Album Review: Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

The A.V. Club, Jan. 23 2006 Link

It's not like Kevin Barnes has never written sad songs with coherent lyrics—he lurched in and out of good moods between his acid-fueled romps through the thesaurus on Of Montreal's last two albums, The Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic In The Attic—but it's a little surprising to hear nearly an entire album of them. "Suffer For Fashion," the first track on Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, throws up a swirl of lo-fi synths and power chords, and for a few minutes, it seems it might continue the Satanic/Sunlandic party. It's clear that isn't the case by the end of the third track, "Cato As A Pun," when Barnes tells a friend, "I guess you just want to shave your head, have a drink, and be left alone," locking in the frustration and resignation that grips most of the rest of this album.

Still, it's all darkly beautiful, because Barnes continues to emote more through the music than through his words; "Cato" follows that stark message with close to 60 seconds of icy keyboards, as if to ease people into accepting that they're getting a newly unadulterated, prolonged taste of his personal life. The real test comes on "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal," which includes nearly 10 minutes of Barnes' plainspoken tales of failed relationships and self-loathing. As the track drags on, Barnes' directness cuts through much of the mystery and sheer weirdness that made his previous records so enjoyable, exchanging it for a single, rambling catharsis.

Barnes stops short of forcing people to feel his pain for 50 minutes: The bedroom-Funkadelic layers of vocals on "Faberge Falls For Shuggie" and "Labyrinthian Pomp" make it mercifully impossible to tell what he's talking about for most of eight minutes. The uneasiness lingers even on those tracks, but—in case his mastery of lo-fi delight made anyone forget—Barnes' melodic imagination doesn't stop at euphoria.

A.V. Club Rating: B

Interview: Ricky Gervais

The A.V. Club, Jan. 10 2007 Link

This one's long, so just click the link for the whole thing, but here are some highlights.

AVC: Do you think people sometimes laugh at things for the wrong reasons?

RG: I just don't think there's any pleasure in getting an easy laugh. There can be no reward. You stand at the back of a chain comedy club, and those guys come out and they're going, "Ha! What's going on with Scooby-Doo? A talking dog!" And I want to shout, "It's a kids' program!" What vein of comedy gold have they really hit upon there? Then some other guy goes, "Ugh, the '70s, haircuts were different, weren't they?" I want to go, "Well, yeah, but I don't know what you've done there." I don't get observational comedy. It's observational, but they've just left out the comedy bit. And these people are cracking up! They couldn't laugh any more. So you think, "Why would I try and make those people laugh? I don't need to make them laugh. They're happy enough. I'd probably just spoil it for them." I'm aiming at someone else. I'm not uptight about it. I don't want to close those comedy clubs down, I just don't want to play them.

....

AVC: Is Andy's disastrous sitcom, When The Whistle Blows, your nightmare show?

RG: I just wouldn't do it, and I know that I wouldn't be happy doing it, because it's too easy. There's nothing wrong with it. Those shows still exist in England, they have for 30 years, there's no change there, but you know what? On one side, there's people wearing wigs and doing smutty innuendo and shouting a catchphrase, and on the other side, there's Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development and Larry Sanders and Christopher Guest. I don't sit through shows and go, "Damn them, why do they put that on?" I just don't watch them. It's not a crusade. It's a source of comedy for me. That those shows exist is better for me, I think. That's great. Long live them!

Unfortunately, I'm compared with The Office. I can't win. That's what's unfair. I want Extras to be compared to When The Whistle Blows. For every wacky postcard, there's a million people waiting to buy it, and for every $10 million of those things, there's one Rembrandt. Purposely, I think I want to aim at doing something that a lot of people won't like. You want a door policy on your club. It's as simple as that. I'm just worried that it looks like I've compared my work with Rembrandt. "Gervais says he's better than Rembrandt!"

AVC: Don't worry, this isn't the British press.

RG: Oh, fuckin' tell me about it. There's not a day goes by when I don't go, "You fuckers!" And I've had a really good ride with them. And The Office is better than Shakespeare as well, by the way.

...

AVC: You didn't have any problem getting Diana Rigg to get a condom thrown on her head?

RG: That's a day's work, isn't it? I remember it. It was a really hot day on the bus, and I remember laughing while I was going, "Can you just hang it over the right eye a little bit more?" And I was thinking, That's a weird job. Asking Dame Diana Rigg to wear a condom hanging over her eye a little bit more. "What did you do at the office today?" "I hung a condom off Diana Rigg's head. What did you do?" But no, she was fine. It was in the script. She was a good sport.

AVC: One of the funniest scenes in season two is when David Bowie writes a song about you in a bar. Did he write that himself?

RG: He wrote the music, [but not] the lyrics. I sent him the script and I said, "We thought maybe it could be quite retro, something off Hunky Dory, with an anthemic chorus, like 'Life On Mars.'" He went, "Oh, sure, I'll just knock off a 'Life On Mars.'" And I laughed and went, "Oh, yeah, that did sound quite insulting, didn't it?" He knew what to give us. He gave us über-Bowie. [Sings.] "See his pug-nosed face…" The crew was singing it for about a week.

