Wooden Nickel ------Spins------CD of the Week Cymbals Eat Guitars Lenses Alien BACKTRACKS $11.99 Back in 2009 a weird little Ramones band called Cymbals Eat Guitars Ramones (1976) released a little album called Why There Are Mountains. On this al- The Ramones were a garage band bum was one of the most exqui- from Forest Hills (Queens), New site moments of guitar rowdiness York that formed in 1974. Though released that year – inside album none of them were ever related (or opener “... And the Hazy Sea,” – even named Ramone), the once a track that encapsulated 20 years close-knit band took four chords and of shoegaze, alternative and changed the landscape of rock n’ roll post-punk guitar squall and 90s music forever. This album may be the reason that so many kids slacker-dom. Singer/guitarist and started bands throughout the last 35 years. main Cymbal Joseph D’ Agostino pretty much wrote and recorded Recorded for just under $7,000 (still just $25k today), the Ra- this debut himself. He created a minor masterpiece, albeit with a few mones went into the studio just months after playing the clubs of potholes on the road to his own guitar noise Valhalla. NYC and New Jersey, including the historic CBGB’s. The album MARTINA MCBRIDE Jump to 2011 and the late summer release of Cymbals Eat Gui- took just a week to record and was released April 23, 1976. HITS AND MORE tars’ sophomore album, Lenses Alien. One of the first things you no- It opens with “Blitzkrieg Bop,” a song that still gets sampled To celebrate 20 years at the top of the pop tice is that not much has changed. And that’s a good thing. Album in every athletic stadium in North America (Hey ho, let’s go …). and country charts, Martina McBride has opener ‘Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)’ holds onto the same pompos- What follows are 13 songs that range in theme from drugs, pros- released this anthology that should please ity, grandeur and guitar squeals that made “ ... And the Hazy Sea” titution and violence and are backed by the guitars of John Cum- both hard-core and casual fans. Smash hits such great ear candy. “Shore Points” shows D’Agostino at the top of mings (Johnny Ramone) and the punk vocalizations of Jeffrey like “Independence Day,” “A Broken Wing,” his game with an amazing pop track that Doug Martsch would have Hyman (Joey Ramone). “This One’s for the Girls” are joined by the gladly included on any of Built to Spill’s 90s output. “Plainclothes” With side-one titles such as “Beat On The Brat,” “Judy Is a formerly unreleased cuts “Being Myself,” has a Bends-era Radiohead vibe with its storm beneath the calm ten- Punk,” “Chain Saw” and “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,” the “Straight to the Bone” and “Surrender” for 77 sion. There’s a great balance between the cryptic, dark guitar noise Ramones took approximately two minutes to vent about the un- minutes of amazing music. Pick up Hits And and upbeat pop gems. “Another Tunguska,” “Definite Darkness” and derground world of late-70s New York City. It was a nod to the More this week at any Wooden Nickel Music “Wavelengths” are reflective, poppy and jangly, like some of the best more innocent bands of the 50s and 60s, sped up to meet the punk Store for just $11.99. of the early 90s alternative. But “The Current,” with its cryptic lyr- needs during the infancy of the genre. ics, evokes the darkness we all fear in ourselves: ‘“Crying in our Side two is a little more romantic, with tracks like “Listen TOP SELLERS @ cars, a thousand trillion ghost lives, humming names of places swal- To My Heart” and a superb cover of Chris Montez’s 1961 single, lowed.” D’Agostino likes words. He likes how they look. He likes “Let’s Dance.” Wooden Nickel stringing them together to evoke emotions in the listener. Whether Coming in at just under 30 minutes, the buzz is over before (Week ending 1/22/12) he, or we, truly understand what they mean is a moot point. you know it. TW LW ARTIST/Album If there is a distinct difference in this band two years later, it is The Ramones went on to record about a dozen more records in the tight delivery of these songs. D’Agostino toured extensively up through 1995 with several additional replacement members. 