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The End of The World

Sunday, April 26, 2009

The next song on the list is another short one, so I might as well bang this one out tonight, too.

This December 2002 cover gives us a neat little insight into what Rivers Cuomo was listening to at the time: the 2001 solo record from Nina Gordon, a saccharine pop departure from her more hard-edged punk rock band Veruca Salt. This song closed the album, a sappy breakup ballad colored by digital drum touches and some almost-country harmonies on the chorus (sort of like a poor man’s Cardigans).

What Cuomo does with it in his home recording (of which only an incomplete 54-second clip exists) is simple, but interesting. His voice arcs and falls with unguarded emotion (signaling the change in modus operandi from Maladroit to Make Believe), and the lone electric guitar that accompanies him has a hint of the classic Weezer crunch of yore. And with that long, winding vocal melody, this sounds like the skeleton of something that might not have seemed out of place in the Blue era. As it stands, this clip fails to captivate beyond the historical perspective it provides, but that alone makes it a worthy one-time spin.

On the other hand, the Recording History reveals that a few intriguing full-band takes of this song have been recorded. On March 21st, 2003, Cuomo and Weezer bassist Scott Shriner recorded a version of this song with Swirl 360 drummer Luke Adams and guitarist Jimmy Messner (Pat and Brian were “unavailable”). Five days later, another take was recorded (the personnel left unspecified), and then another take a few days later with the guys from Sloan — from the same jam that produced Alone‘s scorching version of “Little Diane.” It’d be very interesting to hear how these renditions came out (especially considering how hard “Little Diane” kicks!), and I do hope that we’ll get the chance to find out someday.

Filed in Covers, Demos | | Comments (7)

Serendipity

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Also known as: “Serendipitous Jam,” “C’mon Let’s Go,” “It’s Only Rock’N’Roll,” and one of the worst pieces of detritus from an era that was mostly comprised of tossed-off schlock rock. In that sense, “Serendipity” is a Maladroit outtake par for course: another rudely generic rawk riff, a solo that scorches only in the redneck sense, mindless lyrics that retread (and malevolently shit all over) not only a recent song in the Weezer canon (“gimme some lovin’, gimme some lovin’, gimme some lovin’ / right now, you better do that”) but also a classic rock staple. Had this song been properly released, the litigious bastards in the Rolling Stones would’ve probably shot the Weez a lawsuit for the (fucking awful) chorus of, “If it’s only rock’n’roll / Why is music in my soul? / Turn it on, c’mon let’s go.”

Then again, it’s all over and out in just 90 seconds. But, as with “Change The World,” that doesn’t save it from being some of the worst 90 seconds in Weezer history.

Filed in Demos, Outtakes, The Very Worst | | Comments (23)

Superstar

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

As I’ve mentioned before, few songs really stand out from the Summer Songs 2000 era. Even nearly a decade after the songs debuted to the public, it’s a little hard to tell them all apart sometimes. Lyrics overlap, certain sections of songs sound so nondescript that they could fit in just about anywhere, and the general mediocrity of the material discourages frequent listens, making them even harder to differentiate (or care). Time has mostly forgotten these songs, and although a few could’ve been worth salvaging, there’s little tragedy in that.

“Superstar” is one of the few that sticks out in memory, if only because it really takes the pop punk sensibility of the era to its furthest extreme. On the official live SS2K “album” version, the guitars have a bit of a hard rock snarl to them (a la “Hash Pipe“), and Rivers Cuomo’s vocal performance is perhaps his most self-consciously affected: it very much sounds like he’s trying to be someone else here, perhaps a Green Day or a Blink182. It doesn’t work so well in my opinion, and grates more than anything else — especially when Cuomo strains for notes that he can’t quite seem to reach in this weird persona voice he’s adopted.

But the lyrics, speaking of, are an interesting variation on Cuomo’s reliable brand of self-deprecation: it’s a critique of his ability to be a proper frontman. Which makes for an interesting little lyrical paradox, because on the one hand, he’s kicking himself (“All I can do is sing / And I don’t do that so well” — perhaps all too fitting for this song), but on the other hand, he’s acknowledging the fact that he *is* a rock star. Which is also a bit of a paradox because this is a song from an era when Cuomo had every right to yearn for fame and commercial success again — things from which he had been, by this point, nearly five years removed — when another five years later, after Cuomo’s Green Album gambit paid off platinum, he again rehashed the “I wanna be famous” cliche with “Beverly Hills.” But that’s besides the point.

