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I Wish You Had An Axe Guitar

Friday, September 5, 2008

Clocking in at 36 seconds, this one is short like a couple other Alone offerings (ex. “Ooh,” and a couple Songs From The Black Hole transitions), but differs from those in that it’s…well, not actually music. Rather, it’s a clip (dated 1984!) of an early rehearsal between the members of Rivers Cuomo’s first band, Fury. Cuomo, then barely a teen, tellingly aspires to be like Kiss (a la “In The Garage“), and wishes that his bandmate had an “axe guitar” for the onstage cool factor.

Other than birthing a quasi-memorable quote — “A wig, you fool!” — this little clip is mostly pointless, and ostensibly wastes a valuable Alone track slot on utter nonsense. Even a clip of Fury actually playing music would’ve been more interesting, from a historical perspective. One wonders why the young’uns were even taping this trivial conversation at all.

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I Do

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The year was 2001, and Weezer was poised for a comeback. The past year had been one of changes for the band, who had returned from three long, stagnant years to play their first “reunion” tour to rapturous applause and surprisingly sold-out audiences. These shows offered the debut both of a replacement bassist, Mikey Welsh, and of a new, streamlined sound in a batch of songs that would later become known as the Summer Songs 2000. The vast majority of those compositions would be rejected during the band demo process — be it by the label or the musicians themselves — and Rivers Cuomo would further streamline his songwriting into the catchy (but generally nondescript) Green Album. Cuomo had recently finished writing the material for that album with “Knock-Down Drag-Out,” the late-2000 song that would be the last written to appear on the album itself, although a few more would be attempted for the sessions.

The last of those songs — and the very first Cuomo wrote in 2001 — was “I Do.” Then untitled, the song went from conception to studio recording to official release in the span of just four months, when it was issued as the b-side to the US versions of the “Hash Pipe” single. Before then, it had served as a very cool live introduction for the band’s pre-Green tour, with a slightly stranger keyboard tone at the song’s core. Spare and mournful, the song set the tone for the night ahead, before the band rocked the joint to pieces with the next song (which would, in most cases, be either “My Name Is Jonas” or “Photograph”). It worked very well, because it was such a unique song in Weezer’s canon, quite well done, and brief. These nights would serve as Weezer’s last days as crowd-pleasers par excellence — almost as soon as Green dropped, the band began a period of almost antagonizing its audience, playing 10 songs worth of nascent Mala-dreck and Green deep cuts before offering the audience even a taste of what most of them had come to hear. In fact, there’s a 6/21/01 bootleg of the band playing in Dortmund, wherein Cuomo masochistically subjects his audience to 11 songs before even permitting a taste of pre-2000 material. The applause and cheering approval that greets Mikey Welsh’s recitation of the “Only In Dreams” bassline borders on euphoria — but then the bastards only play the 3-minute instrumental climax of the song, before diving back into “Take Control!”

But yes, “I Do” is an anomaly in just about every way. First of all, it is the first piano-based song that the band had ever released (Cuomo later claimed that “Haunt You Every Day” was the first song he wrote on the piano, but that is probably incorrect), and the spareness of its arrangement had only thus far been surpassed by “Butterfly” (remember, 1997’s “Lover In The Snow” was not released until a decade later). It sounds completely unlike anything on Green, and even less like anything Cuomo was writing during this time (crazily enough, “Keep Fishin’” was written just two songs before “I Do,” and he would quickly move on to pen “American Gigolo”). I wouldn’t say it sounds like anything on Pinkerton, but it does more closely resemble the spirit of the Weezer of yore than most anything else the band has done post-90s. The song is introduced by a pained squall of guitar (drenched in that classic-Weez feedback), quickly giving way to Cuomo’s lonely voice and keys. He sings with unmasked emotion and regret (something that only vaguely came to the surface on Green with “O Girlfriend”), with the simple, betrayed refrain of, “You told me that you’d always love me” (protip: the repetition of the “always” recalls another Green b-side called…”Always”). The strange guitar figure that opened the song returns for a brief, wailing solo, Cuomo repeats the chorus, and adds the concluding resolve: “Never more again / Will I believe the sun.” A beautiful song, in and out in 2 minutes flat.

