Ani DiFranco: Educated Guess

ANI DIFRANCO: EDUCATED GUESS (2004)

1) Platforms; 2) Swim; 3) Educated Guess; 4) Origami; 5) Bliss Like This; 6) The True Story Of What Was; 7) Bo­dily; 8) You Each Time; 9) Animal; 10) Grand Canyon; 11) Company; 12) Rain Check; 13) Akimbo; 14) Bubble.

One may easily deduce whether this here reviewer was enthralled or not by Educated Guess, so­cially conscious singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco 3,456th studio album, from the fact that it took him three listens and a couple read-ups on other people's reviews and descriptions to understand that it is, in fact, hugely different from her previous release, Evolve, in that it completely drops her soft-jazz band and, once again, reverts the artist to fully acoustic, fully individual mode.

Honestly, I did not even notice that. And as far as I am concerned, this only means that it makes no goddamn difference any more. Just fifty more minutes of time wasted on melodies, words, and feelings that bring nothing new — or nothing good, for that matter — to the table. In fact, that statement is pretty much definitive: there is not a single track here that could even begin to be de­scribed as a «highlight». «Lowlights», yes, not the least of them her usually flat beatnik rant 'Grand Canyon' where she proclaims that "People, we are standing at ground zero of the feminist revolution... coolest F-word ever deserves a fucking shout! I mean, why can't all decent men and women call themselves feminists, out of respect for those who fought for this?" Gimme a fuckin' break there, lady.

The saddest realization of all is, of course, that by now she has completely resigned to preaching to the choir. Long-term fans cannot go wrong with this or anything else, but how can you expect to make new converts if all you're offering them is a bunch of on-the-spot constructed, sloppy, dissonant chord sequences worthy of just about every guitar player on this planet with two or three years of playing experience? How do you expect intelligent people to follow you if each of your songs places such dreadful importance on the lyrics (more spoken than sung), yet, for all we know, there are only two topics concerned: «Treat me like a human being instead of like a fuck­hole, and then we'll go on talking» and «Fight the machine, fight the machine». Do butterflies and coloured rainbows even exist for this woman? Thumbs down. At this point, the only remedy that can be prescribed for the patient is an album of surf rock covers.

Angry Samoans: Back From Samoa

ANGRY SAMOANS: BACK FROM SAMOA (1982)

1) Gas Chamber; 2) The Todd Killings; 3) Lights Out; 4) My Old Man's A Fatso; 5) Time Has Come Today; 6) They Saved Hitler's Cock; 7) Homosexual; 8) Steak Knife; 9) Haizman's Brain Is Calling; 10) Tuna Taco; 11) Coffin Case; 12) You Stupid Jerk; 13) Ballad Of Jerry Curlan; 14) Not Of This Earth.

The proper LP debut of the Samoans runs all of a glorious seventeen minutes and honourably fulfills the promise of being the most skilfully offensive record of 1982. Or does it? A brief glim­pse at the lyrics, odd enough, shows that, apart from such predictable target groups as parents, Jews, and gays, most of the insults are hurled either against a vacuum — stuff like 'You Stupid Jerk' barks and spits at no one in particular — or against the band itself.

Musically, there is not much change, except for generally faster tempos (which is why 'You Stu­pid Jerk' is able to make all of its points in exactly twenty seconds) and a very cohesive, uniform hardcore sound that meticulously wipes out all outside influences: no power pop hints anywhere in sight. For a 17-minute running time, though, this is quite all right.

Whether the stuff they are doing is «funny» or «humorous» is a matter of personal taste, debate, and street fighting. Some people will doubtlessly find lyrics like "They saved Hitler's cock, they hid it under a rock... if Hitler's cock could choose its mate, it would ask for Sharon Tate!" hilari­ous; others — unusual, but stupid; still others — offensive without a good reason to be so. But in any case, it seems that humour was not among the Samoans' primary goals here; if some of the tunes come across as funny, it is rather a side effect of trying to be innovative in the art of defying mainstream standards of «taste».

Of course, though, the finer these guys achieve their goals, the more they fail in them. At least half of the songs are furious odes to the art of being braindead and liking it — in 'Lights Out', we are admonished to poke our eyes out, 'Steak Knife' is a further elaboration on all the lobotomy-re­lated topics of the Ramones, etc. But not a single one of these songs could have ever been written by a true braindead punker; on the contrary, it is hard to imagine anyone other than a bunch of for­mer rock critics to devise them. In the long run, Back From Samoa is nothing but a hyper-in­tellectual art-rock album.

In the short run, it is necessary to add that, although I do not believe the band members have really «written» a single one of these riffs, they choose good ones from the standard punk reper­toire, and the choruses are fairly catchy — and where there are no riffs or choruses to speak of, some tunes get by on the strength of gimmicks alone, like the contrastive 'Ballad Of Jerry Curlan', where they seriously take it out on a stereotypical «success story guy» (with a real historical pro­totype, no less) by alternating soft «ballad»-style compliments with every hardcore insult they are able to come up with.

This light entertainment value is what keeps Back From Samoa still somewhat viable today — its offensive power long since withered and tattered by changes in morality standards. Plus the usual level of technique: 'My Old Man's A Fatso', reduced here to ninety seconds of pure flame, combines genuine rock'n'roll drive with a level of precision worthy of a first-rate (okay, second-rate) thrash metal band. To sum up, Back From Samoa is what gives hardcore its good name, and for that, deserves an expected thumbs up.

Aerosmith: Just Push Play

AEROSMITH: JUST PUSH PLAY (2001)

1) Beyond Beautiful; 2) Just Push Play; 3) Jaded; 4) Fly Away From Here; 5) Trip Hoppin'; 6) Sunshine; 7) Under My Skin; 8) Luv Lies; 9) Outta Your Head; 10) Drop Dead Gorgeous; 11) Light Inside; 12) Avant Garden.

When this came out, even some of the biggest fans of Get A Grip must have felt stumped. No matter how slick all of the band's albums from 1987 to 1993 turned out to be, they were at least nominally rock'n'roll — loud rhythmic headbanging music with distorted guitars, screaming, and, if not always fast, then at least always danceable grooves. Nine Lives was a mixed bag, but you still couldn't say no to the title track and 'Crash' and... well, much of it was boring and bland, yet somehow it was still «rock music».

But Just Push Play is not «rock music». About a third of it consists of so-so attempts at mimick­ing and mining the latest trends — most notably, the twenty-first century edition of hip-hop (on the title track and 'Outta Your Head', but, strangely, not on 'Trip Hoppin') and various electronica achievements (usually in the form of «spicy» sound effects scattered all over the place). The other two thirds, in dire contrast, are dedicated to some bizarre retro-psycho-pop thing that, at times, al­most threatens to invoke nostalgia for the sunny Sixties — a place where Aerosmith, of all people, have never ever set foot before.