The lyrics don’t tackle their subject matter in a particularly memorable way, but I do appreciate how unique they are in Weezer’s vast repertoire. “There used to be a better kind of rock and rollin’ superstar,” Cuomo begins the song, and references to “summoning things from hell” makes it clear that he’s longing for the metal heroes of his childhood. Cuomo, by comparison, describes himself as “just a regular white guy who’s afraid to rock.” And while there are certainly some counterpoints that could be cited, it’s a statement that rings pretty true at times: to wit, Cuomo’s performances of “Say It Ain’t So” on Letterman and any number of other instances. It’s easy to forget in this Red Album era of stage theatrics, rambling banter and knee-pad shenanigans, but back in the ’90s, Cuomo was generally (and genuinely) a pretty reserved performer. So it’s fitting that Cuomo chooses to sing a song about wanting to be somebody else in a style and voice that sounds more than just a little forced — intentionally or not.

Still, like most SS2K songs, this performance of “Superstar” brims with passion and energy, and you get the feeling that Cuomo really does mean what he’s singing here. There’s a proto-Green solo that essentially works as another verse as sung by Cuomo’s guitar, and after a subtle build to the song’s implosive conclusion, it’s all over in typically concise early ’00s fashion. Not remarkable, a little bit disposable, but worth keeping around as the interesting anomaly that it is.

Strangely, the song’s story doesn’t end here. The summer of 2000 came and went, and for the most part, these songs were completely forgotten — all but “Hash Pipe” got the Green Album snub — but “Superstar” perplexingly resurfaced during Weezer’s early 2002 tour of Europe. I have a 3/24/02 UK bootleg from a Brixton Academy gig that is very much of the Maladroit mindest: the band turns up the metal on the guitars; Cuomo sings more in his natural voice (which debatably works even less) and transforms the solo into a raunchy but mostly aimless rawk out; and Brian Bell piles on the unimaginative “echo” backup vocal lines that, like on most other songs from the era, do little for the arrangement other than to clutter things up.

The devolution continued during the band’s abortive Early Album 5 sessions. The July 7th ’02 version makes the guitars sound even *more* metallic (sounds like barbed wire going through a distortion pedal, and not in a good way), adds some obnoxious palm mutes, a pointless piano and total cheeseball synth lines. The whole thing sounds kind of like vomit, and Cuomo’s lyrical adjustments only add to the nausea: “I guess that I could drink a beer / And smoke a doobie to get deuced (?) / But that depletes my energy / And screws up all my business moves.” And then, unbelievably, in the chorus: “I gotta make it stonecold straight (so well!) / Gotta live up to my name (from hell!) / I’m just a regular white guy who’s afraid to rock.” Fucking WHAT!? This might just be me speaking in the moment here, but I really don’t think this band has ever committed to tape a less coherent, shittier set of lyrics than what’s sung on this version of “Superstar.” And my lord, that solo is such bottom barrel dreck…Was Cuomo being influenced by his then-friendship with Fred Durst or something? What the hell could possibly explain what happened here?

For the sake of being thorough: the band did a final take of this song two weeks later, which wisely dropped the piano and buried that awful synth pretty deep in the mix, but more or less retained the gross vibe and depravity of its predecessor. The band wisely forgot this song shortly thereafter, and scrapped these sessions entirely — I’d like to imagine that playbacks of this supremely bastardized “Superstar” are what convinced the band to hang it up.

In the interest of leaving us with a less putrid taste in our mouths, this video should make for some decent Listerine. It’s a 2000 performance at the huge Summer Sonic fest in Japan (the very lucrative offer that convinced Weezer to reunite, no less), and it’s a pretty sharp performance. Cuomo’s in full-on bowlcut mode, Bell is strutting around and rocking out like the kind of musician the song is about, and Welsh and Wilson keep the song’s rolling rhythm on lock. Lookit all those freakin’ people!


Filed in Early Album 5, Summer Songs 2000 | | Comments (38)

Undone — The Sweater Song

Monday, April 6, 2009

Writing about “Undone” is no mean task: not only is it the song that first broke Weezer into the mainstream, it’s also the most performed song in their entire career. I have doubts that Weezer has ever played a full setlist without playing this song — even in the doldrums of Rivers Cuomo’s audience-hating, early catalog-renouncing phase of summer 2001, this song still met rapturous applause every single night. The number of times this song has been performed since its 1991 inception, if somehow documented and tallied, would inevitably stagger — especially for a band as prone to hiatuses as Weezer.

Which is a bit odd, because Cuomo *has* denounced this song in the press before. It really is a shame that I can’t relocate the quote for the life of me right now, because sometime shortly after the release of The Blue Album, he was quoted as saying it was (to paraphrase) the most embarrassingly simple song he’s ever put out, due to the simple I-IV-V-IV chord sequence of the riff that runs throughout the song, with some slight variations and changes later on (and of course, the temptation is too great here not to mention that many later Weezer songs — i.e., “Beverly Hills,” “Hash Pipe” — are founded upon even simpler progressions with even less variation, if any at all). I really do wish I could find that quote, dammit. Anyone out there know what I’m talking about?