1 1 BOB & TOM with the guys that now make up the whole of Cymbals Eat Guitars Of the originals, only Tommy survives (Joey passed in ’01, Dee Somewhere Over the Radio for Why There Are Mountains, and it shows. Though some of the Dee in ’02, and Johnny in ’04). (Dennis Donahue) 2 – LAMB OF GOD ramshackle jangle of the debut remains, Lenses Alien sounds like a Resolution record made by four guys that know each other and have tightened of songs Pollard’s written in the interim (thousands), not to mention the screws on their music machine, allowing them to function at full the personal and musical development of guys like bassist Demos 3 – SKRILLEX capacity. Basically, these boys are road-worn veterans, and it shows and guitarist/songwriter Sprout, who along with Fennell (drums) and Bangarang in the punchy delivery of this guitar masterpiece. Mitchell (guitar) were and are great complements to Pollard’s larger- D’Agostino himself sounds more confident and sure of his place than-life songwriting skills. 4 2 BLACK KEYS within his songs as well. Not the slightest hint of trepidation remains The album opens with a couple of hard rockers, “Laundry and El Camino (CD & LP) in his delivery of even the most obscure lyrics. He’s a man with a Lasers” and then “The Head,” the latter with vocal recording that purpose. He sounds like he likes his own voice and what that voice makes the lyrics sound like they were shouted into a microphone at 5 – VARIOUS ARTISTS is trying to convey. Chimes of Freedom: Songs of Bob Dylan the other end of a hallway. The group makes an abrupt switch with With Lenses Alien, Cymbals Eat Guitars prove that they aren’t “Doughnut for a Snowman,” a poppy, melodic tune that opens with 6 – SCORPIONS succumbing to any sophomore slump. They have created a dense, what sounds like a toy recorder and that Pollard claims he first wrote Comeblack complex rock album for the modern age. Big words, big noise and as a proposed commercial jingle for Krispy Kreme Donuts. big ideas prevail. Play it loud, and often. (John Hubner) Moving from one type of sound to another is a hallmark of the 7 6 SUNNY TAYLOR album, as if Pollard intended to incorporate as many song styles as EP Guided By Voices possible. There are definite rockers – the Sprout-sung “God Loves Let’s Go Eat the Factory Us” is fantastically peppy, and “Spiderfighter” is a standout rocker 8 10 NIGHTWISH as well. There’s the off-kilter esoterica of “The Big Hat and Toy Imaginaerum It’s a new beginning for Bob Show,” a song it takes a true Pollard fan to love, and the melancholy 9 4 FLORENCE & THE MACHINE Pollard and his “classic lineup” atmosphere of “Hang Mr. Kite.” There are the beautiful melodies of Ceremonials (CD & LP) bandmates with Let’s Go Eat “My Europa” and “Chocolate Boy,” one after another, as well as pair the Factory. Pollard, the for- of exceptionally pretty songs: the Pollard-sung “Who Invented the 10 3 TOM WAITS mer fourth grade teacher from Sun” and the Sprout-sung “Old Bones” with its layers of synth and Bad As Me (CD & LP) Dayton, Ohio and ridiculously decidedly straightforward, un-GBV-like, but beautifully sentimental prolific songwriter, reassembled repeated line, “Though my heart is stone / my love for you is real.” Sun., Feb. 18 • 2-8 p.m. • All Ages • Free old bandmates (Mitch Mitchell, Let’s Go Eat the Factory plays as if Pollard is trying to draw Live AT OUR N. Anthony Store: Kevin Fennell, Tobin Sprout and from every last song style, every last riff, every last melody that he Greg Demos) for a nearly year- invented in the first 20 years of GBV, trying to make it new even long tour that featured a typical three-hour setlist of songs from the though hearkening to the past. The sound quality is different from early to mid-90s, a period of Pollard’s songwriting so critically ac- those seminal 90s albums thanks to improvements in home record- ‘BE MY VALENTINE’ claimed at least one critic has called him the Shakespeare of our ing technology, and keyboards, for one, seem to figure more in the age. layering of sounds than on those great old albums, but all in all this 11 ARTISTS The tour whetted the appetites of Pollard and his middle-aged is a very good album, with Pollard and company firmly planting one 3627 N. Clinton • 484-2451 compatriots enough to record and release an album that sounds at foot in the past while reaching out to the future. (Steve Henn) 3422 N. Anthony • 484-3635 once like a hearkening back to those great 90s albums and the first 6427 W. Jefferson • 432-7651 product of yet another new era of Pollard’s songwriting. While it’s Send new CD releases to 2305 E. Esterline Rd., Columbia City, tough to say this one lives up to the all-time-greatness of such GBV IN 46725. It is also helpful to send bio information, publicity photos We Buy, Sell & Trade Used CDs, LPs & DVDs gems as Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes or Propeller, it probably isn’t fair and previous releases, if available. Sorry, but whatzup will review www.woodennickelmusicfortwayne.com or likely to expect a total rehash of the old style, given the amount only full-length, professionally produced CDs. 8------www.whatzup.com------January 26, ’12