In all likelihood, the culprits are fellow songwriters Marti Frederiksen and Mark Hudson, present on all of the tracks (although not always together), and if Hudson's decision to steer the band to­wards a retro style comes as no surprise, given his previously mentioned successful restoration of Ringo Starr's solo career, Frederiksen is a darker sheep — although his first significant contribu­tion is usually logged as writing and performing for Almost Famous' «Stillwater» — this might give you a clue if you are familiar with the movie.

Regardless, the simple fact is that Just Push Play is the most un-Aerosmith Aerosmith album ever recorded. It's not as unimaginable as AC/DC doing an album of Gilbert & Sullivan covers, perhaps, but close. A simple test involves playing the first ten seconds of 'Luv Lies' to any of your friends still in the dark — and then making them believe, prior to hearing Tyler's vocals come in, that this is not frickin' Electric Light Orchestra they are listening to.

It is no surprise, then, that in terms of overall respectability, the experiment had failed. It still hit the charts high enough, but, I believe, more due to inertia power — Aerosmith's «power run» of 1987-1993 has certainly ensured that, like with the Stones (who had their «power run» much ear­lier, of course, but it still affects public opinion), people will continue buying the records no mat­ter what. But quite a few fans — as can be easily seen by browsing through amateur reviews — were quite unable to «get it», not the least of them Mr. Joe Perry himself, who has openly distan­ced himself from the album in press, saying that the final product had very little, if anything, to do with Aerosmith as a real band.

The most ridiculous thing about it all, however, is that Just Push Play is not at all bad! Once one has discarded the most obvious «ones for the kiddies», there are some interesting melodies and arrangements to be found. The big hit single 'Jaded' is a solid power pop anthem, a little on the pathetic side (these are the 'Amazing Crazy Crying' guys, after all), but with cute «astral» guitars, nostalgic strings and stuff — it may take a while to understand that the song has nothing serious to do with the generic Aerosmith power ballad, but it will sink in, eventually.

'Trip Hoppin', despite the title, has more to do with Beatlish pop of the Revolver era, only ear-splittingly overproduced. So does 'Sunshine' — with both songs featuring psychedelic backing vocals to boot, fresh off the 1966 train. Even 'Light Inside', rushing along at a far more frenetic pace than the rest, has «Beatles» written all over it; and 'Avant Garden', again with a totally mis­leading title, could have been a non-hit for Big Star, for all I know. There is also a drastic change in the lyrics — most are far less obnoxious and «mock-dirty» than we are used to.

Now how on earth did Hudson and Frederiksen drag the band in on this non-trivial project, made three times less trivial by being donated to Aerosmith, is something that will take only a very skilled biographer to figure out. Because the biggest weakness of Just Push Play is not the songs: it is just that the songs have just about the same relationship to the band to which they were en­trusted as the real Marilyn Monroe has to her robot facsimile on the album sleeve.

What I mean is, out of all the band members Brad Whitford alone, with his old predilection to­wards «colourful» guitar playing, could have readily adapted to this kind of music. Joe Perry, wherever he is, looks like a fish out of water — when he does not even try to rock out, the resul­ting sound is boring, and when he does try, he just gets smacked in the face with the «poppiness» of the melody that he cannot subdue. And Tyler? Hard rock screamer, yes; R'n'B belter, perhaps; power ballad guru, by all means — but there is nothing he can do to make this new style, or these new styles, his own.

All of which makes Just Push Play an eccentric, unpredictable, and thoroughly misguided expe­rience. It is not a «sellout» — they sold out for good fourteen years before the fact; it is, in fact, their least obviously commercial album in all that time. Rather, it's a pre-doomed experiment. It's their Satanic Majesties Request, in a way, but condemned by the epoch — in 1967, you could risk trying to make the Beatles out of the Rolling Stones and get something weird, but worthwhile in return. But to make the Beatles out of Aerosmith, long after the band has been dragged through the gloss, the big bucks, and the cheap, generic sleaze of its downfall — nah. And Hudson and Frederiksen should bear the blame, no doubt. "You're so jaded, and I'm the one that jaded you", indeed. Thumbs down, but with a certain dose of respect.

Al Stewart: Rhymes In Rooms

AL STEWART: RHYMES IN ROOMS (1992)

1) Flying Sorcery; 2) Soho (Needless To Say); 3) Time Passages; 4) Josephine Baker; 5) On The Border; 6) Nostradamus; 7) Fields Of France; 8) Clifton In The Rain / Small Fruit Song; 9) Broadway Hotel; 10) Leave It; 11) Year Of The Cat.

Nice, humble little album, strictly for the fans but real quality stuff for the fans. In the midst of a local industry crisis that left Al without a recording label, he and Peter White undertook a short inexpensive tour with just the two of them onstage, both playing acoustic guitars (with White oc­casionally switching to accordeon or piano). Come to think of it, it is actually strange how long it took Stewart to come up with an «unplugged» album — many fans must have been secretly ho­ping for one since 1967 at least, yet the man steadily refused to budge, on the contrary, pumping more and more layers of production onto his simple melodies until it all exploded with the stink­fest of Last Days Of The Century.

Not that Stewart is really to blame — without all the extra arrangements, reduced to bare-bones acoustic strum, the songs lose quite a bit of pizzazz; if Stewart's entire career sounded like Rhy­mes In Rooms, he'd be even more of a cult taste than he is today. But after the suffocation of Last Days, just about the only way to remedy it was to roll back all the way and give the depres­sed fans just the opposite of «overproduced», so the record really came in at the right time.

With the surprise exception of the 'Clifton In The Rain / Small Fruit Song' medley, hearkening back to the old days of obscurity, the tracklist is predictable: hits and classics ranging from Past, Present & Future to Time Passages. But it is interesting to learn whether all these Parsons-era classics still have anything to say with the Parsonage taken away from them — and yes, 'Time Passages' works well without the underwater keyboards, and 'Year Of The Cat' does not wither away and die without the saxophone solo, partly because of Peter White's highly technical, but pleasant solos (somehow complex solos played on an acoustic guitar tend to come across as soul­ful even when the same solos, played on an electric, would seem ugly — go figure), partly be­cause, yes, they were expertly written and heartfelt tunes from the very beginning; it only took Parsons to make the average layman notice that.

Needless to say — no, not Soho, but just that the two tunes off Last Days sound much better than the originals, particularly 'Fields Of France' (although I miss the flute solos, they did make the song way too reminiscent of late-period Jethro Tull). Overall, the acoustic duo worked so well that Stewart even went on to replicate the experience several times (most recently, with Dave Nachmanoff) — not really necessary, in my opinion, but certainly money-saving. Thumbs up as a one-time experience, but it is quite friendly on Al's part that he did not go on to abuse the acou­stic-only principle.

Aretha Franklin: You

ARETHA FRANKLIN: YOU (1975)

1) Mr. DJ (5 For The DJ); 2) It Only Happens (When I Look At You); 3) I'm Not Strong Enough To Love You Aga­in; 4) Walk Softly; 5) You Make My Life; 6) Without You; 7) The Sha-La Bandit; 8) You; 9) You Got All The Aces; 10) As Long As You Are There.