No matter: Cuomo’s live record since then has easily reflected a change of heart since that harsh criticism. And in truth, the original quotation could be nothing more than typical “I Suck” Cuomo deprecation, since “Undone” is actually probably one of the most subtly complex songs Cuomo has ever written. As noted pop critic and Sound Opinions talkshow host Jim DeRogatis has pointed out, it was a (successful) pop single that had, in his words, “at least three distinct movements.” To date, the song remains one of the most charmingly strange and anthemic songs from the 1990s, a period when strange and quirky songs had amassed their greatest mainstream per capita since perhaps the pre-Beatles era (this side of Japan, at the least).

That said, with all the scores of versions to choose from, it makes sense to begin with the one that the world heard first: the album version (or the slightly truncated single edit, if we wanted to be really picky, but we don’t). The song begins with one of Weezer concerts’ two Instantly Recognizable Drum Intros (the other being “El Scorcho,” naturlich), and from there, the mise en scène of the song gently coalesces: Pat Wilson’s half-asleep drum beat, Matt Sharp’s rolling bassline (straight outta the Kim Deal playbook), and the loopy, slightly deranged bent of Cuomo’s guitar melody. I’ve heard the vibe of the song described equally well as both “mental breakdown music” and “heroin.” There’s just something drugged out about it, either on a hard drug or some kind of mental health med that isn’t quite working right. It’s set at just the right tempo (established by a click track, close listening has revealed) — any quicker and the effect would be lost; any slower and that riff would pitter-patter like Chinese water torture.

Something very odd for a pop single happens here: an extended spoken word section. For no less than half a minute,  a surfer brah caricature played by Sharp converses with a particularly deep-voiced (and uninterested) Karl Koch (band historian, archivist and occasional musical cameo) — a move that was pretty unprecedented by any other Billboard hit before or since (even after obvious spinoffs like Nada Surf’s “Popular” became commonplace, “Undone” remains unique in this regard). Finally, a bit after the 0:50 mark, Cuomo enters with his verse, keeping it brief as if to get to the point already:

I’m me
Me be
Goddamn
I am
I can
Sing and
Hear me
Know me

What reads like weird, half-coherent beat poetry is made into some pretty cool (and heartily sung) anti-melody that is the earliest released instance of Cuomo’s now-signature (and damn near worn out) sing-song rap style — as well as the Official Weezer Curse Word of the ’90s, “Goddamn.” With a lurch of feedback, we’re finally delivered into the chorus, which Bell doubles Cuomo in singing, “If you want to destroy my sweater / Hold this thread as I walk away.” Cuomo himself has explained the line’s inspiration like so:

It was in my English class that I heard the analogy of the unraveling sweater. Dr. Eisenstein used the image to demonstrate the effectiveness of focused thesis statement in an essay. “All I have to do is hold a single thread in your sweater and it will unravel as you walk away.”

Which Cuomo cleverly weaves into an evocative bit of romantic metaphor, as though to say, you can storm out of this argument and the thread of our relationship will unravel right behind you. Neat.

From there, there’s another dialogue section, but this one is wisely briefer — made notable for the appearance of Mykel Allan (one half of the Mykel & Carli duo that were perhaps the first two die-hard Weezer fans ever, and the managers of the official Weezer fanclub until their untimely and tragic deaths in 1997). The second verse follows, with one of my all-time favorite examples of the classic Matt Sharp falsetto — it gives the two syllable gibberish lines such a cool, unnerving effect, really adding to that mental dementia vibe I mentioned earlier. There’s something very schizophrenic about it (especially the way Sharp half-echoes the “bye bye” — brilliant!), which is only reinforced by the lyrics:

Oh no
It go
It gone
Bye-bye (bye!)
Who I?
I think
I sink
And I die!

After some delectable little variations in the chorus (a Cuomo trademark the absence of which severely compromised his songwriting during his obsessive “strophic composition” phase of the late ’90s/’00s), Cuomo tears into the first solo of the song — and man is it ever bitchin’! Gotta love the way it continues to amble well into the third chorus. Which itself becomes pretty badass when, upon its repetition, Bell repeats the four lines we’ve grown accustomed to by this point, while Cuomo shouts a new chorus in the foreground:

I don’t want to destroy your tanktop
Let’s be friends, and just walk away
Hate to see you lyin’ there in your Superman skivvies
Lyin’ on the floor, lyin’ on the floor, I’ve come undone

Which is a pretty damn smart little nuance: it’s a sudden diversion that deliciouly splits the listener’s attention span in two halves, making “Undone” even more of a cerebral listen than your standard pop chart fare. But what’s really cool is how it works musically: the words still line up in certain points (“to destroy your,” “and just walk away” — not to mention the awesome way “let’s be friends” and “hold this thread” rhyme while being sung at the same time! hot damn!), and the little moments of vocal consonance and harmony in a section of dissonance and counterpoint is simply fantastic. Not to mention that the rhythm section is adding in some extra thick-n-heavy power chords  and cymbal crashes now, which sees the gentle head-nod groove established at the song’s beginning developing into an increasingly spirited head-bang. Which is a trend that only continues when Cuomo and Bell hold out that last “UNDOOOOONE” for a few impassioned bars.

