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 The Men & Black
Frank Black is releasing only one record this year. But it’s a really big one, with a large cast of characters to match. By Mikael Wood
As leader of the Pixies, Black Francis headed up construction of one of the most compact bodies of work in all of alternative rock: five albums in about five years, each tightly packed with jagged yet tuneful noise-pop that earned far more acclaim after the Boston band’s breakup in 1992 than during its lifetime. With the Pixies finished — at least until 2004, when the quartet reunited for a series of rapturously received live shows — Francis changed his name to Frank Black and began a solo career in which he’s produced one of alternative rock’s most sprawling bodies of work: 11 albums so far, spanning the stylistic gamut from futuristic surf music to Tex-Mex roots rock to live-in-the-studio garage pop.
Black’s latest is a double-disc set called Fastman Raiderman (Back Porch/EMI). Like last year’s Honeycomb, it’s a country-fried effort recorded primarily in Nashville with a large cast of legendary sidemen, including Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson and Levon Helm of the Band. “You can take a pile of songs this size and you can make an A list and a B list,” Black says on the phone from his home in Oregon. “And while the A-list stuff that ends up on the record may be good, you’re always kind of disappointed that three or four things from the top of the B list aren’t on there. You’re like, ‘Well, I still like it. How’s it ever gonna see the light of day?’ ” One answer: Release it all.
You’ve been tremendously prolific in the 14 years since the Pixies broke up. I’m sure that there are people out there who are way more prolific than me. One of the guys that plays on my new record used to play with Van Morrison, and it came up in conversation that apparently Van always has about 12 albums’ worth of material on the back burner. He’s constantly recording, and whenever he needs a record he just culls from this pile of 15 hours of music — “Okay, let’s make an album out of this.”
Do you have stuff on the back burner? Not really, no. If I could put out two or three records a year, I’d be perfectly happy doing that.
You did release two in 2002: Black Letter Days and Devil’s Workshop. But the record industry doesn’t really encourage that today. So releasing Fastman Raiderman as a double album is a surreptitious way to put out two albums in one year. It’s also an aesthetic thing, I think. A lot of people have this notion of the good, solid album — that’s a certain take on one’s music. And then the other take is, “Hey, let it all hang out, man!” Where your manager or your producer is saying, “Why don’t you whittle it down to the best 35 minutes,” and you’re going, “No, man — just put it all out there.”
Tell me about recording with the old-school guys you got to play on Honeycomb and the new one. Cool experience? Oh, yeah, it’s great. It sort of legitimizes you — it makes you feel good about your own stuff. These guys, they’ve sat around with some of the biggest names in the business, and now they’re sitting around the table with you, discussing your arrangement and playing your stuff. And seemingly approving, you know? It’s not like they’re saying, “Gee, we’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.” They’re working to make it as good as they can. That feels good.
Did it feel like working with a bunch of pros? Or was it similar to playing in a band? They seem like rock musicians to me. A lot of them probably have led much wilder lives than I ever have. They’re all veterans of the 1960s; they’ve all got these war stories. They’re older, but they’re almost like a bunch of old bikers. They’ve seen it all, as far as what the music business has to offer.
Has the process increased how much you focus on the technical aspects of your playing? Yeah, a little bit. My breaking of a lot of rules — which, when I started out, came from an innocent, naive place — have become certain stylistic things. And I think the Nashville guys have made me aware of things that I do that they don’t run across every day. They just kind of go, “Here he comes again with his weird chord progression.” And that’s good. I’ve been doing it long enough that it comes off naturally and with a lot of confidence.