Aretha hit the first of her several commercial nadirs here, although it is not easy to understand why: surely much of this stuff is at least on par with those huge Barry Manilow hits of the decade in terms of attention-grabbing, and most of it is far less comatose. But considering the popular suc­cess of the ballad-choked Let Me In Your Life and the relative failure of her next two LPs, it is likely that «comatose» is just what the public wanted from the Queen of Soul.

Instead, she gave them her liveliest, most recklessly party-oriented get-it-up single in years — 'Mr. DJ', wobbling on a classy, irresistible funky groove — and was thanked by seeing it stall somewhere in the middle of the Top 100. It is certainly no 'Rock Steady'; totally devoid of the seductive dark aspect of the latter, it is, like the lyrics honestly state, a simple paean to all the disc jockeys out there who gotta "shake their funky soul", but it's brilliantly executed dance fun that should have been vastly popular, but wasn't — perhaps because the smoother, glossier disco atti­tudes were already crawling in.

A few other tracks are likeable pop-R'n'B hybrids ('It Only Happens', 'You Make My Life'), but the major other highlight is 'Without You', another slice of superb Atlantic funk with a bumble-bee bass line to die for. Together with 'Mr. DJ', these two tracks are enough to constitute a strong argument for getting the album back in print, no matter how much a handful of the usual tepid ballads would call for the opposite.

Aretha's brief flirt with reggae on 'You Got All The Aces' is, however, not at all successful; dres­sing reggae rhythms with gentle background vocals, R'n'B brass, and an overall sweet pop atti­tude will almost inevitably produce a pointless, lifeless hybrid — in fact, most attempts to adapt the Jamaican spirit of reggae to generic mainstream entertainment values of the 1970s are about as lame as an attempt by, say, Neil Diamond to sing the blues.

Overall, You's weakest side is that the ratio is again somewhat skewed in favour of lighter mate­rial; count but two «hardcore» R'n'B numbers, four fluffy dance-pop numbers (including the un­lucky reggae bit), and four rosy-cloudy ballads, none of which rises above generic. Where are all those gospel roots? Did she get so sick of them after the Amazing Grace experience, or was the­re somehow a general industry consensus that, with disco on the rise, God must have embarked on a three-year picnic? Unclear. What is clear is that You fits in beautifully into the fluff-head, hedo­nistic atmosphere of «The Me Decade», but does not engage in the filthiest of its excesses, and at least the excellent musicianship, moderately acceptable songwriting level, and Aretha's usual professionalism make it still worth an occasional listen.

B. B. King: Live In Cook County Jail

B. B. KING: LIVE IN COOK COUNTY JAIL (1970)

1) Introduction; 2) Everyday I Have The Blues; 3) How Blue Can You Get; 4) Worry, Worry, Worry; 5) 3 O'Clock Blues; 6) Sweet Sixteen; 7) The Thrill Is Gone; 8) Please Accept My Love.

The «live prison album» genre, jump-started by Johnny Cash with his Folsom Prison record in 1968, is not a very large one — not everybody has the guts to win over this particular slice of the audience, let alone all the technical difficulties. Nevertheless, putting out a live prison album al­most certainly guarantees critical respect, because, after all, what in the world can be truer to the spirit of rock'n'roll than working up a sweat before a bunch of Cool Hand Lukes, the true heroes of rock'n'roll?

Thus, even though Live In Cook County Jail is by no means King's best live album, it has gar­nered comparable acclaim; yet that acclaim is, I believe, triggered more by the unforgettable rounds of booing with which the inmates welcome the announcement of the presence of the local sheriff and the chief justice at the start of the show, making up for a classic live moment that real­ly threatens to blow B. B. himself off the stage. Could, in fact, be argued that there is more genu­ine blues to be heard in those boos than in whatever follows. (Actually, there is a complex back story to the making of the album — apparently, a series of live shows by well-known stars at that jail was part of the new warden's plan to win over the inmates' trust in his ongoing battle with the «barn bosses», even though none of that is reflected in the performance in any way).

What follows is, actually, a very solid performance, but a very straightforward, as well: King under­sta­nds that these two thousand guys in front of him won't take bullshit for an answer, and so he just runs through his big­gest hits, without forcing himself to condense them but without too many improvisational or jam­ming bits, either. He spans his entire career, from '3 O'Clock Blues' right up to 'Thrill Is Gone', and shows us that the old magic works fine on the current criminals by launching into his usual «man — woman» monolog on 'Worry, Worry' — the audience's response makes it clearly seen that this is the kind of sermon they are quite ready to listen to.

The only other thing I can say is that 'The Thrill Is Gone', like I predicted, works beautifully even without the cellos (but to name it the ultimate live rendition of this song, like some have done, is a bit of a stretch); but overall, there is just too few songs here to merit individual comments — which brings us to the vital question of why the heck has the entire performance not been relea­sed on CD as of yet? Surely they do not mean that the whole show lasted for just over half an hour? What is their problem? What are they hiding?

Antony And The Johnsons: I Am A Bird Now

ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS: I AM A BIRD NOW (2005)

1) Hope There's Someone; 2) My Lady Story; 3) For Today I Am A Boy; 4) Man Is The Baby; 5) You Are My Sis­ter; 6) What Can I Do; 7) Fistful Of Love; 8) Spiralling; 9) Free At Last; 10) Bird Gerhl; 11*) Find The Rhythm Of Your Love.

Here is the official proscription list of people who love (to hurt) Antony Hegarty: (a) Lou Reed, founding father of the Velvet Underground, punk rock hero and overall horrid guy; (b) Devendra Banhart, singer-songwriter, visual artist, and an overall psychic type who likely has no problem finding God under the rim of the toilet bowl; (c) Boy George, founding father of Culture Club, quintessential icon of androgyny, and an overall queer type; (d) Rufus Waynwright, singer-song­writer, an overall morose introspective type with a penchant for classical influences; (e) Joan Wa­sser, real hot chick successfully mascherading as an indie artist by playing violin.

There may be others, of course, but these are the ones openly credited on various guest spots on Antony and the Johnsons' sophomore record — by the vast-reaching range and even distribution of this selection we must understand that everybody loves (to hurt) Antony Hegarty, and those that don't merely don't count as everybody. Apparently, loving (to hurt) Antony Hegarty was the ultimate artsy trend in 2005.

Does it help? Frankly, I did not even start to notice until I took a look at the credits. Sure, at times Antony started sounding a little strange — on 'Fistful Of Love', he'd start off with a deep spoken part; on 'What Can I Do?' he'd switched from his usual falsetto to a nasal tenor; on 'Spiralling', on the contrary, he'd pushed that falsetto even further. But how is a regular guy to know it's not just Antony Hegarty playing hypnotic tricks on us? How is he to know the exact limitations of this single man's vocal powers? The man is, after all, a bird now, and still he promises that "one day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful woman, one day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful girl". But today he is a child, today he is a boy. He may as well be Lou Reed, for all we know, or Devendra Banhart, or he might be Candy Darling, whose deathbed photo adorns the album cover.