And then, god damn it: Cuomo rips into another solo, which gently frays the senses for a moment, before Bell and Sharp add in an “ooh-ooh-ooh” vocal pantomine of the arpeggiated progression that began the song, all while Cuomo begins to really savage his fretboard. Pretty soon Wilson’s bludgeoning the drums, and the tension only increases —Christ, are those “ooh-ooh-ooh” things catchy! And as Cuomo’s guitar begins breaking out of the atmosphere my mind begins to melt. Wilson’s cymbals sound like a fucking sea of cicadas close to those final moments there, and when the climax finally concludes, that main melody loops itself around a nifty little keyboard sound while the shambled guitars groan and whimper in the wake of their trauma. (At this point, repeated listens will reveal a very nearly buried acoustic guitar track in the mix, further speaking to the attention to detail that characterized these sessions.) Around now is when the single version fades out, but for the album version Cuomo appends an outro that is the sound of a piano being tortured in some kind of extra-dimensional music hell. It’s a bit out of place, but it’s one of the most explicitly strange and experimental things committed to tape by a young band that left most of its brilliance to keen subtlety, like the silent genius who favored the back of the class over raising hand. And it comes at the end of an undeniably great song, so hey, it’s pretty cool.

At this point it would be good to run down a few of the notable versions of this song that exist, as there are many. Way back on the pre-Bell, pre-Blue “Kitchen Tape” band demo, Weezer laid down a prototype version of the song that was founded on the brick and mortar of a steady acoustic guitar, featured a little more adventurous bass work from Sharp, and, most notably, foregos the later dialogue section for something more along the lines of what the band does when they play this song live: sing/say whatever comes to mind. And this is probably the coolest sing/say section in “Undone” history: Sharp rambles wistfully about money, Cuomo tellingly quotes the Pixies’ classic “Hey” and admits, as though in a confession booth, “I wanna be a singer like Black Francis,” and then-guitarist Jason Cropper raps emphatically about something that hilariously concludes, “I hate talk shows so much, I want to KILL them!” Hearing them all go at once is an extremely disorienting (and fucking awesome) moment, and it’s a spine-tingling great effect when Sharp ascends into a melodic little falsetto. I think this arrangement is much more in line with the spirit of the song than the spoken word dialogues that would come to replace it, although I think that those dialogues were such a peculiar little touch that “Undone” might not have been the unexpected runaway hit that it was without them. In any case, it’s nice to have this document, and it too can be yours if you go out and get yourself a copy of The Blue Album‘s deluxe reissue.

What else, what else? Well, it’s worth noting that throughout the Blue sessions Koch was assembling a sound collage that the band was planning to have on the final version of the song, but Geffen Records rolled their eyes at the prospect of sample clearings and royalties, and axed the idea in the eleventh hour (hence the last-minute decision to do some Gen X parody dialogue instead) — but that version remains unsurfaced. Out of what we do have, one of my favorites is a 1995 version at the Black Sessions in Paris, which wonderfully captures Weezer at the crossroads between Blue and the developing, then-nascent Pinkerton style. As such, the song is significantly slowed down and articulately messied up — it’s a great version, Sharp quotes Radiohead’s “Creep” in the second spoken word section (which is a lot fucking better than Scott Shriner leading Weezer in a paint-by-numbers cover of “Creep” in 2008), and Bell deserves a Grammy for the ridiculous length of time he (successfully) holds onto that final “UNDONE” shout. Really now, just listen to that fucking thing. Damn.

Speaking of Pinkerton, there’s a bizarre 1997 acoustic version done for Y100’s Sonic Sessions in Philadelphia wherein certified madman Timothy “Speed” Levitch saunters into the studio and nasally recites some truly fuckawful poetry over where the dialogue usually is (and where it usually isn’t, as well). Well past the point where Pinkerton had made itself a clear commercial failure, this was the last thing Weezer needed then and there: I’ve long imagined that the band hearing this crap poet shit all over their first hit song was the exact moment they realized they had hit rock bottom, and Cuomo decided in his mind, “Fuck art. I require commercial efficiency.” Five bucks says dude had written “Brightening Day” and the entire second half of The Green Album in his head by the time this shit performance ended.