Sadly, the song bears a shameless, blatant resemblence to Billy Joel’s “Leningrad” — the sole difference being that what Joel used as a mere introduction to his song, Cuomo takes and runs for the entire length of his own. Still, the outright theft is so obvious as to make it almost unforgivable, but we’d be shitting ourselves if we failed to acknowledge that this is one of the best and most honest songs in the Weezer repertoire post-Pinkerton. It is certainly appreciable for its distinctiveness (at least within the Weezer catalog), and that’s something the band seemed to realize themselves, tacking it onto the end of The Green Album — making it the eleventh track — on its European iterations. Personally, I wish it made the official domestic Green, as it would have afforded that album some much-needed diversity, and serves as a great closer. I can see it being an  integral part of my dream sequence for “what Green should have been,” but that’s a conversation for another day.

Filed in Bonus Tracks, Studio B-Sides | Comments (19)

Ooh

Monday, September 1, 2008

Recorded in the fall of 1992, this 47-second nugget didn’t see the light of day until the very end of 2007, on Rivers Cuomo’s first-ever solo demo compendium, Alone. It is the sole a capella Weezer (well, “Weezer”) song to ever see official release, and that’s just one of the many reasons this short song is surprisingly remarkable.

Most obviously, the song is entirely lyric-less (as the title suggests, it is a song composed entirely of “ooh”-ing), which would cause many to erroneously claim it’s not a song at all (others might like to discount it for its brevity; these others are recommended to give Alien Lanes a careful listen, pen and notepad in hand). Quite to the contrary, the song has its very own number in Cuomo’s COR spreadsheet (something that the undebatably “real” song “You Won’t Get With Me Tonight” strangely lacks), from an era that generously produced more than a third of The Blue Album, as well as the brilliant also-rans “Mykel & Carli” (a Blue b-side), “Paperface” (eventually released on the deluxe Blue), and “Purification of Water” (one of  the greatest songs Cuomo’s ever written, sadly only available on shoddy bootleg to this day). Other songs I’d love to hear from this period include titles like “I Am Your Blue Sky,” “I Dropped the Bomb” and “He’s My Sweetheart.”

Ahem! Didn’t mean to get distracted. Anyhow, Cuomo notes — in his commentary on this song in the Alone booklet — that it was around this period that he began to watch more live classical performances, and “resolved to incorporate the more complex arrangements and countermelodies of classical music in [his] rock songs” (that’s the secret ingredient to the golden ’90s material, kids!). To get started, he wrote this song as a bit of a warmup exercise — and tellingly, he admits to it being a “rip-off of Smetana’s Moldau,” the actual title of which is Vltava (Cuomo was referring to it by its German title, Die Moltau). Actually the opposite of “Ooh,” Vltava is a 12-minute symphony from 1874 that uses “tone painting,” the art of evoking the literal meaning of a song via sound. Cuomo would later use this technique most blatantly during the “dream sequence” of “Dreamin’.”

Even then, “Ooh” is relatively easy to pick out of Vltava — just listen for yourself. Then again, if good old Cuomo hadn’t told us, who would’ve known?

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Coming back now

Monday, September 1, 2008

Apologies for the brief break, but I’ve spent the past week-plus preparing for (and now, settling back into) the college life again. I am now rather comfortably installed in my little New Haven abode right now, and looking forward to the year ahead. Classes have yet to start, so it’s hard to field a fair estimation, but I’m _hoping_ to manage 3 posts a week. We’ll see how it goes, but I like to aim high.

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Peace

Sunday, August 24, 2008

When I first listened to Make Believe, I was pretty stoked. I skipped “Beverly Hills” to get straight into “Perfect Situation,” a song that, on my first listen, blew me away. “This Is Such A Pity” managed to maintain the excitement, and “Hold Me” struck me as a very beautiful (if extremely simple) song. “Peace,” next on the tracklist, was the last thing to keep me running on high — from there, things fell apart a little, starting with “We Are All On Drugs.”

Although my opinions on “Perfect Situation” and “This Is Such A Pity” have certainly changed after that impressionable first spin, I still quite like “Peace.” The song explodes out of the gates with a pretty heavy descending riff, which then moves into a restrained first verse. Taking a second to  discuss the music itself, there’s something very distinct about the arrangement that evokes some pretty clear imagery and feelings for me. In my mind, that opening riff  seems to evoke something huge and ancient…first and foremost, I see a mountain. Something about it also feels kind of East Asian (anyone else? anyone?), which gives me the mental image of a kind of picturesque, Himalayan-type mountain in the clouds, vast and immovable. Then, into the quiet first verse, the acoustic guitars provide the mental image of glades blowing in the wind, an open space of calm and tranquility between those sweeping mountainsides.

