First off, this experiment is alive and kicking. Sometimes, though, you have to take a hiatus. To reflect. To reload. This shit doesn't pay the bills, after all. As the LC transitions from a LOS ANGELES column to a SAN DIEGO column (yeah, that’s right), we’re leaning on our friends to help out a little bit. Enter the noble art of Lo-Fu, and its founder by way of Las Vegas, His Majesty Grand Master Sensei of the Samurai Order Stephen Ceerun Lo. Lo’s insights know no bounds and have been well-documented throughout the course of his illustrious career. Further introductions really aren’t necessary, except maybe to mention that one of the tenets of Lo-Fu is that Shawn Mullins is to be regarded as a poet, evidently. More Lightweight Contender to follow shortly - don't abandon this as part of your read. We're in it to win it. In the meantime, enjoy a glimpse into the mind of one of today's foremost thinkers. As far as Lo-Fu is concerned, anyway... The Art of Lo-Fu I was originally contracted to do a special interest piece for LC about the hip-hopera, "Trapped in the Closet" by R. Kelly. But the magnitude of the task was too great... a hip-hopera is meant to be heard, seen, and felt, but not necessarily read about. It just didn't fit the demographics. So I gave up. I just lacked the...soul...that LC uses on a bi-monthly / monthly / every six-weeks basis to convey the true dimensions of the music he comments on beyond just words on a screen. Phrases like "woozy pop shimmer chugged along" and "Retrospect can be a filthy bitch" may as well be Chinese to me, but I can feel the meaning through the context. LC is also very knowledgable about music or else he wouldn't have been commissioned with the task of categorizing all musical acts into one mutually exclusive division. You want to talk to LC about music genres? Well be prepared to discuss "alt-metal space rock hybrid". But me? I'm a passive music fan these days, favoring sports radio over tunes on the daily commute, with just enough memorized facts to hold a conversation about how sweet Timbaland's new beats are or how bad Chris Brown beat on Rhianna. I guess somewhere along the way, I forgot what a bitch retrospect could be and became kind of shallow in the sense that I stopped caring about the deeper levels of art that can only be conveyed through a select few media, one of which is music. So, here is the shallow man's version of a music column and now I can consider my contract to LC fulfilled...he is in tight with some lawyers after all. One of the reasons that I read LC is that I enjoy being able to reminisce of the good old days, and I've created some of my own categories that allow me to look into the past without competing with LC's divisions system currently in place. One final note...all reviews were based on memory from the times I've listened to these songs in the past...however many years ago (although some additional research was conducted on one of the most trusted and verified sources on the internet). We'll start out with the least controversial category... Category: The Song You Love to Hate.This was easy, because no one likes this song; so you can safely say you hate this song without people ferociously coming out of the woodwork in its defense, creating an hour long debate, which you end up resigning from in defeat because the argument just won't end. I don't even know if you can call it a song, but it's called, "Rock-a-Bye" by Shawn Mullins. Many of you are nodding and already thinking, "Yeah, I remember that song 'Rock-a-Bye', it WAS absolutely terrible." Actually, the song is called "Lullaby", but you wouldn't think it from the lyrics because all Mullins does is talk in a droning voice for a while, breaking the monotony by belting out "rock-a-bye" sporadically. Lastly, the whole premise of the song seemed flawed because I think it was supposed to be about how depressed this girl was with her life. However, she was pretty hot, had pool parties at her house with "Sonny and Cher" (the only other recognizable lyrics in the song/poem), and had her music video shown every 15 minutes on MTV in 1998. That's how good we had it during the Clinton years...songwriters/poets had nothing more depressing as subject matter than hot teenage girls living in Malibu. mp3: Lullaby Sunday Morning Sessions : Takin' Off 02/14/2010
 Happy Valentine’s all. It’s Sunday, and you know what that means… Get on the job, plug in, and let Herbie’s absolutely bad-ass 1962 Blue Note debut help you seal the deal with its breezy innovation. Cool out through the entire album below… mp3: Takin’ Off (Album)  Sunday Morning Sessions is Lightweight Contender’s weekly attempt to make everything better in a terribly shitty and offensive world. You know that cord you use to plug your iPod into your stereo? Do yourself a favor and plug your laptop in, push play and let your otherwise doomed Sunday take off… Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid is a good Bob Dylan album. Even by Bob Dylan standards. That’s saying something. Pat & Billy carries an underestimated, pretty and dusty sound that Dylan never really had before or after. The sound and feel is different for Dylan in that this particular album is good - in the purest sense of the word. Good in the same way that green grass, blue skies and the double play are inestimably good. Dylan is a character that really can’t be described, but he gave the world a quick peek below his skirt with Pat & Billy. In other words, it's perfect for Sunday morning. Enjoy this one in its entirety below. Stay tuned for next week’s Sunday Session. mp3: Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (Album) More Radiohead vs. Haiti 02/03/2010
 New Album - Beach House : Teen Dream 02/02/2010