Inevitably I’m going to forget some key “Undone” versions from the hundreds that exist, but ones that come to mind: a crowd-pleasing Rivers Cuomo Band version that took place in a Boston club in 1998, which features Cuomo awesomely going solo on an extended rap song quotation with some real hip-hop swagger (can anyone discern enough of those words to know what song he’s quoting? it’s the 1/14/98 bootleg); the MTV All Access performance of this song in 2001, which I believe a particularly stylin’ Mikey Welsh kicked the shit out of; a slew of Make Believe tour performances that, in proto-Hootenanny fashion, allowed for one lucky fan per show to crowd surf up to the stage, grab an acoustic guitar and play with the band — which on the tour with the Foo Fighters led to a not-so-coincidental performance featuring Dave Grohl, which I really do wish would surface in MP3 form soon (in the meantime, this clip captures the essence pretty well, I imagine — by the way Cuomo’s smiling, you might as well call this the beginning of his current ambition to collaborate with every contemporary musician beneath the sun).

And perhaps most notably, there’s the version that Cuomo and Sharp cobbled together on the fly during their first and only time sharing the stage together since Sharp’s unamicable departure from the band in 1997. It took place in a little coffee shop in Fullerton, CA on 2/12/04 — Sharp was playing what was billed as an ordinary solo show of his, before he welcomed the ultimate surprise guest to the stage at the set’s conclusion. After a crowd-warming rendition of “Say It Ain’t So,” Sharp and Cuomo intended to pack it up, but the demand for another song was too much.

In a sentimental moment like straight out of a movie, Cuomo ventures, “We could probably do ‘Sweater Song’ in our sleep.” Sharp groans as he tries to remember the chords, but soon he is reminded by a member of the audience. And then, in a playful moment like straight out of a Pinkerton fanboy’s ultimate dream, Cuomo remembers, “He usually raps over the verse,” and, with a mischevious laugh, challenges his old friend/enemy to “improv a rap” — and just like that, Sharp’s doing the goddamn smoothest quote of 2Pac’s “Picture Me Rollin'” you’ve ever heard. Then that verse, with fucking MATT SHARP FALSETTO after all those years. It’s not perfect — Sharp funnily admits that “Picture Me Rollin'” is the only rap song he knows during the second spoken word section, Cuomo forgets some lyrics in the repeated chorus and Sharp, then silent, sounds as though he’s waiting for Brian Bell to sing his part — but damned if it isn’t heartwarming. And it’s especially nice to hear after you’ve endured the tasteless massacre of “Undone” that was the 2008 Troublemaker tour version, during which Cuomo consistently rambled himself into total trainwrecks, missed cues, flubbed parts and seemed unable to give half a shit otherwise. Maybe Sharp should swing a solo tour through Fullerton again sometime…

Filed in A-Sides, The Blue Album, The Very Best | | Comments (90)

Don’t Pick On Me

Monday, March 16, 2009

It’s convenient that we go from one Maladroit outtake to another — especially when this is one of the best from the era.

Also known as “Big Chip,” “Don’t Pick On Me” first appeared in September of 2001, during the Sage and Sound (SnS) demos — one of current bassist Scott Shriner’s earliest sessions with the band. And from the very start, this early take suggests something that had been (and would be) missing from the Weezer sound for quite some time. The thick guitars that laden the intro explode out of the speakers with immediacy, burdened by a certain weightiness that suggests a heavy heart, or at the least some kind of complex emotion. A nice, fret-sliding transition carries into the verse smoothly — a winningly catchy slice of pop melody that floats above the surging brawn of an agile power chord progression. From there the song veers into a more predictably Maladroit chorus, albeit one that isn’t compromised by its rawk’n’roll intentions — the stop-start AC/DC rhythm actually sounds pretty cool when set against the nimble verses and the pretty half time guitars that introduced the song. And when those guitars reappear as a sort of bridge after the second chorus, augmented by an airy “whoa-oh-oh” vocal, it feels like the perfect respite delivered at exactly the right moment. Just as you’re thinking a solo would be nice, Rivers Cuomo delivers exactly what you wanted with just the right touch of blue sky reverb — the beautifully descending figure sounds like a shooting star bright enough to cut sharply across the light of day. A retread of the chorus at this point feels a bit like a gamble, but some added harmonies from Brian Bell justify the second go around, and ending with that surging verse feels right.

The band would attempt a re-recording of this song several times during the January ’02 Maladroit sessions, but every one of them feels like a subtle regression from the last. Some of Bell’s early backing vocal additions add a nice counterpoint to Cuomo’s lead, and I like the addition of the “Don’t trifle, don’t stifle me” lyric; hell, even a couple of the alternate solos that Cuomo tries out are interesting, but nowhere near the perfection of that SnS original. By the time of the last surfaced attempt we have, dated January 9th, the song had become a casualty of the fast-developing missteps and bad habits of the Maladroit era: Bell echoes nearly all of Cuomo’s lines with unimaginative, melodyless repetitions that only clutter the soundscape, and some of the potentially good added harmonies and counterpoints are too lazily performed and thought out to sound halfway decent. The integrity of Cuomo’s beautiful original solo is here desecrated, replaced by something that sounds as busy and tasteless as one of John Coltrane’s worst saxophone jerk-offs.