I’m not exactly sure why the music evokes such a distinct and specific image for me, but I think a lot of it has to do with Cuomo’s refrain — “I need to find some peace” — which we all know, after reading any Make Believe era interview, refers to the man’s recent Vispasanna meditation (perhaps that’s where I’m getting the Asia). Another way I interpret the song is that the acoustic guitar verse represents that peace of mind Cuomo longs for, while the jagged riff that cuts back through the track like a massive blade (one of MB’s coolest musical tricks) represents the insanity of the hectic outside world encroaching on Cuomo’s attempts to block it all out (or fashion himself another world, where that insanity doesn’t exist at all — something he picks up on with The Red Album’s “The Angel and The One”). Hell, the “whoa-oh-oh-oh” that follow the choruses represent that pained longing the most clearly, and the serene outro of acoustic guitars, Pat Wilson’s simple drum beat, and Scott Shriner’s very-pretty bass fingerings represent Cuomo’s achievement of that peace, even as he continues to chase it.

Rereading what I just wrote, I think it’s easy to say that this can be interpreted as the most musically thematic, purposed arrangement Weezer has released since Pinkerton. The band clearly realized its value too, as it originally closed Make Believe. While I originally thought “Peace” would be a tough sell as an album closer, the more I consider it, I think it would’ve given the song a weight and importance that would have led to more listeners evaluating it as it should have been — a surprisingly well thought-out and executed composition. I only pray that every “Fallen Soldier” from the original Make Believe tracklist sees a release, so we can finally piece together the album’s first official tracklisting and hear it as it was originally intended (not that I would mind getting the non-”Fallen Soldier” recordings, either).

Ahem. Which is not to say I’m going to give “Peace” a free pass, entirely. As with any Make Believe recording, the downright sterile mix does sap some of its power (although “Peace” less than a lot of the other songs on the album, I would say), and imagining this song with Pinkerton or Blue-style production is nearly salivating. On a songwriting level, Cuomo lets slip some real blunders: the infamous “there is no way I can stop / my poor brain is gonna pop” line sucks, just sucks, and nearly all the lines are overly general for what sounds like a very personal song. But, I do find some merit in the less-obvious of the simple lyrics — the more esoteric lines, like “Counting all the flowers / Waste the precious hours” do convey their meaning in less literal terms than the lazier verses (and the reference to “flowers” contributes to that vivid landscape imagery that I mentioned above). “And I don’t have a purpose / Scattered on the surface” conveys the problem, and “All the broken tethers / We can bring together” conveys the hopeful solution. It’s not *as* bad, lyrically, as some suggest.

Also, Cuomo’s vocal performance is heartfelt and impassioned — you can tell he’s really feeling what he’s singing, and the lyrics are just good enough to benefit from it. Emotional vocal performances from Cuomo post-Pinkerton are few and far between (only one comes to mind from both The Green Album and Maladroit: “O Girlfriend” and “Death and Destruction,” respectively), and this one works pretty well. Props also need to be given for that great solo, which soars beautifully above those of Green’s formulaic redundancy and Maladroit’s near tasteless, antagonistic shredding. Hearing the chorus transition into that huge “whoa-oh” sound for the first time, into that solo, and back into the chorus is quite a nice musical experience. From there through the quite lovely outro, it’s a pretty smooth and enjoyable ride.

A brief survey of Make Believe tour bootlegs makes it evident that the band did a decent job of conveying the song’s power live, and Cuomo’s repeatedly earnest vocal performance proves that this song did(/does) indeed mean a lot to him. The 5/10/05 performance at the Electric Factory in Philly (where was I, that night?) is probably the best, as Brian Bell throws in a cool extra trick or two with the final “whoa-oh” harmonies, and the band offers up a bit of moody feedback on the second verse. Also notable is that the song was called “Make Believe’s standout track” by the Offspring when they selected it for their iTunes playlist that year — not a bad assessment, but one with which I’m not about to agree.