But seriously, I Am A Bird Now is a terrific piece of work. There are no major stylistic or aes­the­tic departures from the self-titled album, but the formula has been refined and polished, the hooks tightened up, and the guest spots do help to alleviate the monotonousness of it all. Some listeners have complained, stating that the album is specifically geared towards gay audiences. This is bullshit. Obviously, if your ideal of a musical hero is Eric Adams of Manowar, or Ted Nugent, you will most likely take a ritual piss on this record and nail its shards to the doors of the nearest gay bar. But any sensitive, emotional person, regardless of his / her orientation, is equally liable to be entertained, and, perhaps, even moved by at least some of the tracks.

If anything, it is the unflinching devotion to masochism, not homosexuality, that continues to form the back­bone of Antony's whole image. It is easy to take 'Fistful Of Love' and laugh at it — either out of condescension for the whole idea of enjoying love-induced pain, or because of the specific way that Antony propagates it, from the «long-term club member» point of view. But it is a fine, nicely constructed song all the same, with a gripping crescendo whose pathos is either completely heartfelt or magnificently simulated, and, in these circumstances, who really cares about lyrics like "I feel the whip, I know it's out of love"? Besides, whoever prevents one from seeing "the whip" as a metaphor — and plus, Lou Reed is here speaking the intro, reminding us that, somehow, we have all somehow managed to love the Velvet Underground's 'Venus In Furs', where the masochistic message was far clearer pronounced. It just didn't use to have that elevated romantic touch to it, but times change.

There is, actually, a ton of different things to be said about each individual track on here. Lyrics, intonations, moods — Freud would have a field day, and there'd still be plenty of survivors left for Jung to mop them up. If anything, Hegarty shows you how easy it is to concoct a tragedy out of nothing: all you have to do is locate your inner male (if you are a male, it's not that hard), then find your inner female (a bit harder if you are not a female, but still possible), and make them do battle with each other. The energy of the ensuing conflict is inexhaustible, like the atom's power; and it is especially effective if you have plenty to eat, a good roof above your head, a host of lo­ving and caring people around, and a steady dayjob — because a human being needs suffering to stay a human being, and how do you suffer if there's seemingly nothing to suffer for? Let Antony Hegarty show you how to rub two sticks together.

I Am A Bird Now is definitely the man's best album that cannot ever be bested. When you stick to that kind of schtick, memorable vocal melodies, convenient guest spots, and a humble thirty-five minute running length just can't be beat. All of the songs make pretty much the same point, but all of them do it cleverly, and on the peaks — 'Hope There's Someone', 'Fistful Of Love', 'Spi­raling' — the man's unbridled romanticism almost transcends theater and makes one forget all about the conventions of the XXIst century. Thumbs up, brain-wise and partially heart-wise. (And yet, a sidenote: dear Mr. Antony, the line "Forgive me, let live me" may just be the ugliest dis­ruption of English syntactic laws that I have ever encountered).

Ani DiFranco: Evolve

ANI DIFRANCO: EVOLVE (2003)

1) Promised Land; 2) In The Way; 3) Icarus; 4) Slide; 5) O My My; 6) Evolve; 7) Shrug; 8) Phase; 9) Here For Now; 10) Second Intermission; 11) Serpentine; 12) Welcome To.

The album won Ani DiFranco a Grammy Award in 2004... for Best Recording Package. Reading this of­ficial information on Wikipedia or in any other source after you have heard the album gives a clear impression of bitter irony, if not indirect insult. First, it is hard to imagine somebody as right­eous as Ani to care one second about the Grammy people in the first place. Second, it is even harder to ima­gine the Grammy people actually taking the time to listen to an Ani DiFranco album. Third, in spite of both the first and the second, this Grammy decision summarizes my feelings about Evolve to near-perfection.

Since it can be easily shown that Ms. DiFranco knows how to create interesting melodies, the ob­vious reasoning is that, by the time Reckoning and Revelling came along, she had developed the notion that «interesting melodies» are an insult to honest artistry and intellectual audiences. Thus, her newly-established motto can be briefly summarized as «Hooks are for NRA members». In the place of hooks, we proceed to get Messages and Free Jazz, DiFranco-style.

Granted, after the «time-suspended» illusion of Revelling, Evolve has more rhythm to it, and some of the ideas are moderately interesting. 'In The Way', in particular, gets a quirky little funky riff with hypnotizing potential not unlike the one exploited to the max by James Brown on 'Sex Machine' — except that, of course, Ani is no James Brown, and even when she tries to get into overdrive, she cannot sustain the tension for five minutes, meaning that the riff is essentially was­ted. Another classy, sardonic riff, acoustic this time, is lost on the title track, which has nothing else to go for it.

The whole thing just screams out «lazy, lazy, lazy...» louder than almost any other DiFranco al­bum up to that point. The only song on the entire album that is anywhere close to «completeness» is 'Here For Now', which takes half a minute to find its groove, introduces said groove as a quiet little Latin dance number, variegates it with a quiet, arythmic chorus, and locks the door behind it in an economic three minutes time — whereas most of the raw, blurry, impressionistic numbers overstay their welcome for at least four or five.

The nadir, quite predictably, is 'Serpentine', a ten-minute rant on civil liberties and other related shit that is the younger, but even more obnoxious, brother of 'Self Evident' from the last record. "The difference between you and me, baby, is I get fucked up when I'm alone", she states midway through; yep, she must have been particularly lonesome when recording this album.

One thing that is not quite clear to me is why anyone would really want to bother falling for Ani's amateurish experimentation in the realm of modern jazz. Considering just how many superior jazz musicians, ancient and modern, there are in each and every aspect of the genre, Evolve could only hope to work if she'd found a decent way of integrating the new influences into her old style, for instance, start playing the guitar the way she did on her first album, while all the brass players and percussionists around her supplied the external arrangements. Instead, she somehow convin­ced herself that once you set up some thin, bland, unevocative groove, all you have left to do is support it with another meandering poem sung from the bottom of the heart.

Not recommended for anyone except the staunchest Ani adepts, with the possible exception of 'Here For Now'; in fact, a track like 'Serpentine', unless you happen to be an innate serial killer mas­cherading as a braindead ultra-liberal activist, can turn sane people off the dame forever. To be honest, there is quite a bit of decent poetry on here, too ('Icarus', 'Second Intermission') — my wild guess is that she only writes stuff like 'Serpentine' and 'Self Evident' when she's having her period or some­thing. Thumbs down, all the same; good poetry is Pulitzer Prize stuff — without a half-decent melody to accompany it, all you can hope for is a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.