In the end, it’s good that the bastardized “Don’t Pick On Me” never made it to an official release, but the band could have simply mixed down the original SnS “demo” and walked away with perhaps the best song on what could have been Maladroit. In any case, the SnS version lives on in the hearts of Weezer’s more dedicated demo archaeologists as a bittersweet reminder of what could have been — even with a mindless set of lyrics typical of the era, the song’s earliest band incarnation is a real winner. This is one of a handful of tunes that have me convinced that Cuomo’s collection of home demos, and even some early band recordings, from this era contains some yet-unreleased gems and gold.

Filed in Demos, Outtakes, The Grand Playlist | | Comments (43)

Seafaring Jamb

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

What a weird little tune. “Seafaring Jamb” is another in the Maladroit-era series of “jambs” (see also: the rather snazzy “Burndt Jamb” and the frankly awful “Zep Song” a.k.a. “Zep Jamb“), and it’s kind of in the middle of the bunch when it comes to quality. Like all the “jambs,” the song’s title does not appear anywhere in the lyrics, but it’s easy to see why they chose it: the circular little riff at the tune’s heart resembles a sea shantey in its own way, bobbing up and down as though along the ocean waves.

There are three versions of this song that I possess. The first is from November 8th, 2001 — a live version that was semi-officially released on Weezer.Com as part of the two-disc, download-only Extended Hyper Midget Tour document. The lyrics are a bit esoteric, with a one-line chorus that trails off, “I’ll tell you my weakness…” (Hence the song’s alternate title, “My Weakness”) The structure is otherwise founded on two verses, which go:

Everybody, don’t make me laugh
‘Cause it’s not so insane
In the morning it comes to pass
And there’s no one to blame

And if you knew the things I’ve seen
Then you’d have to believe
In the spirits above the sand
And the man in the tree

Say what? Then again, there’s a sort of mysterious quality to the lyrics that intrigue — it feels like there’s more at play here than Rivers Cuomo’s usual Maladroit-era rambling and non-sequiturs (read: bullshit). Plus, there’s some pretty neat imagery at play here: “the spirits above the sand,” “the man in the tree.” It’s all delivered in a rather fine melody that is, while not particularly inventive or interesting, enough to carry along the song. Scott Shriner does some neat bass riffs in the second verse, and there’s enough subtle variation going on to build up a pretty cool little aura.

Then there’s that bridge. The guitars rise up, Pat Wilson handles the ride cymbal in an almost jazzy way, and Cuomo commands with noticeable passion: “Tell me to stay / Need me to stay.” The solo runs up and down the fretboard a bit, and it’s pretty swell. The repetition of the bridge is a bit unnecessary in a quick song that clocks in just over a minute and a half (hey, I’m a Guided By Voices fan — the shorter the better, sometimes!), but it’s not a huge fault. This is a serviceable performance of a pretty okay song.

The song was, to my knowledge, then attempted twice for the Maladroit sessions in early January 2002. The version from the 9th is pretty similar to the live take, albeit with a far lesser solo that meanders aimlessly before getting cut off by a repeat of the brief chorus. It also adds an outro that is more or less dead weight and does little to aid the song. The version from the 12th adds a second guitar harmony to the main riff (making it even more of a seasick melody), and Shriner adds some pointless backups-for-the-sake-of-backups to the verses (ah, Maladroit) — but damn, this solo might be the best of the lot. Still, that pointless outro is here reprised, which works to the cut’s detriment.

My favorite version is probably the live take — as seems to be a theme of this era in the band’s history (hell, the entirety of the post-2000 era, really), the less the band thought about these tunes, the better. But that’s also the problem here: “Seafaring Jamb” feels half-baked in the typical Maladroit way; there’s just something missing. It’s crazy to think that the song was actually mixed and mastered and very nearly officially released on the album (though I wouldn’t mind hearing that outtake, for the hell of it).

Albumsix.Com forum member Baby Britain did a pretty good job of remedying the issues at hand. On the first A6 Boardie Tribute Album, he delivers a cover that transposes the song’s riff to a sleepy acoustic, buts out some pretty chords on the chorus, and replaces Brian Bell’s backing vocal tracks with a honey-voiced female backup that really does the trick. Oh, and his deuling acoustic solo takes this dream of a cover even deeper into Rapid Eye Movement bliss. He even makes a slightly altered version of the outro work quite nicely. Getting ahold of his version wouldn’t be an easy thing at this point, I don’t think, so I’ve done a nice thing and uploaded it for all to download easily: check it out, right-click save as.

Development, development. Just the thing Maladroit mostly lacked — especially considering that when the band tried, the song in question almost inadvertently regressed. As the Weezer version stands, “Seafaring Jamb” is  an inoffensive and mildly enjoyable song that, in my estimation, comes up short for a lowest-rung placement on the Grand Playlist.