Throw Out Those Catalogues

The A.V. Club, Madison print edition, Dec. 21 2006

By now it’s too late to order Christmas gifts from your major mail-order and Internet food vendors and get them shipped on time. The A.V. Club explains, item by item, why you’re better off doing your last-minute shopping here in Madison.

Twelve Coffees of Christmas ($39.95)
Tired of coffee that just tastes like coffee? How about coffees that have been forced to taste like twelve other things, including egg nog, gingerbread, candy cane, and chocolate cherry?
Where To Get It: Harryanddavid.com
Turnoff: By now it’s just too late to enjoy this along the proper timeline. Christmas is ruined! Also, flavored coffees are often disgusting. Maybe these ones aren’t, but you just never know until they’ve already got your money.
Local Alternative: Harry and David’s gift pack offers only about a pound of coffee for a price that could buy you three or four from any number of places around town. If you must have theme with that, Ancora Coffee Roasters’ (various locations, see ancora-coffee.com) Holiday Blend combines Rwandan and Kona coffees, with none of that flavoring nonsense.

Moose Munch Basket ($49.95)
Harry and David has slapped the name “Moose Munch” all over many of its products, including its caramel popcorn, popcorn balls, coffee, and more. The name is supposed to be endearing, but it really sounds like the stuff should come in a feedbag.
Where To Get It: Harryanddavid.com
Turnoff: While moose are majestic creatures, watching them eat is not appetizing.
Local Alternative: Clary’s Gourmet Popcorn (105 State St., 255-2994) is selling its usual popcorn treats with some moderate, non-appetite-disrupting themes (red-and-green popcorn, etc.). If you still crave some moose in your life, Clary’s has tins decorated with the critters.

Any Smithfield Ham (Various prices)
For generations, the ham purveyors of Smithfield, Virginia, have ham-ified the holidays, heaping up all the hulking ham you can stand to cram into your ham-hole. Ham!
Where To Get It: Smithfieldhams.com
Turnoff: Smithfield’s hams look huge, threatening, and often grotesque in the catalogue photos. If you dropped one of them into Starship Troopers, it’d get shot to bits in no time flat.
Local Alternative: The beast in you may awaken from a ham-induced coma for the much-classier bison and ostrich roast options at Artamos Specialty Meats & Deli (714 S. Whitney Way, 442-5929).

Peppermint Martini Tray ($99.95)
Not only does it come with peppermint martini mix, it also includes a “snowflake-themed bar towel,” peppermint truffles, peppermint bark, and a serving tray.
Where To Get It: Harryanddavid.com
Turnoff: Who wants to sip on a peppermint martini after taking the brats to get peppermint ice cream, adjusting the giant plastic candy canes in the front yard, and throwing away friends’ joke gifts of peppermint condoms? (Editor’s Note: The A.V. Club made up peppermint condoms on a whim, only to do an Internet search and find that peppermint condoms do indeed exist.)
Local Alternative: Go to any of Madison’s respectable local bars. Order a martini. Observe the simple flavors that have made the martini a worldwide favorite for decades. Notice how none of them are peppermint. — Scott Gordon

Permanent Records: Elvis Costello's King Of America

The A.V. Club (Web only), Jan. 9 2007 Link

The context: By 1986—not even 10 years into his solo recording career—Elvis Costello had already sped across the map and back, from straight-ahead rock (My Aim Is True) to expensively arranged adventures (Imperial Bedroom). Appropriately, King Of America came between the cheesy mess of Goodbye Cruel World and Blood & Chocolate, the most instantly gratifying rock record he's ever made. For all but one track on King, Costello temporarily ditched his raucous backing trio, The Attractions, and longtime producer Nick Lowe, in favor of a country-tinged backing band (dubbed The Costello Show) and producer T-Bone Burnett, who'd already worked with rootsy musicians as diverse as Emmylou Harris and Los Lobos.

The greatness: Costello wasn't new to dabbling in country sounds, having fronted a country-rock band before going solo and craftily borrowed from Americana on most of his early albums. He's so confident with it on this album that it often sneaks by without notice, and his approach to his persona is just as restrained. Costello spent the early years of his career trying to prove what a vengeful shit he could be, but by 1986 he seemed comfortable admitting that he's just a bitter romantic, and thanks to the dry, subdued arrangements, it never sounds like he's trying to prove anything about himself. Without The Attractions' muscle behind it, everything from the unconditional (well, as Costello songs go) declaration of love "I'll Wear It Proudly" to "Sleep Of The Just" (which closes the album with an ominous scene of a group of soldiers courting a girl in their barracks) leaves Costello's songwriting almost naked. If that wasn't enough to minimize Costello as a musician, he credits his own guitar parts to "The Little Hands Of Concrete."

Definitive song: Costello may be admired more for biting wit than for storytelling, but "American Without Tears" is the climax of an album that masters both. How many songwriters can comment that "On TV they prosecute anyone who's exciting," then slip into a World War II-era love story without sounding idiotic? It's plainspoken enough to be anyone's favorite country ballad, but it still gives Costello room to say everything he wants to say.