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Why Bother

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Much like Hamlet is a young man’s play, I feel that Pinkerton is something of a young man’s album. Surely, like the only Shakespeare that ever really resonated with me, members of both sexes can appreciate the album (and at any age), but there’s a very hormonal, teenage, testosterone-driven facet to it (at its very core, even), that just can’t help but sound best when you’ve got a Y-chromosome and are between the ages of 17 and 24.

Why is that? Well, aside from the obvious ability to relate between those ages, I think Pinkerton also serves as an inspiration. Musically speaking, it is by far Rivers Cuomo’s greatest work, and the sheer genius behind the arrangements of songs like “Across the Sea” and “Falling For You” represent some of the very best songwriting and musical composition since the 1960s. When you’re a young man, your body’s not the only thing in its prime — so are your hopes, your dreams, your ambitions. And whether you’re a musician or not, Pinkerton can serve as a model for the kind of greatness one can aspire to. Cuomo had spent the tail end of his early 20s writing these songs, and exited them just as it was being released — which is, all things considered, a mind-numbing achievement. If I am doing anything as well as Cuomo did rock’n'roll on this album by age 25, I will feel very, very fulfilled.

On that note, “Why Bother” is probably the album’s worst case for musical achievement. It’s over quickly, a fast blast of 120-second rock, during which time there’s a bitchin’ solo, and some very cool vocal counterpoint at the end, but it’s a pretty standard power-pop power-chord arrangement that offers little in the way of the musically remarkable. On the other hand, it’s probably the best example of why Pinkerton is a young man’s play — that other hand being its literature, the lyrics. To wit:

I know I should get next to you
You got a look that made me think you’re cool
But it’s just sexual attraction
Not somethin’ real, so I’d rather keep whackin’!

In the span of that first verse alone, we get not only a reference to masturbation (phrased in terms that not even the more sexually compelled of the fairer can relate to), but also some schoolyard language that provides an obvious setting (”get next to you,” evoking the seating in a classroom; “made me think you’re cool,” self-explanatory), and, on a deeper level, the act of rejecting a love interest before yourself being rejected (and in this case, pathetically before even saying a word to her).

In some ways though, this is the young love anti-anthem for all. “This happened to me twice before” suggests a young inexperience, and the reference to getting one’s heart broken “next summer” evokes the uniquely high school/college oasis of a summer break — the time when hearts break and relationships fail more than any other. So if a female listener can get past the traces of paranoid misogyny, then the song can become her own, too.

Aside from the Pinkerton version, this song was officially released in a live format on 2003’s To Benefit Petra Haden split 7-inch (with AM Radio, Phantom Planet and Ben Kweller). Not sure where/when the performance is from, but it’s a solid version that brims with enthusiasm (Cuomo shouting “give it to ‘em!” during the solo). Why they decided to put a live “Why Bother” out in 2003 is beyond me…Perhaps its Haden’s favorite Weezer song? (What, “Space Rock” didn’t do it for her?)

There’s also some acoustic versions from the FM radio sessions that Weezer did in support of Pinkerton. The one they did for 107.7 The End is pretty serviceable; I’m surprised it translates well to the acoustic, but I suppose if you’re playing with feeling, it always works (especially when Pinkerton is your source material).

The band surprisingly pulled out another acoustic version of “Why Bother” for their 2008 AOL Sessions, albeit with guitarist Brian Bell on lead vocals, drummer Pat Wilson on guitar, bassist Scott Shriner on bass, and Cuomo on drums — a lineup that contains exactly zero constants from the way the band recorded it in 1996. While this isn’t anything new — Weezer has been switching places and fucking around with old Cuomo-written, Cuomo-sung songs since the Make Believe tours of 2005 — it’s a little bit insulting to be given a crowd pleaser (like a Pinkerton track) in a fucked-with format. Bell didn’t write “Why Bother,” and never sung on it beyond his backing vocals on the end — so why is he singing lead now? It was unacceptable when Shriner, of all people, sang “In The Garage,” but this is hardly any better. Cuomo might be tired of being obliged to sing a few Blue and Pinkerton classics after all these years, but that doesn’t change the fact that *he* is *obliged* to (and yes, he can play nothing but Maladroit outtakes and The Red Album all night if he wants to, but then there’s no guarantee he won’t get his ass savagely beaten on the way to the tour bus). If people spend $50 to $150 to come see you play certain (reasonably expected) songs, you fucking play them, and you fucking play them the best way possible. Maladroit failed because it was masturbatory and fun to play, but boring as hell to listen to — this vocal-swap, “hootenanny” approach to the Weezer classics is just as self-indulgent and boring, but even more offensive. You can have all the fun you want at a free show, but if you’re getting tens of thousands of dollars to play a concert, please: do it right.