Filed in Outtakes | | Comments (37)

Pig

Monday, March 2, 2009

When I wrote about Red Album deluxe track/outtake “Miss Sweeney” I spoke of the euphoria of hearing a classic Weezer track so deep into the new millennium, and the band’s new arena rock/radio pop M.O. But “Sweeney” is far from the first post-Y2K sign of life. Perhaps the brightest beacon in memory came April 9, 2007: music news/gossipper Idolator posted a link to a fresh Rivers Cuomo demo as their leak of the day, which was said to come from an anonymous tipster. Fans report having seen the MP3 originate in an official Weezer.com posting, where it remained for a few hours before mysteriously disappearing again — suggesting that Cuomo leaked the song himself, as he has done more than a few times in the past. The fact that it is the only recording that has leaked from his highly sought-after Delivrance At Hand! home demos crop (circa late ’06/early ’07) seems to corroborate this theory, as if a fan were to have gotten ahold of it, the entire thing would have likely leaked.

Its provenance didn’t particularly matter; what mattered was the raw beauty of the soul and emotion shimmering right on the song’s surface. As various other music blogs picked up the story and the MP3, fan reactions far and wide were largely ecstatic:

Thats pretty much the best thing Rivers has written in about a decade.

Those lyrics, that harmony, that simple emotion, and that smooth, soft melody remind of my favorite band from the 90’s. Thank you Rivers for keeping it real and bringing it back at an ever-so-needed time.

Is that you, Rivers? Haven’t seen you in a while…what feels like ten years…

And they were right. Musically, the song is an epiphany: the confident strum and thrum of a threadbare acoustic guitar, a loose-lipped rap verse that sounds more “El Scorcho” than “Beverley Hills” (or God forbid, “Mo’ Beats”), a most triumphant and fitting return of the fabled ’90s falsetto, elegant and simple piano chords that remind one of the warm wood stove and fireplace in “Longtime Sunshine,” an even more unbelievable (and fucking beautiful) throwback in the form of true harmonica catharsis on the chorus…It’s almost as though Rivers Cuomo opened up a Weezer forum one morning, read some Pinkerton worshipper’s latest refried diatribe, and said, “All right, fine.” Walked over to the guitar in the corner of his room, whipped out the notebook, and drew out some musical staves like the old days.

“This one’s for the little bitches.”

The song’s not just a retread, though — what’s so heart-rendingly beautiful about this song is that it picks out many of the things that worked so well about early Weezer, then travels new territory with them. This is the first glimpse the fans would get of Cuomo’s post-Make Believe exasperation with the standard verse/chorus/verse pop form, the one that he boiled down to an assembly line formula back in 2001: that is to say, I can only refer to the song’s emotional climax as a “chorus” for lack of a better word. The song is essentially one winding, 90-second verse that builds to a gorgeous pinnacle that, just as naturally as it coalesced, falls apart into a brief reprise of the song’s opening thought. Thus concludes Cuomo, dropping his guitar with a thudding chord.

The lyrics are better discussed in the context of the full-band Weezer version recorded during the Red Album sessions — and I say that not because it’s the better version, necessarily. I have a hard time choosing on a given day because the demo does some things better than the band version (namely, Cuomo’s vocal performance, and the overall arrangement of the song: although there is a harmonica on the Weezer version it’s essentially obliterated from the mix by the band’s addiction to electric guitars, and the synth strings that augment the demo’s lush piano chords distract from their plaintive beauty), while the band version does some things better than the demo version…like best reflecting the lyrics. It’s hard for me to say which the better take is, so I won’t — something for the commenters to decide — but there are a couple small added touches that I think do a better job of painting the text of the song.

While the demo began with the proud strut of Cuomo’s worn and dirty acoustic, Weezer kicks things off with a roomy, marching drum beat from Pat Wilson (some of the best-sounding drums on a Weezer recording in ages!), perhaps meant to represent the sound of a caravan approaching the farm where the narrative of the song takes place. The muted cymbal crash (deliciously scrappy, I must say!) that introduces the acoustic guitar is like the gate to the farm clattering to a close behind us, and the swaying chords sound like the hustle and bustle of the barnyard life beginning to encircle us. Cuomo the Pig soon joins our coterie, and spins us the yarn of his life. Naturally, the tale begins with childhood:

When I was a baby, I was so happy
I played with my friends in the mud
Wilbur and Jack and Otis and Beatty
We were a gang, ya got to believe me
Mama would scold us if we got too rough
She didn’t care, she was proud of us…

It’s worth noting that the rapping verse and its falsetto backup from the demo are here intact, albeit a downgrade from the perfection of that magical home recording. But it’s certainly a serviceable performance, and reels us into the Pig’s little world quite nicely. It sounds like he had a nice childhood. The next couplet is very interesting — “I ran around and talked to the animals / Tellin’ ’em stories of savage cannibals” — because while it’s clearly a sort of conversational aside, a little anecdote of what being a kid pig on the farm was like, it’s the sole reference to anything impure in the entirety of the verse vignette. “Savage cannibals” — an interesting concept, especially one for a little pig to have heard about, or perhaps concocted in his own imagination (after all, he’s the one telling the story to everyone else). Its exact meaning is up to interpretation, but it does two things for me: firstly, there’s a sort of literary quality to it which I think makes this song’s inadvertent reference to Orwell’s Animal Farm all the more tangible; and secondly, the dark allusion certainly serves to foreshadow the grizzly inevitable of this tale’s conclusion.

