CD reviews

Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School of Medicine
The Audacity of Hype
(Alternative Tentacles)
*5.0*
Goes well with: Dead Kennedys, D.O.A., Lard

Most people mark their midlife crisis by buying a stupid car or having an affair. Jello Biafra celebrated his mid-century mark by starting a new band. I know what you’re thinking: Doesn’t he release an album every year? Jello insists that those recordings are the result of collaborations, whereas Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School of Medicine is his first band since Dead Kennedys.

While that may or may not be true, The Audacity of Hype is a decent record with a diverse range of songs—all with pointed lyrics. “Three Strikes” skewers California, one of Jello’s favorite targets. “Electronic Plantation” features some spooky guitar work that calls to mind DK at their finest. “I Won’t Give Up” is Jello’s personal manifesto, with lines like “Flat screen, flat screen on the wall, who’s the best marketed of them all,” indicating Jello will keep fighting the fight regardless of who’s in office.

One of the more hypocritical things about the record is the packaging, which makes extensive use of artwork by Shepard Fairey, who designed the famous “HOPE” poster for the Obama campaign. If you’re going to criticize the Obama administration as a hype machine headed by an empty suit, it’s probably not a good idea to use the work of an artist widely criticized for plagiarizing images and appropriating political art for personal gain.

Perhaps it’s not the emperor, but, rather, the old punk who has no clothes.

—Jim Ruland

Digital Leather
Warm Brother
(Fat Possum)
*7.2*
Goes well with: Ween, Jay Reatard, No Age

I first became aware of Shawn Foree’s Digital Leather through an announcement from the ever-evolving Fat Possum label. Those cats have come a long way from the early days of niche market releases by R.L. Burnside and T-Model Ford, quietly amassing a superb, eclectic roster that includes San Diego’s own Wavves and Crocodiles. Warm Brother (Nazi SS slang for homosexual) is both the first release on the label and the first time Foree has gone beyond bedroom four-track recordings and worked in a proper studio.

Label mate Jay Reatard manages the band, and much is made of the fact that Foree was raised at a Baha’i hippie commune in Arizona, dropped out of college and has a penchant for drugs. Throw in quotes like “99.9 percent of this record is me and my engineer getting fucked up and doing weird stuff with instruments,” and the hype is in danger of being more interesting than the music. Luckily for Foree, it’s not.

His mix of deconstructed punk-blues-pop pretty much holds interest for all 35 minutes, peaking with the chugging fuzz of “Photo Lie,” tweaked-out synth-pop of “Kisses” and the distorted hand-clap sing-along “Not Now.”

Foree has plenty of room to grow, but I’ll definitely be interested in what he has in hand the next time he emerges from the drug den.

—Scott McDonald

Tom Waits
Glitter and Doom Live
(Anti-)
*7.9*
Goes well with: Captain Beefheart, Mitch Hedberg, coffee and cigarettes

Tom Waits’ live performances, like his confounding interviews, are the stuff of legend, due in no small part to his skill of mystification. Announcing the “Glitter and Doom” tour last year, he put that skill to good use. In a mock press conference with pre-recorded questions and camera snaps, he explained that tour-stop locations were chosen to make the shape of the constellation Hydra, forming the baffling acronym: PEHDTSCKJMBA. We just took his word for it.

Glitter and Doom Live, a two-disc compilation of highlights from tour dates across the Southwest and Europe, is comparatively straightforward. Waits’ voice is as gravelly as ever, and his band is tight and versatile, matching his variegated moods. The first disc features plenty of classic Waits songs, and it’s all pulled off with panache, whether it’s the gritty blues of “Going Out West,” the ghostly moans of “Trampled Rose” or the classy horn skronk of “Metropolitan Glide.”

But it’s the second disc that makes Glitter and Doom Live a lasting contribution to the Waits oeuvre. In one 35-minute track, he shares factoids and tells silly yarns about things like weasel fur and the SPAM Museum. All of it may or may not be true, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.

—Peter Holslin