Angry Samoans: Inside My Brain

ANGRY SAMOANS: INSIDE MY BRAIN (1980)

1) Right Side Of My Mind; 2) Gimme Sopor; 3) Hot Cars; 4) Inside My Brain; 5) You Stupid Asshole; 6) Get Off The Air; 7*) My Old Man's A Fatso; 8*) Carson Girls (demo); 9*) I'm A Pig (demo); 10*) Too Animalistic (live); 11*) Right Side Of My Mind (live).

Hardcore punk, when done properly, is a delight for the thinking man — in fact, much of hard­core punk came from the hands and brains of thinking men. Dig into the individual biographies of the Angry Samoans and you will find out that founding father # 1, Mike Saunders, used to write for Rolling Stone (he is often credited as the inventor of the term «heavy metal», no less, which earned him the nickname of «Metal Mike»), while founding father # 2, Gregg Turner, used to write for Creem and is now a distinguished math professor (!).

It is quite transparent, then, that only men endowed with vast intellectual powers, able to come up with revolutionary musical ideas synthesized through intense brain activity rather than picked up from God on a purely intuitive and irrational basis, could have materialized the sound of the Ang­ry Samoans. The band's debut EP, Inside My Brain, burns with hardcore passion, but each and every second of that fiery burning is achieved through very cold fusion. The basic aesthetics, the way it seems most obvious to pick it out, is as follows:

A) Brevity is the sister of wit, and these guys go as far as to place the two in an incestuous re­la­ti­on­ship. The whole thing is over in less than ten minutes (although future re-releases with bonus tracks double the running length), and individual songs usually make their points in less than two ('Hot Cars' says it all in thirty seconds). Lesson taken from the likes of Wire, but in terms of over­all conciseness, they flat out bust their teachers.

B) Verses and choruses are for sissies who wank to old-fashioned shit like the Ramones. Truly clever, truly rebellious punk rock does not pander to commercial formula.

C) Offense is golden. To explain why you are offending someone is way beyond the dignity of the artist — in fact, it insults the intelligence of your audience, the only thing worthy of respect. Say «fuck you» first, ask questions later, or, in fact, don't ask questions at all. Patronizing DJs get it first ('Get Off The Air', directed against influential music biz guy Rodney Bingenheimer, an ex­tremely important Kulturträger of the day whom the band, perhaps correctly, accused of dictato­rial aspirations), but neither queers, nor girls, nor, in fact, anyone else escape the swing of the blades when the shit hits the fan.

D) Above all, the necessity of the illusion that all of this is just a semi-articulate stream of con­scious. Ragged shreds of angst, anger, and violence — blurts on insanity and murder that are sup­posed to carve out the proper image of the vicious young man with no hopes of ever finding the right direction (even such a delight as pussy no longer means anything, as is clearly seen in 'You Stupid Asshole': "You took your clothes off / I started to laugh / That's when I knew it was thro­ugh / I guess I'll go take a bath").

Oh, and what about the music? Well, these guys can certainly play; even though by 1980 we had already heard the absolute majority of these riffs, for a bunch of rock critics, they raise plenty of hell. It is not thoroughly uniform; the expanded reissue at least shows that Saunders and Turner had a good ear for pop (check out the introductory riff to 'Carson Girls'), and, instead of hiding beneath bunches of sloppy power chords, they instead take their cues from classic heroes — the Who are clearly echoed on at least a couple of the tracks, and Link Wray on at least a couple of others ('Hot Cars', eh?).

The overall result is not exactly «hilarious», but it achieves its ultimate goal — making the Ra­mo­nes' debut sound like Quadrophenia in comparison. Of course, all of this ongoing struggle against the stale conventions of the pop formula also ensure that Inside My Brain, along with the rest of the Samoans' catalog, will never be as gut-enjoyable as earlier, «conventional» punk classics, but it is fun all the same to witness these guys' interpretation of the quintessential rock aesthetics, even if it's all just a bit of modernistic theater. Thumbs up.

Aerosmith: A Little South Of Sanity

AEROSMITH: A LITTLE SOUTH OF SANITY (1998)

CD I: 1) Eat The Rich; 2) Love In An Elevator; 3) Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees); 4) Same Old Song And Dance; 5) Hole In My Soul; 6) Monkey On My Back; 7) Livin' On The Edge; 8) Cryin'; 9) Rag Doll; 10) Angel; 11) Janie's Got A Gun; 12) Amazing; CD II: 1) Back In The Saddle; 2) Last Child; 3) The Other Side; 4) Walk On Down; 5) Dream On; 6) Crazy; 7) Mama Kin; 8) Walk This Way; 9) Dude (Looks Like A Lady); 10) What It Takes; 11) Sweet Emotion.

No matter how deep the depths this band has attained with its latter day career, one thing is for certain: Aerosmith have always been terrific live performers. This is one unquestionable ad­van­tage they have on their forefathers — most of the Rolling Stones' shows have followed the hit-and-miss principle ever since the departure of Mick Taylor, always depending on just how much out of focus the guitar players are on this particular evening, and on how «playful» the frontman is feeling (as in, «do I want to sing tonight, or do I just feel like jumping?»).

Aerosmith have steadily remained far more reliable. There is not a single video or live recording of the band that I've seen that does not combine a fun atmosphere with a lot of hard work, and their stage presence has only solidified with age. They could be slightly wobbly in the good old days of drug rule, as is clearly seen on Classics Live and bits of Live Bootleg!, but ever since the big clean-up it almost feels like Perry and Whitford have not missed or flubbed one note, whereas Tyler's on-key screaming is, if anything, even more precise and powerful than in the early days. In other words, in the studio they might have still be selling their souls to the devil from dawn to dusk, but onstage, no matter how many crappy MTV hits they had tucked behind their belts, they were still one of the world's greatest rock'n'roll bands.

Which would have surely made this lengthy double CD of live recordings from the Get A Grip and Nine Lives tours their best offering to true fans since the Seventies — if not for the utterly depressing setlist, of course. With but seven out of twenty-three selections recreating the glory of their classic period, this is not even an accurate reflection of the way these tours really went, since normally they used to do about half old stuff, half new stuff. It may, of course, be simply due to the fact that the band did not want to reuse the same tunes that everyone had already heard live on Live Bootleg! etc., but it is way more likely that they were simply hoping to play more into the hands of their new generations of adoring fans, open-minded to the point of digging 'Livin' On The Edge' on par with 'Last Child' and 'Hole In My Soul' on par with 'Dream On'. Well — «no harm in being open-minded», said the executioner, swinging his axe.

Of course, not all of these new hits are bad, and sometimes the live renditions can make you think twice of their quality: 'Love In An Elevator', for instance, in this particular version comes across more like a nice pretext for Perry and Whitford to do some blazing guitar sparring than a forced attempt to outgross the hair metal bands of the late Eighties. But what is the point in offering us note-for-note recreations of all the power ballads they had recorded from 1987 to 1997? As silly as it looks when the entire stadium is rocking its lighters to the steady hypnotic sway of the next processed anthem, it is much sillier (and just as dangerous) when your average fan is doing it alone in front of his stereo.

