BEAT HAPPENING: JAMBOREE (1988)
1) Bewitched; 2) In Between;
3) Indian Summer; 4) Hangman; 5) Jamboree; 6) Ask Me; 7) Crashing Through; 8)
Cat Walk; 9) Drive Car Girl; 10) Midnight A Go-Go; 11) The This Many Boyfriends
Club.
Second time around, the joke is not quite so
funny any more. True to tradition, this is still a very short album with very
short songs (making any of these go over three minutes would severely violate
the Geneva convention), but there isn't much progress other than the proverbial
«10-year old kid» growing some pubic hair and discovering (in a not-so-independent
process) the joys of feedback, distortion, and RCR (Rebellious Caveman Rock!).
Seriously, if there is any way to describe the opening number ʽBewitchedʼ, it is this and
only this: a product from the Build-Your-Own-Stooges-Song Set. The opening
feedback, the threatening distorted riff, Calvin's nasty baritone, and those
lyrics — "I see you hang in the crowd / Staring me down... / What am I to
do? / I got a crush on you" — if this isn't a conscious attempt to build
their own ʽDown On The Streetʼ, I don't know what it is. Except, of course,
that you have to take it as completely tongue-in-cheek, or else it is just a
travesty. You could make that riff
thicker, throw in some supporting lead lines, add extra bite and snarl to the
vocals, get a real good drummer, and end up with one of those proto-punk
classics from either Funhouse or Raw Power, because the riff is
actually quite cool — but you don't do that. You just end up with this
corrupted, lo-fi, off-key demo version, because that's supposed to be the
point. Okay then.
In fact, the songs here are, if anything, even
more intentionally and defiantly «demo-like» than on the 1985 album. The title
track is just Calvin singing off-key to a primitive drum machine; ʽAsk Meʼ is
just Heather, singing slightly more on-key to... nothing at all, although the
vocals do form a cohesive and catchy pop melody that should have had a full
backing... or should it, really? Who knows, maybe if they added guitars and a
rhythm section, it would have been just another run-of-the-mill twee-pop number
— whereas this deconstruction is... like... allegorical in form, metaphysical
in content? Fifty-eight seconds of the never-ending battle between the Nacheinander and the Nebeneinander. Art imitating Life or
Life imitating Art? "Five hands crawling up my back / Thump, thump, have a
heart attack". Nursery rhyme in the left corner, lo-fi aesthetics in the
right corner. Clinch, clinch.
The thing is, until we actually see these songs
«completed», it is very hard to tell if they are quality embryos, produced
with fine, healthy genetic material, or if they're just a bunch of unfertilized
cells whose main, if not only, attraction is that very «unfertilized» look.
Some of the vocal, ahem, «melodies» can stick around, largely because of their
repetitiveness, and some of the tracks will stick around just due to sheer
ugliness (like the last track, ʽThe This Many Boyfriends Clubʼ, apparently
recorded live and featuring Calvin at his absolutely ugliest — the vocals are
more hideous than a bunch of tomcats in the night, and the accompanying
feedback blasts have all the proper effect of nails-on-chalkboard); «enjoyable»
these songs can only be for those who also «enjoy» watching Night Of The Living Dead. (With a few
exceptions, of course: whenever Heather takes lead vocals, the songs take on a
friendly-sweet and generally listenable air — but she does not do it too
often).
But if you disregard the individual songs and
once again just embrace the concept as a whole, the downside is that,
«faux-Stooges numbers» like ʽBewitchedʼ and ʽHangmanʼ aside, the concept
remains more or less the same as it was: a tongue-in-cheek look at «musical
failure» as an artistic statement in itself. And second time around, it's really
not that fun anymore, which is why I can no longer be generous enough for a
thumbs up — I mean, there's no way I could recommend Jamboree to anybody with a good ear for music, and there's no
reason I should recommend Jamboree
to anybody interested in music-centered artistic statements because, well,
there's just one thumbs up allowed per exactly the same music-centered artistic
statement if there's not much else to go along with the statement. Unless, of
course, you have doctor-prescribed aural pain treatments, in which case ʽThe
This Many Boyfriends Clubʼ is a total must. Play it once every day at top
volume, and you will be totally immune to drills, jackhammers, and
televangelists for the rest of your precious life.
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