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 Alejandro Escovedo
The Boxing Mirror
(Back Porch/Narada)
For fans of: the Velvet Underground, No Depression magazine
Over the course of a three-decade career — from his days with ’70s San Francisco punks the Nuns to leading ’80s Texas rockers the True Believers, to his moody, rootsy solo work — Alejandro Escovedo has established himself as one of the most consistent and revered talents working in the American underground. But his world came crashing down in 2003 after he collapsed following a performance in Phoenix and was diagnosed with a potentially fatal case of hepatitis C. The next few years saw Escovedo battle the condition as a group of his musical peers rallied around him, recording the tribute album Por Vida to help defray his medical costs. Finally recovering his health, he’s spent the past year making a gradual return to the road and the studio, resulting in this stellar comeback effort. Produced by longtime friend and former Velvet Undergrounder John Cale, the 11 tracks here spike Escovedo’s signature brand of melancholy, orchestral Americana with a batch of atmospheric sounds, electronic touches, and programmed beats. Lyrically influenced by his recent experiences, the album brims with haunting, powerful tales of sobriety (“Arizona”), mortality (“I Died a Little Today”), and family (“Evita’s Lullaby”). All told, it’s a literate and musically moving song cycle that matches the depth and resonance of Escovedo’s best work. — Bob Bozorgmehr
 Golden Smog
Another Fine Day
(Lost Highway)
For fans of: Ryan Adams, Neil Young
What does it take to get alt-country supergroup Golden Smog back together following an eight-year silence in studio recordings? A car. A Corvette, to be exact. According to band member (and Soul Asylum guitarist) Dan Murphy, a certain Mr. Madonna had a hand in the reformation as well. “Marc Perlman received a call in an attempt to get Golden Smog to write a song for a Guy Ritchie–produced Corvette commercial,” Murphy says. As it turns out, the song recorded for that commercial, simply called “Corvette,” was enough to fuel the desire of the various members — Gary Louris and Perlman (Jayhawks), Murphy, Kraig Jarrett Johnson (Run Westy Run), Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) — to adjust their schedules and complete a full album. A logistical nightmare, to be sure, but a fulfilling result, as Another Fine Day is the perfect addition to a roots-rock fan’s collection, fitting nicely between the Ryan Adams and Neil Young CDs.
The combo’s third full-length album features 15 tracks that mix and mesh the different styles of the performers into a smorgasbord of sound. The title track, as well as the feedback-filled “Beautiful Mind,” resemble Summerteeth-era Wilco, while album closer “Think about Yourself” sounds like the prototypical Jayhawks track. Louris and Tweedy double up on the vocals of “Listen Joe,” a sad, acoustic-guitar based number, and a cover of Dave Davies’ “Strangers,” before getting deeper in the album and delving into the past, echoing circa-1965 garage rock on “Frying Pan Eyes.” Recorded over a year in two polar-opposite locales — the south of Spain and Minneapolis — surprisingly, Another Fine Day’s final cuts don’t indicate the piecemeal situation in which they were put together. Now if only they string together some live dates.
— James Mayfield
 Wilson Pickett
The Definitive
Collection
(Rhino/WEA) For fans of: Al Green, Otis Redding
The passing of Wilson Pickett from a heart attack this past January quieted one of R&B’s most essential voices at the age of 65. Although there’s no real shortage of Pickett hit sets out there, Rhino’s new two-disc The Definitive Collection is a timely tribute to the irrepressible grit ‘n’ gravel-voiced legend. Replacing the label’s now-out-of-print 1992 comp A Man and a Half: The Best of Wilson Pickett, this new set doesn’t dig quite as deep, but the 30 tracks here neatly capture all the high points of the Wicked One’s career — from his earliest days with gospel vocal group the Falcons (“I Found a Love”) to his early singles (“It’s Too Late”) to the peerless sides recorded in Memphis with the Stax label crew (“In the Midnight Hour”), and later with Alabama’s Fame studio sessioneers (“Mustang Sally”). All newly remastered, the songs’ sound quality (one of the major complaints with A Man and a Half) is genuinely impressive, adding a new luster to a set of tunes — among them “Land of a Thousand Dances,” “634-5789 (Soulsville U.S.A.),” and “Don’t Fight It” — that Pickett turned into soul standards. — B.B.