The one true moment for which the whole record is worth owning is the start of the second disk, as the band, speared on by Tyler's mega-yell of "I GOT BLISTERS ON MY SISTERS!", threate­ningly launches into 'Back In The Saddle'. "So you like the new shit, the old shit, where were you in '78?" he teases the audience. "Where the fuck were you in '79? Magic Mountain, baby, Magic Mountain!" Well, at least the band still remembers where it was in '78, and is able to rock out with the exact same strength. Too bad they only do it for one more number in a row, 'Last Child', and then switch back into teen-pop mode with 'The Other Side'. Oh well; at least they make sure that the album says goodbye with a true classic like 'Sweet Emotion' rather than a generic power ballad like 'What It Takes' (I admire Tyler's courage in singing the first verse acappella, but, gi­ven the number's nauseating level of bathos, the effect is even uglier).

Still, despite all the obvious reservations, a thumbs up — if only out of respect for the band's le­gacy and its ability to maintain integrity on stage even when wading through all the dreck. Plus, 'Walk On Down' rocks. They should let Joe Perry take lead vocals more often.

Al Stewart: Last Days Of The Century

AL STEWART: LAST DAYS OF THE CENTURY (1988)

1) Last Days Of The Century; 2) Real And Unreal; 3) King Of Portugal; 4) Red Toupée; 5) Where Are They Now; 6) Bad Repu­tation; 7) Josephine Baker; 8) License To Steal; 9) Fields Of France; 10) Antarctica; 11) Ghostly Horses Of The Plain; 12*) Helen And Cassandra.

Way too clinical. It is not at all difficult to forgive Russians & Americans — sterile Eighties pro­duction was not only kept at bay on that record, but was also a somewhat new, exciting way to get things wrapped up. By 1988, however, it was mostly clear that, were good taste in music to prevail for the intelligent artists at least, the electronic drums and synthesizers and pop-metal gui­tar solos had to go. But apparently it was not clear to Stewart's new producer, Joe Chiccarelli, who, despite his near-sterling record of work with Frank Zappa and Oingo Boingo, here saddles Al with the worst kind of sound he'd ever received up to that point.

The songs are mostly okay; no great revelations, but the usual folk-pop, modest-hook formula continues to work. The bizarre post-psychedelic chorus of 'Real And Unreal' is ra­ther ugly and poorly sewn on to the otherwise fine lounge jazz essence of the song, and 'King Of Portugal' is a lame attempt at capturing the essence of the late Eighties dance-pop hit, but otherwise, where the songwriting is concerned, we are still in business.

The sound of it all, however, is downright awful. It's all echo and robotic tick-tock synths and big booming drums — so much so that, whenever I hear a bit of Spanish guitar come in, I cannot help but cringe, because what once used to be one of Al's trademarks — he was a big fan of the fla­menco style from the earliest days — is now reduced to the kind of overproduced Latino muzak that haunts us in elevators and cheap eating places. Next to this kind of coating, Alan Parsons is unquestionably the Mozart of production.

It is funny, though, that Stewart, three years later, had been chained to the exact same sound as Bob Dylan was, three years earlier, with Empire Burlesque; in fact, 'License To Steal' half-bor­rows its title from Bob's 'License To Kill' and half-borrows its melody and sound from Bob's 'Clean-Cut Kid', and all of these tunes could have rocked had they been recorded ten years earlier or ten years later. As it stands, they are sorely in need of reinvention.

The second half of the album does seem to be a little more polite to good melodies and a bit less intent on all the New Age stuff. Once you're past all the synthesizer excesses of the first half and the horrendously cheesy backing vocals on 'Red Toupée' (contributed by Tori Amos, no less! of Y Kant Tori Read fame, no less!), you may relax with the aid of Al's cute, sentimental, and some­what touching ode to Josephine Baker (or, in a broader sense, to all the sensual delights of days gone by that we are unable to taste in person, at least not until the Holodeck becomes a reality), the pretty Tullian flute interludes on 'Fields Of France', and the happiest, catchiest anthem to the world's coldest, bitterest continent ever written.

Overall, though, it is very sad that the man was unable to resist the temptations of the «let's turn music to gross shit» decade, but at least he only released one single album in his entire career that sounded in such a horrendous manner. This does not save the album itself from an indignant thumbs down, but it does wipe out all grounds for comparison with Rod Stewart, much as the names would want to lead one into such a temptation.

Aretha Franklin: With Everything I Feel In Me

ARETHA FRANKLIN: WITH EVERYTHING I FEEL IN ME (1974)

1) Without Love; 2) Don't Go Breaking My Heart; 3) When You Get Right Down To It; 4) You'll Never Get To Heaven; 5) With Everything I Feel In Me; 6) I Love Every Little Thing About You; 7) Sing It Again, Say It Again; 8) All Of These Things; 9) You Move Me.

The most remarkable thing about this album is, arguably, its sleeve picture, on which Aretha, first time ever, resorts to a bit of sexploitation — quite a long distance from the prudish cover on Ama­­zing Grace. It did not help; the record was a commercial disaster, and initiated a series of flops that only subsided when Luther Vandross took care of the lady, but that would not be co­ming up until almost a decade later. Worse, it is the first in a series of Aretha albums that, as of now, still have to see a legitimate CD release (my version is a fan-made LP rip with all the re­quired hissing and crackling in place — sweet memories of days gone by).

Understandably, the record is indeed mediocre. But it does not follow exactly the silky-boredom formula of Let Me In Your Life; the artist, the band, and the producers make a serious effort to restore the balance between upbeat and fluffy, and, even though by that time the classic aura of hot late Sixties R'n'B had all but blown away, with strings leading an assault on guitars, glossy, pasteurized production sucking the breath of life out of the rough edges of yesterday, and smooth disco rhythms pummeling out the unpredictable improv aspect of funk, some of these tunes still rock out nicely to shades and memories of ye olde Atlantic R'n'B.

The best song is almost unquestionably sister Carolyn's 'Say It Again', a cool funky sermon with an imaginative wah-wah / brass / organ arrangement, in which Aretha becomes a bit player on the verge of getting forever engulfed in the forest, but who cares if the musicians are so obviously on fire? 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' (nothing to do with the Elton John hit, which had not even be­en written yet) is faster and closer to the nascent disco style in terms of beat and strings use, but is still harmless danceable fun. And the self-penned title track should be allowed to grow on you; it is one of the hottest numbers she ever wrote, or, at least, the backing band has done everything in its power to make it so by adding strange subtle touches (like, for instance, using what sounds like an orchestra of slide guitars — sic! — instead of the actual strings).

Against this background, perfunctory ballads such as 'You Move Me' cannot do too much harm; and, as an added bonus, those behind the wheels suddenly remember that they are actually recor­ding one of the most phenomenal voices in popular music, and let the lady blossom on cool codas to such otherwise simply okayish songs as 'When You Get Right Down To It' (the echo effort on her belting at the last minute works really great with the bass strings) and 'You'll Never Get To Heaven' (wonderful acappella finish as the instruments fade away).

