its dead-on lyrics: "I don't want to fight/just want a piece/of your life/but if you come/out to play/I don't want you to say/anything." In only one verse, Ladytron limns the familiar cycle of disconnection: "I didn't feel a thing/when you told me that/you didn't feel a thing/when I told you that/I didn't feel a thing."
Then there's the gorgeous "Ladybird," with its lyrics about "a young girl/but old enough to know girl" with whom "you'll never win/'cause she leaves when you think you're in/doesn't care if it's her or him/she's not that kind of girl." "Jet Age" is one of the stronger tracks on the album?perhaps the result of its actually having two verses?with funky rhythm loops and buried, vaguely Middle Eastern samples behind another tale of contemporary romance: "She's looking at you/so maybe you're looking too/do you want to be her or don't you/of course you do/but would she be you?"
Ladytron can come off a bit calculated, as they mine their androgyny/bisexuality and simple funky grooves for all they're worth. Calculated is one thing, but playing it safe is another; they stick great avant-garde violin sounds into the mix on "Zmeyka" but not knowing how to build on them, repeating an appealing melody again and again until it becomes annoying rather than catchy. The tossed-off quality of many of the songs here isn't alienating, exactly, but those tracks don't stick in your head for long either. These are four young people poised, prettily, on the line between concept and actual band; if they pushed on toward the band side of things, they could be a great one.
Eva Neuberg