 There’s been a lot of talk about the new Beach House record, Teen Dream. Blogs, of which this is one I suppose, have clearly been pretty effing excited about this effort. I’m not sure what to say about it, except for that I listened to it for the first time in the afternoon. The sun was setting, and the light in my apartment was dwindling in that hazy winter way the sun sets in Los Angeles. It seemed like the right time to listen to what I expected Teen Dream to be. Then I had a beer. And another one. And suddenly I realized that I had stopped thinking about all of the bullshit that was weighing heavily on me minutes before, and that seemed good. Even the cat stopped running around and sat in one place for awhile. That was also better. As the sun gradually retreated and Beach House’s woozy pop shimmer chugged along, everything seemed to suck a lot less. Not every band, or record for that matter, has the ability to do that – and I guess that’s not always the goal. But if you’ve read this far and this sounds like the sort of thing that might be in your wheelhouse, you should probably listen to the record. Teen Dream goes down easy. It somehow allows you to cut to the core of what’s important. It even forces animals to chill the fuck out, evidently. On one hand, it doesn’t seem that tough to make an escapist album. Quick and simple daydreams you can snap out of when the needle’s finally scratching on the label after the last track is done. But with this one, I think I’m always going to be reminded of that hazy, generally optimistic afternoon with every subsequent listen. Etched in my brain. How many records make that kind of impression? mp3: Norway mp3: Take Care Also, for some downloadable tunes, check out Beach House’s Daytrotter session here.  Retrospect can be a filthy bitch, and it’s interesting to see what ultimately becomes of bands that were gigantic in their moment. It seems like the Smashing Pumpkins are one of those bands that are doomed to be remembered, but that time is just not going to treat well. Maybe it’s because frontman/tyrant Billy Corgan’s controlling has been so well documented over the years. Maybe it’s because after two pretty good albums (Gish, Adore) and two fucking fantastic albums (Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie), everything seemed to blend into the same faceless alt-metal space rock hybrid. Maybe, in the end, the expectations for the Pumpkins to be what they could have been exceeded the output. Either way, I’ve noticed that if they’re ever mentioned anymore – it’s almost as a joke. Regardless of what 2010 logic dictates, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness made the Pumpkins the biggest band in the world for a short time – and it was deserved. Don’t be one of those people who leans on the past decade to say that Mellon Collie wasn’t a deep and fantastic album. You’re lying to yourself and you know it. And you don’t like those types of backward-looking people, anyway. It’s not becoming of you, and you’re better than that. There are worse things to admit. It’s not like you were wearing silver pants, after all. You can love this record (and the Pumpkins, for that matter). Mellon Collie is littered with glittering pop-radio gems. There are sickly, androgynous, piano-driven ballads that are depressing and hopeful. The loud, heavy guitar tracks are backed by Corgan’s disturbed and crushing lyrics. A band this loud has never been so epic, tuneful, vulnerable and confidently fucked up all at once. Zeppelin Division: The Pumpkins were loud and heavy first. They didn’t hit their pop stride until later. For all the radio success that Mellon Collie had, it kicked ass between the lines. mp3: Bodies mp3: Stumbeline Sunday Morning Sessions : A Love Supreme 01/31/2010
 Sunday mornings are a strange limbo. The weekend is over, you’re probably hungover. You still have the entire day to take advantage of – or to not take advantage of. Mostly you’re sitting around, enjoying the fact that you’re still far enough away from Monday and the inevitable painful trudge back to the weekly cesspool. Another way to think about Sunday morning is that it’s a good time to think, a good time to consider what in the fuck you’re doing with your life. Or to drink Bloody Marys. Or both. This will (hopefully) be a recurring segment – with ideas on who you should be spending your time with on the strangest day of the week. And, this being the first entry – we’ll start with the record that inspired the idea. John Coltrane. A Love Supreme. It’s a campy and overdone statement – but A Love Supreme is really less music, more art. Beautiful. Intense. Joyful. Coltrane’s four-part masterpiece covers the full range of pain and pleasure and comes out the other end. It’s the sound of a man who’s been through hell and found his own personal version of salvation. Hell, even the song names read like steps in some lost Christian-Buddhist path to enlightenment – Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance, Psalm. The liner notes have this quote from Coltrane’s wife describing when the album was written… “It was like Moses coming down from the mountain, it was so beautiful. He walked down and there was that joy, that peace in his face, tranquility. So I said, ‘Tell me everything, we didn’t see you really for four or five days.’ … He said, ‘This is the first time that I have received all of the music for what I want to record, in a suite. This is the first time I have everything, everything ready." I started listening to A Love Supreme on Sunday mornings a long time ago. There will be other entries to this segment - but this one will be the best. Enjoy. Bloody Marys optional. mp3: Acknowledgement mp3: Resolution mp3: Pursuance mp3: Psalm  Radiohead has announced that they’ll be playing a special benefit show at the Henry Fonda in Hollywood this Sunday, with all proceeds going to OXFAM for the benefit of the people of Haiti. Tickets are being sold auction-style here, but it's not gonna be cheap if you want to get in the door. Apparently Thom and co. are in town cutting their latest record and threw a quick show together. Turns out they’re in the perfect town – scalped tickets for Radiohead’s last for-profit LA gigs were going for $300+ each. As of 10:30 this morning, the minimum bid to get in the door is $275 a head. Commendable effort. Auction ends tomorrow. The LC to Freshface Express 01/21/2010
It was never in doubt. Lightweight Contender and Freshface continue to be a lethal combination – check out my review of Spoon’s new record Transference here. Stick and move, stick and move...  Sometimes a lyric gets in your head and won't leave. The honesty just smacks you in the goddamn chin. This one's from the Dead Weather - one of the most primitive sounding bands that’s been heard in awhile. When Jack White and Alison Mosshart wail the blues about guilt and infidelity...you believe them. Have a listen. mp3: Will There Be Enough Water  |  Links
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