Episode 23
Welcome to the one about concept albums!
What a concept for an episode, right?
*Phew… tough crowd*
Anyway, pleased to be having at the clicking!
Once upon a bog moon we came up with all of the foregoing! #bogmonstermusic #bogmoon
And… you know for sure the episode goes down way better with the requisite YouTube playlist!
Dan’s Notes
Concept Albums
Mountain Goats – Beat The Champ
Part reflection on Mountain Goats mastermind John Darnielle’s love of the territories era of the squared circle during a difficult part of his childhood, part exploration of the small time grappler’s journeys on the road as metaphor for our struggles against The Big Darkness in life, this album is also one of my absolute favorite bands writing 13 great songs about another one of my favorite things. I feel like films like the recent “The Iron Claw” (whose subjects the Von Erich family’s WCCW promotion was a big part of the so-called Southwest Territory of the National Wrestling Alliance cartel of regional promotions at the time, and was where several of the actual wrestlers referenced on this album like Bruiser Brody and Chavo Guerrero worked back in the day) really capture the emotional weight that the stories told in-ring can carry, as well as the physical and emotional toll it takes on the people who tell those stories for a living, especially in hard-traveling days before it became a big money TV-based industry, so why not have one of the best lyricists in indie rock, whose songs often tell the stories of people en route between one place and another, and often in the midst of destroying themselves in the process, to write an album’s worth of songs about self-destruction for the sake of storytelling? The songs are divided between meditations on the lives (and deaths in one case) of actual figures from pro wrestling of the era, including a chilling retelling of the murder of Bruiser Brody in “Stabbed To Death Outside Of San Juan”, and small stores based around aspects of the small town travelling wrestler’s life like “Werewolf Gimmick” and “Southwest Territory”. On top of it all it’s another great album by one of my favorite bands of the part thirty years or so and therefore definitely a recommend from me and one I had to include here.
Panopticon – Kentucky
Masterminded by Austin Lunn from Louisville KY, released in 2011 as his first really high profile release under the Panopticon moniker that he would later expand into a full band in the mid 2010’s. Imagine a musical version of Harlan County USA or Matewan, but with blast beats and also ocarinas and ocarina solos over blast beats. And lots and lots of banjos. The blending of melodic black metal and folk music is something not new to the genre, but usually coming more from the traditions of the Scandinavian regions the genre rose out of, and a lot of time in service of sketchy right wing ideologies. Panopticon take it all in a different direction by marrying black metal with the Appalachian folk music of their home alongside a heavy dose of good old socialism and tales of union struggles against exploitative employers in the mining industry of the region. I thought the idea of mixing black metal with other folk music forms works really well on this album, with bits of quiet melody of the folky bluegrass parts of things add a really cool counterpoint to the blasting black metal bits, and really fit well with the working class themes of the lyrics. Hell, they straight up cover Florence Reece’s union anthem of the 1930’s Kentucky Miner’s strikes that partially inspired the record – the rousing “Which Side Are You On?” partway through the record. The great film podcast Horror Vanguard recently did an episode looking at the 1976 documentary “Harlan County USA” about the bitter fights between miners’ unions and exploitative resource extraction companies in rural Kentucky over the years in the context of a tale of horror, but one where the murders are conducted via economic exploitation and environmental degradation rather than chainsaw or knife fingered glove so why not make an album in the spookiest of metal subgenres to tell a similar story. If you’re interested in black metal, roots/americana type music and/or working class politics I’d say give this album a spin!
Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
What do you do when you are Canada’s most sonically ambitious critical darling hardcore-meets-shoegaze-meets-etc band after winning one of your country’s biggest musical awards on your second album? Why double album rock opera expanding the narrative of a song on your first album into an 18 song nearly 80 minute epic about love and death set against the backdrop of labour unrest in 1980’s Thatcherite England of course, that being Fucked Up’s David Comes To Life 2xLP released in 2011. Oh yeah with an accompanying “soundtrack” of songs by imaginary bands played by different combinations of the FU crew and their friends making the music that they imagined the central characters of “David….” would have listened to in the accompanying David’s Town 12” released alongside the record to boot. I said they were ambitious, right? One of the things I really like about Fucked Up is that they don’t mind taking time to explore an idea with a song, and while they use a pretty standard punk/indie framework as a starting point, they build all sorts of little ebbs and flows and weird shifts in sound in very galaxy-brained ways of a band that you know are all just a bunch of total record nerds at heart. This makes them the perfect sort of band to try and pull off a full on rock opera in continuing their tragic tale of the fictional titular David who tried to blow up a factory whose workers were locked in a bitter strike to impress Veronica, one of the strike’s organizers who he was also in love with, who first appeared in the song of the same name from their 2006 album Hidden World. Is this the Quadrophenia of the GTA hardcore scene? Who knows, but this band is one that has never let anyone tell them what they should be doing or how they should be doing it, whether it’s a rock opera or their recent collaborations with EDM-meets-First Nations music pioneers The Halluci-Nation or bringing a touring company of punk scene-adjacent professional wrestlers to have matches before their sets on a recent road excursion of theirs. These folks really paved the way for a lot of your Turnstiles and whatnots in terms of expanding the sound and reach of hardcore over the past couple of decades and this double album is definitely Fucked Up at their most Fucked Up-iest so if you somehow haven’t heard it already so for sure check it out.
Milemarker – Satanic Versus
This was going to be a runner-up for me at first, and then one of the key figures in realizing part of the overarching concepts passed away not long before we recorded and I figured it needed to get a slightly fuller mention. I first got into Milemarker via bassist/vocalist/band cofounder Al Burian’s old zine Burn Collector (whose expansive eighth issue is secretly one of the great Punk Rock Novels of the 90’s) and his previous band Hellbender (who were more on the pop punk side of things) and much like his zine, Milemarker are definitely a band I would best sum up as “clever”, from being the first band to my knowledge to make a punk song entirely out of samples of other punk songs on one of their earlier albums, to a whole other album to talking about advertising and using idealized images to sell products on their *other* concept album Frigid Forms Sell, to this six song mini-LP/EP/what have you from 2002 that examines the encroachment of the digital further and further into daily life but with a hook – three of the six songs were recorded at Chicago’s storied Electrical Audio Studios with the recently departed Steve Albini, using only vintage tube amps for their guitars and analogue synthesizers for their potent post hardcore jams, while the other three tracks were recorded entirely using *gasp* computers at a time when that technology was not necessarily so available to The Punks, along with using programmed drums and various MIDI sounds and veering into almost Daft Punk-esque electronica. I think the “analog” songs just pack a little more punch to me of I had to pick between sides, but this record came out in 2002 and getting dance music all over your post hardcore was the style at the time in those days for sure. Still, a cool and clever idea for a record from a band with a lot of cool and clever little ideas at the time and worth checking out for sure.
Prince Paul/Dan The Automator as Handsome Boy Modelling School – So How’s Your Girl?
I realized after putting this list together that a few of my picks’ central concepts are a marriage of two disparate flavours – black metal and rabble-rousing folk music in Panopticon, musical theatre and yesterday’s hamfisted attempts at social commentary dressed up in a given medium in Webber’s JC Superstar, and this album – a marriage of celebrating the oddball rough edges of a genre (while lamenting its turn to the consumerist and commercial) while also paying tribute to a beloved obscure TV sitcom – Prince Paul and Dan The Automator’s first album under the Handsome Boy Modelling School moniker, 1999’s “So How’s Your Girl?”. The group’s name comes from an episode of Chris Elliott’s weird and wonderful sitcom “Get A Life!” Prince Paul has been one of the founding fathers of so-called alternative rap since producing the first three De La Soul albums in the late 80’s-early 90’s (and also for better or worse creating the concept of the between song interstitial skit in the process) and Dan The Automator broke out in the mid-late 90’s as producer on Kool Keith’s Dr Octagon album and is probably best known as the non-Albarn half of Gorillaz so their bonafides are there for sure and you could tell how hip hop’s turn to the shiny and pop-oriented maybe was not their favorite evolution of the genre, so on this album they assemble a rogues gallery of indie and left of centre hip hop and electro collaborating on a series of songs . Everyone from Del Tha Funky Homosapien to Kid Koala to Moloko to a pre-right-wing-grift-turn Sean Lennon to Father Guido Sarducci show up to collaborate on the album’s 17 tracks, all tied together by sketches featuring Paul and Automator as the titular modeling school’s instructors trying to entice the day’s rappers into enrolling in their college of fanciness and vacuous fashion and abandoning any grit or integrity. Sure it’s more “compilation of tracks by iconic hip hop producers and a ton of guest stars tied together by some sketches paying homage to an obscure but beloved sitcom” than full on concept album but it’s a favorite and I am making the picks here and I say it counts.
