VINYL I FIND IN ATHENS

record reviews and music photos

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Centro-matic - “Farewell Tour” 

Georgia Theatre, Athens, GA - 12/5/2014

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The Cretonnes - Snap! Snap! (1981)

"Oowh I can't feeeel your emptyyy heart" - This is the main refrain Mark Goldenberg sings on the chorus of Empty Heart, the first song on 'Snap! Snap!' and also apparently the only song that ever got this band much traction. It fucking rules. The chorus is just so huge - a great chord progression with a killer minor key guitar melody echoing and responding to Goldenberg's full throated plaintive yelp. Like many of the songs on this album, the subject of Empty Heart is unrequited or broken love, loneliness, doubt - or, you know...girls. 

Empty Heart really works because of its bite - it's a dirty indictment, more than a little bit mean and you can tell the dude means it. I Can't Get Over You, the final song on the first side uses similar ingredients but is not quite as effective. Girls! Girls! Girls!, the second best song of the second side, again features a great chorus where the silly sounding subject is given depth and dirt by way of some tight and excellent art rock riffs. The titular, instrumental Snap! Snap! follows and is pretty cool - something like Gang of Four jamming with Elvis Costello with nobody singing. Mood Vertigo, the final track on the album, closes strongly and is easily the song that gets closest to the bad ass appeal of Empty Heart. 

'Snap! Snap!' is solid, no doubt, but on the whole a bit soft for me. It works best when the band plays with urgency - when the inevitable girl problems of the lyric don't just seem unpleasant but rather like a festering, infected sore of the heart. That sentence alone should put in perspective the world the Cretones walk through. A little sappy, a lot of new wave skinny tie ethos, a fat dollop of power pop and, at its best, some really excellent 80s rock with the requisite art, honesty, riffs and cool.

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Leon Russell - 'Will O' The Wisp' (1975)

I've known about Leon Russell for a while but it took me a while to get it. I don't know why. When I was 14, a friend talked him up nonstop but I never properly investigated. I might have thought it was dumb hippie shit. 

But it's not. Leon Russell is the man, a dude with some demons that can sing like hell and play the shit out of a piano. He is also a serious songwriter. That's what initially made me come around (well, in particular, the song "Tight Rope" off the critically acclaimed 'Carney' album from 1972 - that song is without doubt one of the top ten best songs ever written about rock and roll and the myth and duty of the rock and roll artist).

'Will O' The Wisp' is a strong effort from Russell. It doesn't have as much of the off-kilter energy of the aforementioned 'Carney,' but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This album is heavier, slower, a full cargo train that hauls but does so without the need or ability to rush. By all accounts, Russell thoroughly participated in the excess and extreme offered and widely available to that great and likely extinct archetype - the 70s rock star. You can hear it in this album, you can hear both the disillusion and determination fostered by the road, the struggle, the good times, and the hard won existence of a man making a living on his own truth.  

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The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy (1980)

I never knew Jim Carroll had gotten into the rock and roll game. Carroll was apparently encouraged to put together a band and put out this album by Patti Smith, and you can tell. 'Catholic Boy,' released by Atlantic in 1980, is thoroughly a product of the esteemed punk rock literati of late 70s New York, the high brow of the gutter of a city in the midst of grand western decline. 

Carroll doesn't come out as strong as, say, Television and Lou Reed, two similarly situated artists of the same wider scene, but those are the clear comparisons here. In fact, on a lot of songs, the Jim Carroll band sounds a lot like Television - but, Television minus Tom Verlaine playing all that ridiculous guitar. 

For me, the highlight is "It's Too Late" from the second side. The simple, one frame baseline is the musical centerpiece and it gives the band plenty of room to build and pulse. On top, Carroll's talk-sing lyrics are compelling and cool, but don't immediately punch or repulse like that other talk-singing rock and roll poet from the boroughs. 

Final Grade: 6.5/10 - 'Catholic Boy' is definitely cool and worth a listen. I paid $1.50 for it and would probably have been cool with spending $5. And I'm broke as fuck, generally speaking.