 The Jesus and Mary Chain
Psychocandy,
Darklands,
Automatic,
Honey’s Dead,
Stoned and
Dethroned
(Rhino/Warner)
For fans of: VH1 Classic’s The Alternative
Founded in the mid-’80s, combustible Scottish post-punk outfit the Jesus and Mary Chain never left much of an impression on the charts, but the group has had a pervasive influence on everyone from contemporaries like My Bloody Valentine and the Stone Roses through modern acts like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and the Raveonettes. Led by brothers William and Jim Reid, the band emerged from the morass of fey New Romantic music dominating the British charts with a sound that combined the debauched noir elements of proto-punks like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges with the melodic panache of ’60s pop and girl group auteurs like Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. That delicate balance was captured perfectly on the band’s first effort, 1985’s Psychocandy, a landmark of light/dark tension that remains one of rock’s most celebrated debuts. The group followed that with plenty of sibling battles, label conflicts, lineup changes, and three more albums of brilliant feedback-laden rock (a nearly perfect run encompassing 1987’s Darklands, 1989’s Automatic, and 1992’s Honey’s Dead). After an extended break, due partly to the Reids’ bickering, they reemerged in 1994 with the muted, largely acoustic Stoned and Dethroned. They later signed to American indie Sup Pop for 1998’s subpar swan song Munki, and the band called it quits the following year. Each of the remastered discs here comes in DualDisc format and packaged with a trio of DVD video clips. There’s nothing in the way of bonus tracks or unreleased material, but there’s little need for them, as these LPs — a true cornerstone of alternative music — stand on their own. — B.B.
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Paint It Black The legend of Bobby Dukes, paintball’s first superstar, can now be told. By Zac Crain More often than not, when a film is referred to as a "festival favorite" with a "limited theatrical release," it means that said film is probably not very good. There are exceptions, of course, but then, that’s why I said "more often than not." Do try to keep up. Here’s the deal: There are so many festivals out there now that practically any film can claim to have been a favorite at one of them and not really be lying. But there is a pretty big difference between wowing the crowds at, say, Sundance or Cannes and doing the same thing at some scrubby shindig in the middle of nowhere. You know, one of those places where the organizers are so happy to have anything, they say that everyone’s a winner. They’re like T-ball games where the parents agree not to keep score. As for "limited theatrical release," well, it isn’t exactly a harbinger of greatness, no matter how you slice it. It’s more or less a way to shield a movie from the dreaded straight-to-video category, the realm of slapped-together sequels and low-budget knockoffs. If your film played even once in some out-of-the-way art house, you can get by on technicalities and semantics. It’s pretty awesome. Thus I approached Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story (Shout! Factory) with a bit of trepidation, being that it was a "festival favorite" with a "limited theatrical release." Again, that’s like when a real estate ad says "charming" (read: "oppressively tiny") and "a steal at this price" (read: "been on the market for more than a year and will be burned down for insurance money if not moved within the month"). But Blackballed is one of those glorious exceptions, thanks to a great cast (headed by The Daily Show’s Rob Corddry) and a solid formula: Waiting for Guffman + Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story x the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre-fueled improv comedy scene. I’ll take the elements of that formula one at a time. • Like Waiting for Guffman, Christopher Guest’s 1996 mockumentary masterpiece, Blackballed follows a group of small-town losers hilariously unaware of their lower-rung status. Their leader is Bobby Dukes (Corddry), the fallen hero of the paintball world. After telling the tale of his disgrace via He-Man action figures — turns out Dukes committed the sport’s ultimate sin, "wiping" after he’d been shot — the film picks up after his decade-long ban has expired. Dukes returns to the world of his former triumphs and finds that no one wants to be associated with a cheater. One of his former teammates tells him, "I’d take a bullet for you. Just not … a painted bullet." So he’s forced to join up with the referee who got him banned in the first place (Best Week Ever’s Paul Scheer) and cobble together a new team. • Dodgeball wasn’t exactly a smash when it was released in 2004, but it’s done much better on cable and DVD, where viewers get a better chance to appreciate its quotable appeal. Blackballed should fit right into that same fringe-sport niche, since everyone involved completely buys into the fake mystique they’ve created for paintball and for Dukes. Example: During Dukes’s first practice game after coming back, one of his opponents refers to being shot by the former legend as a "religious experience." That’s just about when I was sold on Blackballed. Though, honestly, if someone made a Hacky Sack movie and everyone got through it with a straight face, I’d probably love that too. • The cast (which includes Corddry, Scheer, Rob Riggle, Rob Huebel, Ed Helms, Owen Burke, and Seth Morris, and Dannah Feinglass) may not be filled with household names, but they’re all stars on the improv-comedy circuit, which centers around the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatres in New York and Los Angeles. Besides The Daily Show, you’ve likely seen more than a few of them on VH1’s Best Week Ever, as well as Saturday Night Live and Mad TV. They’re perfect here, to the point where you sort of forget it’s a movie after a while or at least forget it’s not a documentary. No one breaks character, which is essential to a movie like this and seemingly impossible whilst spewing out reams of paintball jargon. After the movie finished, I really did believe it was a "festival favorite." But I couldn’t figure out why it only got a "limited theatrical release." It certainly deserves better, and maybe it will get that now that it’s on DVD. Because I’d take a bullet for it. Even a painted one.
