End of the Month Music Bitchfest - January 2018

EELS
EELS! New Eels! The first new Eels in four years! On the 16th, they let a floaty teaser go.* Musically, it sounds airy and delicate but that means absolutely fuckall when it comes to E. The title track dropped the next day and it has some fantastic programming and samples, which makes me hope that's the direction of the album but "Fresh Blood" was its own thing and I got bummed when Hombre Lobo wasn't 13 versions of that track so...trying to mitigate...but I did buy the $85 CD/pink vinyl/t-shirt/Bobby Jr. socks bundle...of course.
Man, I'm just happy homeboy is still around. Maybe 2018 won't be a waste of time after all.

They Might Be Giants
While Dial-A-Song is back in action, the first quarter or so is going to be I Like Fun which...I don't know...feels like a waste. Not just because I've had the album since the middle of November, but because, for everyone, it came out January 19th, so fans will be getting doubles** for a while.
Although I will say the video for "I Like Fun" is just fucking perfect and the one to beat over the course of this year's 50ish other offerings, although...dude...Nick Offerman Vs. TMBG.
Also, since I haven't lodged a complaint in four seconds, I was mucho bummed to hear nothing off of I Like Fun at either of TMBG's December shows except for "I Left My Body". But, knowing them, they'll be back this way and I will just SOAK in it. Looking forward to hearing, literally, everything from ILF. The shows were still a blast as they did play a nice batch of tracks from Mink Car and it was fabulous to hear some of these again for the first time in almost twenty years. "Wicked Little Critta" is always a treat, as is "Bangs", "Cyclops Rock", and a personal favorite, "(She Thinks She's) Edith Head", plus we got THREE TRACKS from John Henry! AND THEY ARE NOW REGULARLY PERFORMING A FOURTH!!! Could 2018 be the year they do a John Henry show? NO!
I always love "Dead" but hearing them open with it after not seeing them for an extended period of time is always special. And the perfected "Trouble Awful Devil Evil" is so goddamn beautiful live and having "The Guitar" start before the clock ticked over, then playing "Auld Lang Syne" on the 31st (1st) then going back to finish "Guitar" was excellent.

Relatedly unrelated; had a hankering to listen to Linnell's solo album, State Songs. Man that is a weird, tight, dusty, square little package. I remember seeing his one live performance in New York back which I was in college where he hired a band organ (complete with its operator, Bob) to play at the Bowery Ballroom. Singular experience...
Then I moved on to his House of Mayors EP. "DeWitt Clinton" baby. That's all. Plus some of the tightest, most proficient accordion playing from the man is there on his processionals. From there, I revisited Flansburgh's solo thing, Mono Puff. I recall fans were nervous around the years of 1997 to 1999, thinking these solo efforts and the release of their first live album, video collection, and Then: The Earlier Years was an indicator that the band was breaking up. I might write a little something for March about my first twenty years as a They Might Be Giants fan...
Will might read that...aaaaaand...that's it.

P.S. Here's my absolutely glowing review of I Like Fun.

Beck
Video for "Fix Me". The presence of this many dogs along with the double meaning of the title make me wonder if this clip was sponsored by the ASPCA...of whatever the Japanese equivalent of the ASPCA is.****
Also, Beck released a rather flat cover of Lou Reed's "I'm Waiting For The Man" which tells me, for certain, that Beck has never waited for someone to sell him drugs.

Nine Inch Nails
A very pregnant pause... Fans are holding to Reznor's tossed off comment about how the EPs will come out "about 6-8 months apart". If it's six, we get EP 3 this month*****, if eight, March.
Or, if Reznor gets caught up in something else or changes his mind or whatever...who knows...
The definitive vinyl editions of With Teeth and Year Zero are, allegedly, coming in a few weeks; whether that means other stuff is in the pipeline as well...only Reznor knows the inner workings of Reznor's mind.

Now, peace be with you; go in Reznor's Name.


* And, no, "floaty teaser" is not a genteel term for fart.

** You know, like when you were collecting Marvel cards in the 90's and ALL YOU NEEDED was the High Evolutionary, but all you kept getting was fucking Storm?***

*** ...maybe THAT'S why I hate Halle Berry so much...

**** Did not know at the time of that statement that it actually WAS.
P.S. What a shitty video.

***** We didn't.

A review of They Might Be Giants' "I Like Fun"

The one thing lacking from I Like Fun is fun. And that's 100% as it should be. After thirty-five years and twenty albums, They Might Be Giants have perfected their unique style and the result is this obsidian gem of an LP.

Not only is "Let's Get This Over With" a fantastic and relatable sentiment, a great name for an opener, and an excellent song, it also has what might be the best opening lyric from a They Might Be Giants album since their debut in 1986.*
And the album keeps getting better.
"An Insult to the Fact Checkers" centers around a surly Flansburgh sneering over aggro-surf rock. "Mrs. Bluebeard", one of the most straightforward and stunning tracks here, joins the ranks of PG-13 educational songs like "The Lady and The Tiger" from 2011's Join Us, a posthumous lament from one (or all?) of the notorious pirate's dead wives ("I want to say I learned something valuable today / alas my murdered remains are incapable of learning anything / I’m not complaining / I’m not anything"). “I Like Fun” could be the theme for a follow up to The Oblongs. It starts off a little eerie with that warbling Linnell sample, then the chorus makes it weirdly nostalgic and warm. The enigmatic "McCafferty's Bib" is funky, slick, and untrustworthy, and "The Greatest" would have been perfect on an episode of Malcolm In The Middle. 

But the secret, sad heart of the album are the four tracks tucked between the uneasy creep of the title track and the sci-fi, hippie rock of "Lake Monsters". The forced, aching smile of "Push Back the Hands" ("it wouldn't help you if you'd had any sleep / it wouldn't save you from the mission creep"), the subtle, sorrowful sharpness in the mellow, sun-warmed "This Microphone" ("selflessly hiding all emotions inside / chilly and dry / New England style"), "The Bright Side" which sounds like a friendly, exhausted band locked into a shitty 15-album contract performing for a sunny field full of fans whom they loathe ("the bright side / is blinding our eyes / and the sound keeps ringing / the bright side / is just a white lie / that the crowd keeps singing"), and the frenetic, desperate hope of "When the Lights Come On"** ("there won't be any more trouble / you'll be dragged from the rubble / when the lights come on / and I'll be looking so great / I will have lost some weight / when the lights come on"). Listen to that tetralogy, read the lyrics, and you'll get the band's manifesto, the soul of They Might Be Giants.
This opus comes to a close with "Last Wave", the broken, unveiled face of I Like Fun. "We die alone  / we die afraid / we live in terror / we're naked and alone and the grave is the loneliest place".
It's not quirky. It's not funny. It's not fun. It's the truth and that is so goddamned sad.

Everything here is seething or apprehensive or resigned or snarky. The title track is about medicating away someone's enjoyment of life for Christ's sake...and the fact that this whole thing is called I Like Fun is the best sneer ever. Some might think this album is too morose***, but those people haven’t been paying attention; not to the music of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, and not to recent world events. This is the best, darkest, and most cohesive They Might Be Giants album in a quarter century.

* Perhaps a reference to "Don't Let's Start". Since we did let them start, we may as well get this over with.

** All the while it's so crushingly, painfully obvious that the lights will never come on again.

*** A potential alternate title for the album could be Songs of Fear, Anxiety, And Defeat.