Jesus Christ Superstar – The Album (1970)
A who’s who of UK Blues/psych rockers team up with Andrew Lloyd Webber for his rommeditation on celebrity and the co-opting of political movements through a retelling of the last week of Jesus’ life through the eyes of his friend Judas, leading to a stage musical and eventual movie adaptation. Sure, it’s a musical based on part of the bible that is the epitome of the “well I know about another guy with long hair and some wild ideas who was really trying to make a change, maaaaan” trope of the era, and in the over the top campy way you could expect from the dude who made CATS but goddamn this silly musical has grown on me over the years. I tend to look at it the same way I look at stuff like the original Star Trek series and first couple of Planet Of The Apes movies (seriously check out Beneath The Planet Of The Apes if you have not already) – using genre fiction to pass along some sort of social commentary. Sure the genre in question here is one that may seem a little out of place to a lot of what I talk about on here, not just with the musical theatre but the Biblical subject matter, but it’s more using the characters of Jesus, Judas, etc to tell the story of what happens when popular figures go from leaders to celebrities, with a groovy late 60’s hippy gravy slathered all over it (or the closest Weber et al could reproduce working with folks from bands like Manfred Mann and Deep Purple contributing to to it). Also, anyone who lived in Newfoundland during the lifetime of multimedia magnate and total weirdo Geoff Stirling (check out a pretty apt eulogy of the man here if you are unfamiliar https://www.vice.com/en/article/dpk7k7/geoff-stirling-tv-man-and-cosmic-guru-was-the-weirdest-man-who-ever-lived-in-newfoundland) would have had grown used to annual viewings of the Norman Jewison-directed early 70’s film version on Stirling’s NTV channel (with the audio of the film simulcast on the radio stations he owned as well) that were one of the slightly less oddball requests he would make of the broadcast outlets he owned. I dunno, it’s a campy favorite of mine with some fairly groovy sixties-rock-meets-showtune songs so I wanted to include it on my list, dammit.
Miscellany
Matt’s Notes
As ever, I dig a gimmick! And the gimmick herein… “concept records” offers an abundance… a veritable plethora… a goddamned early 90’s PONDEROSA STEAKHOUSE SALAD BAR… of options… unlike say… *cough*
…the comedy episode from some time back… with all respect!
Anyways, I feel very much like this could be part one of many, many more. But… I leave this, conveniently, to Dan… the Director of the wider TNB endeavor, to be sure…
So… in terms of concept albums… these are basically the ones I thought of first. And the first bunch of them are mightily essential documents of rock any which way you look at it…
Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville
Goddamn.
How the fudgsicle to even start without sounding creepy.
She’s my all-time female musician that I crush on. It’s her… along with PJ Harvey… and Nina Simone… SINCE ABSOLUTELY NOBODY ASKED…
Good Lord.
I’m officially out with these part of the notes!
But for real, Guyville is one of my all-time favorite double-LP’s by any artist… it’s one of my all-time favorite specifically-Chicago records by any artist… it just fucking swaggers like it owns the place…
The Stones are worse off, if we’re going to go with concepts or comparisons or whatnot… and it’s my favorite Stones record… for whatever that means…
And… Liz has a book and many many great other records!! She’s 100% badass.
The Joel Plaskett Emergency: Ashtray Rock
This is simply one of the funnest records I can think of, full stop.