The somewhat successful single was the opening ballad 'Without Love': a moderately memorable pop ballad whose organ introduction happens to be more emotional, however, than Franklin's own singing — hardly the best choice, I'd say; if the idea behind the album was to toughen up her flabbified sound, 'Without Love' is one of the least convincing tunes behind that concept (even the Stevie Wonder cover, in my opinion, one of the weakest things on here overall, sounds tougher than 'Without Love'). Regard­less, the entire record is well worth getting to know, and, at the very least, it is hardly any worse than contemporary (female) R'n'B from 1974. If anything, Aretha was deteriorating together with the times, not against them. Thumbs up.

B. B. King: Indianola Mississippi Seeds

B. B. KING: INDIANOLA MISSISSIPPI SEEDS (1970)

1) Nobody Loves Me But My Mother; 2) You're Still My Woman; 3) Ask Me No Questions; 4) Until I'm Dead And Cold; 5) King's Special; 6) Ain't Gonna Worry My Life Anymore; 7) Chains And Things; 8) Go Underground; 9) Hummingbird.

Going on in the right direction — the album may seem like either a carbon copy of Completely Well or a masterful expansion on its strong sides, depending on one's overall attitude towards B. B. King's «crossover era», but it's enjoyable in either case. This time around, Szymczyk teamed the man with an even huger throng of pop people, not the least of them Carole King herself, who does not contribute to the songwriting, but plays a steady R'n'B-ish piano on more than half of the tracks; second and third on the bill are Joe Walsh and Leon Russell, and you are well encouraged to do more research on the credits yourself — there's a ton of different people here.

Everything works, right from the start, as B. B. in person plays some mighty fine Delta blues chords on the electric piano, singing "nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too" — for one minute and twenty seconds, before the whole band crashes into a rocking perfor­mance of 'You're Still My Woman'. An unsubtle way to remind us that the King still remembers his roots, but necessary, perhaps, since the rest of the album takes us pretty far away from the De­lta in form, and it may require a little refreshening to make us well aware that it is still firmly rooted in the Delta in spirit.

Szymczyk may be overdoing the strings thing at times — now that the gimmick worked so well on 'Thrill Is Gone', he keeps the small orchestra in tow on a constant basis, ready to jump out and contribute each time B. B. switches into ballad mode, and sometimes even beyond that. That said, Jimmie Haskell's arrangements are modest and never get in the way of more important things — on 'You're Still My Woman', they not only do not overshadow the star of the show, but they even leave plenty of space for Carole King to show that she could always earn her living playing the hon­ky-tonk thing in blues bars in the unlikely situation that the royalties were to run out.

The jamming is kept under stricter control this time: there is a five-minute instrumental, 'King's Special', with a brilliant guitar-piano duel between B. B. and Leon Russell, and a short bit of fooling around opens 'Ain't Gonna Worry My Life Anymore', but, overall, meandering improvs are eskewed in favor of lengthier solo bits on regular songs, which keeps the general customer better sa­tisfied with­out alienating the artistically demanding audience either.

The only downside is that a couple of tracks, most notably 'Chains And Things', are an obvious at­tempt to recreate the success of 'Thrill Is Gone' — but, obviously, you cannot artificially recre­ate divine inspiration, and so the album remains without that ultimate megaton-kicker to push it over the threshold that separates «best-of-the-best» from «better-than-the-best». Leon Russell of­fers another chance with his own 'Hummingbird', a song that goes from darkly romantic blues ballad to all-out gospel choir anthem, and everything is splendid except that King has no guitar so­los on the number, which prevents it from falling into the category of «B. B. King songs one cannot do without» — in my eyes at least, you can easily do without any B. B. King song on which Lucille gets a square treatment.

Yet these are minor quibbles. King himself, on occasion, has stated that Indianola might have be­en his biggest artistic statement, and, without being petty about all the details, it is easy to un­derstand that opinion. The man was clearly on a roll: surrounded by great musicians and songwri­ters, a producer who understood how to update his old sound for the new age without compromi­sing it, and enough creative freedom to revel in, he was clearly having the greatest time of his life, much like his namesake Albert, whose career was also peaking around the same years — a great time for the rejuvenation of classic electric blues. Thumbs up, of course.

Antony And The Johnsons: Antony And The Johnsons

ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS: ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS (2000)

1) Twilight; 2) Cripple And The Starfish; 3) Hitler In My Heart; 4) Atrocities; 5) River Of Sorrow; 6) Rapture; 7) Deeper Than Love; 8) Divine; 9) Blue Angel.

Examine a non-provocative picture of Antony Hegarty (say, one on which he does not paint his eyes or face or construct a facial expression that presents him as Saint Anthony), and you will most likely think of the average school nerd, well stocked up on comic books and donut packs but severely suffering from lack of ladies' attention. But then it is exactly that kind of life that deve­lops the perfect Goth sensibilities, doesn't it?

Listening to Antony And The Johnsons, an album first released in 1998 on the small label of David Tibet (Current '93) but prominently noticed only upon its more widespread release in 2000 on Secretly Canadian, people usually laugh or cry. Some are touched and shaken down to the very foundations of their soul. Others giggle, at best, or resort to words like «bollocks» (as in ei­ther, «this is total bollocks», or «where are this guy's bollocks?» — witness how the beauty of polysemy can result in the same word acquiring opposite meanings).

To be fairly honest, my gut intention would be to join the second camp. Hegarty's major asset is his voice — a high, fragile, tear-filled vibrato that sounds thoroughly unique, out-of-nowhere to his young generation fans, even though old-timers have already heard it all before on those clas­sic Roxy Music albums; indeed, the similarity to Bryan Ferry is so transparent that one can't real­ly help but wonder whether the old crooner had not been fathering illegal offspring in his young and reckless days. The similarity, and obvious debt to Roxy Music, already kills off part of the excitement for me; but there's worse.

All of the songs are, generally speaking, written in one key: somber, ominous piano-and-strings ballads whose only purpose is to extol the enticing delights of suffering. «Gothic» certainly co­mes to mind, but, to their credit, Antony and The Johnsons have never been dubbed Goths: there is nothing apocalyptic, or infernal, or zombie-like, or Edgar Allen Poe-ish, about this music, just pounds and pounds and pounds of broken heart for consumption. And Hegarty is not being too cryptic about it, either: "My heart is broken", he says (peace, brother), "here in the cup of my hands — from between cracked fingers old blood spills".

The whole thing, with dark, funebral piano chords, strings that tug at the soul as if urged on by a slavedriver's whip, and Antony's tremolo hovering over it all, is a kind of musical theater that as­pires — not even to Classicism, but rather to Antiquity, with a bare hint at Far Eastern tradition as well. It is ridiculous and grotesque, and seriously off-putting, but I cannot even begin to imagine that a guy like Antony Hegarty professes a serious belief in this act; no man alive who does such things from the very bottom of his heart deserves a place in the art business.