I like Bell, and his version of “Why Bother” isn’t bad, but it still feels like a cover band. I don’t mind having this version as an AOL Session, but it’ll be very disheartening to hear it live. Especially when Bell changes the key “I’d rather keep whackin’!” line to “you’d better start packing.” Bell claims he did that to better relate to the song, as he would rather tell the girl to leave and find a new one than just masturbate (cool, Brian), but it’s a complete misread of the song, and I’m shocked that Cuomo is apathetic enough to let it happen. It’s about “trying to get next to a girl” and then deciding better of it, for fear of getting hurt — not being in a relationship with a bitch that needs to “get packing.” It doesn’t fit in with the theme of the song at all, and makes its lyrical message entirely incoherent and self-contradictory.

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High Up Above

Friday, August 22, 2008

This song was one of the earliest sketches for Maladroit, and the third song Cuomo wrote in 2001 (the first being Green b-side “I Do”).

We have two versions, the first being the one the band recorded for the BCC in England (one of the four songs from that session the station would air) on 6/13/01. It is made unique by its prominent use of the organ, and the presence of the band’s second bassist, Mikey Welsh (who would have to spend some time in rehab by the end of the summer; the band replaced him with Scott Shriner in time for fall touring and recordings, quickly and without remorse). By that time, the song would be translated to the guitar, but in those months before Welsh’s exit, the band would play the song on European stages with the organ intact (for which Cuomo would surprisingly relinquish his guitar).

On that BBC version, the organ serves as the song’s warm heart, pleasantly coalescing with Brian Bell’s pretty chord progression. Blending with Pat Wilson’s lone hi-hat, the mix provides a nice backdrop for Cuomo’s contemplative first verse and chorus. In the former, he speaks of being left behind by a girl (who has a “fair face” — perhaps quite like the “fine face” of the girl in Green’s “Smile”) — in the latter, he sings, “I really miss your love / When you’re high up above / And I am waiting here / Alone and by myself.” A simple, somewhat obvious sentiment and rhyme — 13 songs after “High Up Above,” Cuomo would write “Diamond Rings,” another song that uses the cliched love/above rhyme in its chorus — but at this point, immediately post-Green, it must have been encouraging to hear Cuomo sing with a bit of emotion in his voice. The build up from there is a little predictable, and the post-chorus shredding that Bell indulges in not once but *twice* (in the span of 2 minute song) is a little self-indulgent and uncalled for, prophesying what would become one of Maladroit’s biggest pitfalls. But it’s a nice performance of a passable song, even if repeating “will agree” over and over on the outro is a little mindless.

By the time the band attempted it for the official Maladroit sessions that December (the 18th, to be precise), the organ had been obliterated, the tempo raised a few BPM, some pretty nice background vocals doing the “just a little bit out-of-synch” thing added, a la “Waiting On You.” The superfluous shredding remains, as does the repeated “will agree,” but this time the band graces the song with a real outro (not a fadeout), Wilson doing some nifty fills and Cuomo singing a rather agreeable “whoa-ohhhh” outro. Although for my money, the BBC version is the best, simply because the unusual instrumentation gives the song an individual sound and mood, whereas by December it had become another faceless outtake. The solo on the BBC version is much nicer (and clearer), too.

This song doesn’t sound like Maladroit to me, but rather an Early Album 5-style demo. Some have made the insight that Early A5 is essentially just Maladroit songwriting plus pianos and keyboards, so maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise…But either way, the band might agree with me: the little guitar lick that ends every phrase of the 12/18 version of “High Up Above” is identical to that which ends every phrase of the 4/22/02 version of EA5’s “The Victor.”

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Diamond Rings

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Back in 2005, on the eve of Make Believe’s release, guitarist Brian Bell remarked that the record’s second track, “Perfect Situation,” sounded like “Green Plus” to him. He was right in some senses — I can hear some traces of Green in “Situation,” and it’s a little more thoroughly arranged and lively than the majority of that album — but I’ve always felt that that distinction belonged to “Diamond Rings.”