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 John Fogerty
The Long Road Home:
In Concert
(Fantasy)
Given John Fogerty’s long recording absences and sometimes prickly public persona, it’s been easy to forget the fact that the former Credence Clearwater Revival front man remains one of the most significant singer-songwriters of the past half century. A video companion to last year’s first-ever career-spanning best-of CD, The Long Road Home, is a further attempt to remind us of that fact, as he works through 26 of his greatest hits. Shot during a performance at Los Angeles’s Wiltern Theatre last September and helmed by Martyn Atkins (the director also responsible for Tom Petty’s live-at-the-Filmore flick High Grass Dogs [1999] and 2005’s stellar Cream reunion DVD), the 105-minute concert captures Fogerty in fine form, as he seamlessly segues between CCR and solo classics. The track list itself is testament to the enduring power of the man’s songbook, which ranges from familiar FM standards like "Proud Mary" to catalog chestnuts like "Rockin’ All Over the World" through to newly penned gems like "Déjà Vu All Over Again." Fogerty hammers home each, playing and singing with a vigor that belies 60-plus years and reminds us that he remains a living, breathing rock-and-roll institution. — B.B.
 The Bill Cosby Show:
Season One
(Shout! Factory)
Most people are familiar with the eight seasons Bill Cosby spent as Dr. Cliff Huxtable, dispensing life lessons to Rudy and Theo while wearing sweaters that looked like Jackson Pollock canvases. That was The Cosby Show, an early staple of NBC’s Must-See TV Thursdays and the series that revived the sitcom, not to mention the network on which it appeared. But The Bill Cosby Show was something different. Coming on the heels of his Emmy-winning turn as Alexander Scott in I Spy, Cosby’s first sitcom (which ran from 1969 to 1971) bears no resemblance to his second take on the form. Collected here on four discs, the first season of The Bill Cosby Show plays more like Seinfeld, with Cosby’s Chet Kincaid, a gym teacher at an L.A. high school, finding himself in a somewhat simple situation that spirals out of control by the time the end credits roll. It was ahead of its time in many ways, eschewing a laugh track and not shying away from real-life problems. It wasn’t his biggest success, but as these episodes show, maybe it should have been. — Z.C.
 We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
(Plexifilm)
Among the myriad music documentaries that have emerged in the past few years, none is as welcome or affecting as this film about San Pedro, California, proletariat punks the Minutemen. Director Tim Irwin and producer Keith Schieron have managed to capture the everyman essence that propelled late guitarist D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt, and drummer George Hurley from their humble blue-collar beginnings ("we’re just dudes from Pedro") to becoming arguably the most respected and creatively ambitious band to emerge from the ’80s American indie underground (a period documented thoroughly in Michael Azerrad’s 2001 book, Our Band Could Be Your Life — the title of which comes from a Minutemen lyric). Built around Watt’s and Hurley’s narrative, as well as on archival band footage and new interviews with fans, friends, and fellow musicians (including Richard Hell, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and Black Flag’s Henry Rollins), the film charts an incredible run of albums and live performances that the band produced during its all-too-brief five-year career. At its core, the Minutemen tale is a kind of love story, a Damon and Pythias friendship forged between Watt and Boon, who met as teenagers and used music as a means to both celebrate and transcend their bleak working-class environs until it all ended suddenly and tragically with Boon’s death in a 1985 auto accident. This two-disc set is loaded with a variety of bonus material, including deleted scenes and promo videos. But particularly welcome is a trio of complete live shows, including the band’s notorious 1980 gig at L.A.’s Starwood club. Truly essential viewing. — B.B.
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