But as an act, an artistic hyperbole in which reason disguises as feeling and calculation poses as emotion, I can dig this, and hold the opinion that it is the only way at all for the Johnsons to be dug without the digger growing a dunce hat. Because, as a manneristic show, the record is pretty much impeccable. The songs aren't particularly well written or memorable; instead, they unfurl like some sort of modern opera, with but one singer taking on all the parts, nine perfectly staged arias in a row. Their individual merits hardly exist, except each has an individually sick lyrical twist ('Cripple And The Starfish' is a chivalrous paean to masochism; 'Rapture' and 'Deeper Than Love' feature the word "falling", pronounced so many times that the mantra may eventually work, so be sure to have your feet firmly on the ground while listening; 'Hitler In My Heart' says it all with its title, really, etc.); but this cannot be held as an accusation, because it is not really a col­lection of pop tunes from a band — it's a mono-spectacle from an aspiring thespian.

It is thus that, out of deep, sincere respect for such elaborate staging, such lifelike decorations, such dazzling costumes, such a perfectly attuned lighting system, and such technical dedication on the part of the performer, I eagerly raise my thumbs up. But if you ever happen to meet some­one who tells you that the debut album from Antony and the Johnsons made a new man / woman out of him / her, you'd better run like hell; like I said, Antony and the Johnsons do not make Go­thic music, but there's a fair chance your rotting corpse will be fucked all the same.

Ani DiFranco: So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter

ANI DIFRANCO: SO MUCH SHOUTING, SO MUCH LAUGHTER (2002)

CD I: 1) Swan Dive; 2) Letter To A John / Tambouritza Lingua; 3) Grey; 4) Cradle And All; 5) Whatall Is Nice; 6) What How When Where; 7) To The Teeth; 8) Revelling; 9) Napoleon; 10) Shrug; 11) Welcome To; CD II: 1) Comes A Time; 2) Ain't That The Way; 3) Dilate; 4) Gratitude; 5) 32 Flavors; 6) Loom / Pulse; 7) Not A Pretty Girl; 8) Self Evident; 9) Reckoning; 10) My IQ; 11) Jukebox; 12) You Had Time; 13) Rock Paper Scissors.

To summarize the lacklustre fizzle-out of the second stage of Ani's career, up comes a fittingly lacklustre live album whose main purpose is to show that the lady has learned to be just as obno­xious and boring onstage as she is in the studio — even if she herself has always said that she felt far more comfortable playing live than recording.

"I don't know why the fuck I play acoustic guitar, I hate that acoustic guitar sound", she greets us on the very first track, producing a louder-than-necessary first chord. A funny, innocent joke, but gruesomely symbolic: many people, no doubt, will want to ask the same question upon compa­ring the bland minimalist acoustic blabber of her XXIst century sound with the awesome style that she used to have years ago and that is still, in bits and pieces, evident on Living In Clip. The setlist for this particular show conveniently drops everything prior to 1994 (with the lonesome ex­ception of 'Gratitude' from Not So Soft, only proving the rule), and focuses intently upon her last three albums, with the top share of the cake going to Reckoning / Revelling.

Ani's little jazz-funk band does a faithful job of keeping up, and they may even be enjoying the proceedings, but it is hard to guess, because the emphasis is on staying fairly close to the quiet, restrained arrangements on the originals, with next to no jamming or improvisation pieces at all. Actually, it doesn't look like she is in great need of the band at all. Most of the songs from the la­test album, for instance, come from the Revelling part, i. e. introspective underwritten acoustic ballads that find little use for the talents of Ravi Best, trumpet, Shane Endsley, trumpet, Todd Horton, trumpet, Daren Hahn, drums, Jason Mercer, bass, Hans Teuber, clarinet, Julie Wolf, keyboards, vocals. (Ani's interaction with Julie is supposed to form some integral artistic part in the structuring of the second CD, subtitled Girls' Singing Night, but the whole thing never really goys far beyond a little dueting, a trifle backing vocals, and some mildly humorous banter).

To put it bluntly, the good tunes have nothing more to say than they did in the confines of the stu­dio, and sometimes less ('Napoleon' and 'What How When Where', in particular, suffer greatly from the lack of studio gimmickry that used to make one pay any attention to them in the first place). Then there are the bad tunes, of which there are many; I find the setlist quite depressing, to be honest — and previewing some numbers off the upcoming Evolve is hardly a profitable bu­siness, either, given the ever-continuing nosedive on that album as well.

But none of this sucks as much as the decision to dedicate a large chunk of the record to nausea­ting political propaganda. It is not enough that she recreates the seven-and-a-half minute torture of 'To The Teeth' in its entirety; one of the new numbers ('Self Evident') is a nine-minute rant on the evils of American politics, spewed off in a quasi-improvised (actually, quite carefully rehear­sed, I think) manner to a boring lounge jazz background.

Let us get this straight: I am aware, and everyone should be, that the lady's schtick is to combine music with social work, and that, if, like Alice Cooper, you believe music and politics should ne­ver mingle, you should stay away from artists like Ani altogether. I do not share that belief; I have no problem with John Lennon singing 'Power To The People' or with people like John Fo­gerty or Robert Smith or Neil Young writing anti-Bush diatribes and setting them to music. After all, music is feelings, and, if you make good music, why should you be confining your feelings to girls, cars, and transcendental meditation instead of expressing your position on relevant issues?

But it is a different thing altogether if you sacrifice music in favor of political propaganda. If the lady believes her true mission is to go out there on stage and enflame people's hearts against the NRA and George W. Bush and the whored-out media etc. etc., that's fine; declare this a political rally and leave your guitar at home. 'Self Evident' is not even poetry — it starts out innocently enough ("Us people are just poems, we are 90% metaphor..."), but pretty soon derails into a series of platitudes with the legions of supporters howling in unison in all the appropriate stops. I will ad­mit, though, that some of the lines, e. g. "Take away our playstations and we are a third world nation", are brilliant. That is the most I can admit.

In toto, re: the album title, there is, indeed, plenty of shouting — on behalf of all the hardcore De­mocrats in the audience that merely dropped in to check if the sun were still shining, or whether DiFranco was still going strong against the NRA, which is approximately the same thing — and there is plenty of laughter, too, mostly on behalf of Ani herself, who is occasionally trying to de­flate the ser­mon aspect of it all by giggling like the quintessential schoolgirl (I find the contrast cringeworthy, but that's just me). What is seriously lacking in between all the shouting and all the laughter is any sort of viable reason why the heck this woman is still being defined as a «singer, guitarist, and songwriter», when she is doing her best to effectively sabotage all three of these aspects. Thumbs down, egads. At this stage, apparently even Robert Christgau gave up on her (formerly a major fan, he hasn't written one single review of any of her albums since 2002).