Technically, the timing is right — the band performed it in December of 2001, in support of Green’s release earlier that year (although Scott Shriner had already replaced that album’s bassist, Mikey Welsh), so it makes sense that he was still playing with the TGA formula at that point. The COR reveals that it was written somewhat shortly after Green b-side “I Do,” although inbetween that song and this one, Cuomo appeared to already be deep into the songwriting for Maladroit (including “December” and “Burndt Jamb“). I’ve long felt it was a shame this song was never released, as I think it would have been a great bridge between Green and Maladroit, and conveniently, an excellent Track 1 (Cuomo may have thought so at one point, as well; The Red Album’s opener, “Troublemaker,” seems to revisit the “Diamond Rings” riff, although I much prefer DR).

The Green comes from the standard verse-chorus structure, classic pop melodies, the concise 2:30 runtime and the formulaic feel that the song proudly provides; the “Plus” comes from the fact that the song at once manages to be more catchy and have a stronger personality than 70% of that album’s tracklist. Lyrically, the song is a pretty typical “Hey girl, why do you like those other guys?” Cuomo rant, but there’s some neat twists in there: as the chorus goes, “I’ll give you anything, anything but love / My heart needs diamond rings, diamonds from above.” Esoteric? Yes. Nonsense? Probably. But cool, athemic nonsense, at the least.

This song is also great evidence that the lyrical rehashes and recyclings of the Green era were still very much a part of Cuomo’s songwriting: the bridge orders the girl to “take control,” just as Cuomo does in the Maladroit song of the same name (written just nine songs before “Diamond Rings”), and the second verse references “digging [Cuomo's] sound,” as does Maladroit’s “Fall Together” (Green’s “Simple Pages” also references “[Cuomo's] sound,” but the digging thereof is left implicit). There’s also a repeated appeal to “let me go,” which makes my “shoulda been Maladroit’s opener” opinion all the more apt — that would have been a clever inversion of Green’s opening “Don’t Let Go.”

We only have the official live bootleg of that late 2001 performance, which isn’t so much of a tragedy because the band really nailed it that night. But, the Recording History does reveal that “Diamond Rings” was attempted for the earliest Maladroit sessions, at the August/September 2001 SnS Demos, then attempted over a dozen times during the Steak House/Cello demos later that year (no wonder it was so refined and sharp by the time December rolled around). It was also played at the fabled HBO Reverb show, under Weezer’s alter ego name, Goat Punishment, but was sadly not one of the songs that made the official broadcast. November 2001’s demo sequence of the album even had “Diamond Rings” as track 7. But by the time of March 2002’s Early Album 5 demos, the song had been completely forgotten. I sincerely hope that any of the missing versions eventually see release of some kind.

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In The Garage

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

I can still remember the day in 2002 — when I was a young whippersnapper aged just 13 — sitting in the backseat of my friend’s car while we shared a CD player with a split headphone jack. Inside was The Blue Album. My friend had been trying to convert me to Weezer for a while by then, and a lot of their material had really spoken to me — I remember loving “Across the Sea” and “The Good Life” to death on my first listen, but Green sounded like crap to me even at such a young age (I like it much more now; but I also had the foresight to know my friend was just bullshitting himself when he tried to say that Maladroit was a “return to form”). So I was already starting to make the transition to Weezer fandom…but that carride, and that particular, attentive listen to Blue was what really sold me. That’s when it all clicked…and I’m pretty sure it clicked during “In The Garage.”

Which is not to say it was my favorite out of the album’s surreal ten tracks (it still isn’t), or that I could even relate to the majority of its lyrics. I never played Dungeons & Dragons, I knew Kiss sucked, and I couldn’t play guitar for the life of me (still can’t!). But, much like the rest of Weezer’s early material — “Across the Sea,” “No Other One,” “Tired Of Sex” — it was different, it was unique, it was individual, and yet, it was easily and naturally relatable. Rivers Cuomo now tries very hard to make grand, universal statements that supposedly anyone could relate to (longing for “Beverly Hills,” being a “Troublemaker”), which sometimes works in the form of a quick hit, but never becomes somebody’s personal anthem, never gets engrained in a listener’s soul, never matters for more than enough time to spill 99 cents at the iTunes store, crank it with the windows down one night during the Best Summer of High School Ever, then forget it by the day after graduation. No, the Weezer of old, almost to a track, represents becoming a part of the listener’s consciousness by way of uniquely phrasing a genuine, individual feeling. This is the music that matters, this is the music that changes lives. “In The Garage” is one of the very best examples of that, in Weezer’s discography or anyone else’s.