Like, if you were to ask why I fucking love being a fucking Maritimer… the case could be made within this entire album… without having to go too much further… with apologies to Stan Rogers… and/or Stompin’ Tom…
But, real talk…
Joel’s talent as a bandleader, songwriter, and singer are as good as they’ve ever been… or ever will be… on this record… in the midst of a just unsurpassed creative run with the preceding albums… and it swaggers like a guy paying the rent doing something he loves in his late twenties or early thirties or whatever…
I am a Joel Stan. Listen, between this… Down at the Khyber… Three… Scrappy Happiness… and my personal fave La De Da… the dude has documented for me what it’s like to be a weirdo from Atlantic Canada at a certain point in the early 21st Century… for lack of any other way of putting it… I find it relatable as shit… and on this record Joel and the Emergency are firing on all cylinders…
Say it loud, and say it proud:
DRUNK TEENAGERS, LET’S START A FIGHT…
Ben Nichols: Last Pale Light in the West
For me, this record is inseparable from the Cormac McCarthy novel… and from the birth of my first son. And from my first few years of being a teacher.
Of living overseas.
Of making more money than I’ll likely ever make in my career again.
I can’t express why this record means so much to me more plainly than that… although I tried… with a ghazal… which can be found elsewhere…
I’ve returned to the novel and this album both variously throughout my life… before my son was born for both… and after… and for sure I will again…
Say it loud, and say it proud: LONG LIVE LUCERO!
Rest in power, Cormac McCarthy
Hüsker Dü: Zen Arcade / Minutemen: Double Nickels on the Dime
We’re running short on space, but you can’t get more conceptual than these two double-LP’s produced by two of the most influential punk/hardcore/what-the-fuck-ever…
*Do yourself the immense favor of reading Corporate Rock Sucks: the Rise and Fall of SST Records by Jim Ruland… for full-blown insights! Gossip! And so much more…
I am going to simply call these both some of the best late-Twentieth Century American records of all time.
Emotionally poignant… meta-as-fuck… post-modern… wild in ambition, narrative, musical concept, musical weirdness…
In other words, perfect American folk music… spirited, violent, visceral, and… optimistic, at the end of the day…
Christ, I’m about to get weepy… well, not really, but you know…
DEFINITELY MORE THAN A LITTLE DAMP.
Slint: Spiderland TWEEZ
Fuck me and then fuck the guy next to me.
I MEAN UH… NO…
Listen, Albini had to show up in this podcast somehow. So… fuck it… I’m calling the entire SLINT oeuvre a concept album… notably but not exclusively because of SPIDERLAND… TWEEZ…
You see? It’s so goddamned artsy, I felt compelled to render that shit in caps.
*But wait… in my utter compulsion to somehow shoehorn Albini into the episode… it was/is the fucking awesome TWEEZ… as opposed to the seminal Spiderland… get off my back, mouthbreather! He says to nobody…
Dudes, my job was eliminated yesterday. So… it’s been a week among weeks!
*Sir, this is a Wendy’s*
“Just keep in mind for the next few days that we’re in Louisville, Kentucky. Not London. Not even New York. This is a weird place.”
Hunter S. Thompson
Lou Reed: New York
I am a fan of Lou in every single way… unapologetically.
When I was I guess in my late teens or early twenties… my friend played this a few times…
Just wow, is all. So much story. So many characters. It’s so fucking straightforward and linear, without giving up a centimeter of subtlety or emotional weight..
Is this a sort of spiritual journalism? Does he know Kendrick won the Rap War of 2024? Christ, I’m about to get… nearly damper than I was before…
The Hold Steady: Separation Sunday
Everybody should own this record.
Especially the Catholic of you.
If you ever want to get literature and music together in some dive or other talking about the Minnesota Twins, the Replacements, the Descendents… and then going to chug something sticky and/or sweet prior to the mindnumbing job… or ditching the job and stumbling out to drink some more… probably in public… talking to some guy who looks like Gideon… all about your little hoodrat friend… who may or may not be going the way of John Berryman…
This is like their most full-on Jesus-y LP. I’ll stand to be corrected.
Please. Go no further. You can’t afford tickets to the Springsteen concert. You’re going to your local bar and catching fragments of sports games. It’s fine.
That THS are, blessedly (beatifically?) still a going concern these decades later is a testament as much to the narrative talents of Craig Finn as anything else…
Poetry plus bar rock has been a winning combination for many, many other artists. Finn and Tad Kubler and everybody are in awesome company, as far as it goes.
Thanks every danged one of you for stopping by! May all your schemes go better than expected!
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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ May 24, 2024 11:39 pm