It’s a rare entry in the all-too-short shortlist of Weezer songs with a harmonica, which also includes the esteemed likes of “Mykel & Carli,” “Pig,” “Wanda (You’re My Only Love),” “My Name Is Jonas” and “Freak Me Out” (one of these is not quite like the others…). In fact, it may very well have the honor of being the Weezer song to most memorably use the harmonica (maybe; that honor just as likely belongs to “Mykel & Carli,” really). The harmonica lick that begins the song is nicely accompanied by that pretty finger-picked acoustic guitar that so subtly refines every song it graces. It’s a really classic Weezer touch, just like the heavy, thick electric guitars of the driving verse. The chorus is pure melody and beauty, the lyrics offering a more universal counterpoint to the verse’s personal childhood references: “In the garage, I feel safe / No one cares about my ways / In the garage, where I belong / No one hears me sing this song.” It’s a somewhat easy rhyme, but it’s entirely forgivable considering its melody, the originality of the lyrics that come before and after it, and the fact that this more universal moment allows the listeners to make this song their own, even if they think Kiss is the worst band ever. “The garage” could just as well be your room, your apartment, your car — anyone who feels a little “different” from the simpletons of suburbia can relate to that. And then, “No one hears me sing this song” — it’s almost an open invitation to sing along in your own little world, privately wailing out of tune, fists pumping, loving every moment of it. “In The Garage” might as well be Weezer’s manifesto: secret anthems for the lonely ones.

One of the beauties of Weezer’s best music is that it connects you, too. If you play “In The Garage” in the car and your recent acquaintance smiles recognizantly, then joins you as you belt out every word — then you immediately know something about that person. If you just met, you’ll probably like him, you think to yourself; and if you’re already good friends, you can tell this friendship is only about to run deeper. And if it’s not a guy in your passenger seat but rather a cute girl, do your very damnedest to make her yours — rest assured, she’s a keeper.

Man, it’s just filled with so many great, subtle moments of brilliance. The way that, on the second verse, everything drops out but Cuomo’s voice, Matt Sharp’s bass, and Pat Wilson’s simple drumbeat. And then the guitars crash in on the “and” of the fourth beat with a great big cymbal crash, and Brian Bell’s backup harmonies — what a rush! The strange little scream that Cuomo lets out before tearing into the solo — perhaps the weirdest and most unique of Weezer’s entire discography (how the hell does it make those alien sounds at 2:32?). The vocals rising up on the outro — the cute, perfectly cheesy repetition of the “no one hears me!” — the return of the harmonica on the final chords…and we’re done.

As I said earlier, what’s best about this brilliant little song is that it’s still far from Blue’s best offering, and perhaps not even the best use of harmonica in a Weezer song — that’s how fucking great the band’s golden era was (and it would only get better with Pinkerton). Oh, and the way Cuomo sings “garage?” Too funny. “In the grodge!”

Notable variations: in 1994, the band did a couple great live acoustic versions for FM radio (during which that scorching guitar solo is actually played on the harmonica!). As late as their most recent tour in 2005, they’ve been playing the song live — which, inexplicably, had bassist Scott Shriner on lead vocals (he’s their third bassist, and wasn’t even present in the Weezer world till 7 years after this song was recorded — the band can give songs like “Dope Nose” and “Smile” away to other band members if they really must, but can we stop fucking with the classics? He does a serviceable job, but this is a personal song and the words mean nothing to him. It’s just not right). The band also did a version for their brief and  killer MTV All Access set in 2001, which also featured a new bassist (Mikey Welsh), but mercifully (and sensibly) retained Cuomo on lead vocals. Lastly, there’s a brief clip of Cuomo playing the “Garage” melody on a harpsichord on the Video Capture Device DVD, but the clip is only 5 or 10 seconds long, and, though noteworthy, hardly qualifies as a “performance.”

Filed in The Blue Album, The Very Best | Comments (23)

My Best Friend

Monday, August 18, 2008

This one is a song of great controversy among Weezer fans. Ask a regular at any one of Weezer’s more die-hard fan forums about it, and you can expect in good faith a very disdainful criticism of the song; but a survey of the comments on its SongMeanings entry conversely reveals no shortage of love and appreciation.

“This song is wonderful,” remarks jack_the_brat.

“this song always reminds me of 1 of my friends, shes not actually my best friend but i bloody wish she was!!!” exclaims xxrosiepxx.

“This song is about homosexuality,” relates Bill_Cowan.

“It’s about Rivers’ dog,” says Fixxxer169, matter-of-factly.

These people are all wrong, of course: it is not wonderful, it certainly isn’t an ode to homosexuality (what we know about Cuomo’s sense of humor eradicates any chance of that), it’s hard to tell if Rivers even owns a dog at all, and xxrosiepxx’s literacy is highly suspect, so the things she says are to be taken with a grain of salt — even when they’re her own opinions about her own friends. “My Best Friend” is, in truth, very arguably the weakest offering from what is very arguably Weezer’s weakest album. Against all odds, this does not mean “My Best Friend” is the worst song Weezer has ever released, because it isn’t — but it’s still pretty regrettable. It was played very seldomly on the Make Believe tour (anyone have an exact count?), and will hopefully never be mentioned while Weezer is even remotely near a stage, ever again.

Perhaps I’m just in a cheeky mood; perhaps we’re being a little hard on old MBF, here. But it’s difficult to accept a 35-year-old man starting a song with the lines, “When everything is wrong / I’ll come talk to you / You make things alright / When I’m feeling blue” — it’s downright insulting when the chorus of said song winds up being, “You’re my best friend / And I love you / And I love you / Yes I do.”

Maybe Bill_Cowan was right.

Musically, the song fares just slightly better. The guitar leads on the verse recall the production of The Green Album and somehow make you long for its airtight sound again (next to “My Best Friend,” “Sugar Booger” sounds fucking appetizing); Brian’s aimless, half-buried backup vocals on the pre-chorus sadly evoke Maladroit (or, to be fair, one of the worst aspects of Maladroit); and the mix epitomizes the bottom scrapings of Make Believe’s depressingly deep barrel. In the band’s track-by-track notes on MB, Cuomo proudly remarks on the organ that he added to the song at the last minute, but hell if I noticed one before reading that. In retrospect, I guess it’s that thing in the song’s intro, but it’s all such a hyper-compressed mess of sound that it just comes off like an indiscernible hemmorhage of pop/rock noise.

Back to what the song is about: Cuomo apparently wrote it for “some kind of ogre-ish guy [he] met,” and submitted the song to the Shrek 2 soundtrack. Hilariously enough, the folks at Dreamworks said it sounded *too much* like a Shrek song, and so it was rejected. Cuomo took the song back home, rewrote it to sound less “Shrek-ish” and “way better” (for which we can be thankful — the original must be a true holocaust of the mind), then released it on Make Believe. Brian Bell remarked that had it been released on Shrek 2, it would have been the first Weezer song anyone had heard in 3 years, which would have been the least flattering first glimpse possible for Weezer’s least flattering record. Many a fanboard would have been razed in the ensuing outcry.

On a mostly unrelated note, one of Pat Wilson’s comments on the song is especially indicative of a problem I think has really handicapped Weezer on Make Believe and all of their post-2000 albums: song selection. He remarks — presumably with a sarcastic, bitter grin on his face — “No one thought about ['My Best Friend'] for the longest time, and the next thing I know, ‘We’re doing that song!’” Make Believe actually had a completely different tracklist just a month before its release; we can only wonder what songs like “Average Person” and “I’m A Robot” must have sounded like (or how Weezer thought “Peace” could work as a closer), but thanks to the Making Of clip we have for MB, we’ve heard brief bits and pieces of both “Love Is The Answer” and “You’re The One.” The former sounds like a song that starts pretty and has a huge buildup and release, while the latter sounds like an upbeat slice of whammy-barred pop magic. Even if most songs can sound appealing from just a brief clip, these two sound so promising that I’m willing to bet they best most of MB as we know it. Here’s to hoping these finished outtakes eventually see release — just imagine if we never got the bonus tracks from the deluxe Red Album!

Filed in Make Believe, The Very Worst | Comments (15)