Then I got older and noticed a girl
First I was sure I didn’t exist to her
I sulked around but I didn’t know why
Then she put her cheek on my shoulder, and I
Was lookin’ at her and she was lookin’ at me
We started to smile: it was our destiny
Tina was her name, she was my cutie pie
Forgot about the things that I used to like

Those synth strings enter with this turn in the plot, and with them our hearts begin to melt a little. How adorable is that? Cuomo of course can’t resist putting in a classic hopeless-romantic quip of his own (“I was sure I didn’t exist to her”), but what’s so cute about this story is that the love interest finds the Pig’s sulking endearing (something that never happened in one of Cuomo’s more autobiographical songs: perhaps an interesting subtext here is that something like that would only happen in a fairytale?). “We started to smile, it was our destiny” — so simple, so pure, as if Pet Sounds had just left Cuomo’s turntable yesterday. Gotta also love the “she was my cutie pie” line, a piece of nerdy-white-boy-rap slang that sounds like a discarded draft lyric from “Buddy Holly.” And all this set to such lovely music? Excuse the break in my analysis, but it’s almost too good to be true!

I spent all my time followin’ her around
My friends all made the whiplash sound
But they understood, they was happy for me
And everyone clapped when I asked her to marry me
And she said yes, and we felt so fine!
We lost track of the passin’ of time…
Before I knew it, we had our own babies
Gina and Shade and Kiwi and Ged

Of course, Weezer predictably adds sound effects where appropriate in this segment of the verse. While the demo perhaps wisely left these things to the imagination, when the Pig’s friends make “the whiplash sound,” Cuomo’s friends in Weezer are there to make it as part of the backing vocal track, and they even dub some percussive handclaps over the “everyone clapped when I asked her to marry me” line. Some have bemoaned this move as belaboring the obvious, but personally, I think it works nicely in the song: it’s cute and cheesy in an endearing way, and the handclaps are tasteful and fun enough that I can’t help but clap along whenever I hear them. And oh, the joyous release of that line, “She said yes, and we felt so fine!” It’s lovely — especially when Wilson helps express the point with a little drum roll that sounds almost like the clicking of someone’s heels, or maybe a lovestruck heart skipping a beat. In any case, it most certainly is the sound of a great musician and his talents being put to good use after so many years of being curbed and neglected.

Wilson’s building toms also make for a nice segue into the sad climax of the song, the prolonged inevitable finally realized:

But now, I have to die
I’ve lived a good life, I’ve got no complaints
I’d like to thank Farmer Pete
For bringing me scraps of food that I could eat
He always had a smile on his face
He didn’t want to think of this day
It’s finally here.
It’s finally here, oh…

Catharsis, pure and simple. While the austere beauty of the demo version’s simple, subtle chorus is truly something to behold, I think the electric release of the Weezer version captures the moment better. Those thick, strangled guitars, the piano fully centered now as doubled by a twinkling glockenspiel/xylophone that is TRULY right out of “Pink Triangle,” the harmonica buried deep in the mix (not heard so much as felt), and the backup vocal echoes/harmonies of “it’s finally here” push the emotional resonance of the moment into the red. Speaking of that piano, listen closely — it really hits on some violent, discordant chords in there, and the effect is nothing short of epic.

God, it keeps going! At this point Cuomo tears into a primal wail so loud and disembodied it sounds like it’s roaring down from the clouds above. And then, in beautiful layered harmony: “They called me Pig!” The guitars are SCREAMING now, Wilson letting loose all over the cymbals, a gloriously heavy and layered restatement of the unassuming tumbles and rolls of the intro — it’s just all so powerful, so gripping. For me, it ranks up there with — maybe even beats — any given old school Weezer song as THE best singalong experience in the band’s canon. When this song comes on in the car and I’m out on the highway, I throw my hands up in the air and shout along with this moment so hard that I am *guaranteed* not to have a voice anymore on the other side. Body-trembling, arm-shaking, rearview mirror-cracking catharsis — what a fucking moment. I can’t get over it. It’s just so, so powerful.

The lyrics only stoke the fire that much more: halfway through the extended verse we really came to like this Pig, the cute and endearing little personification that he is. That’s because despite the metaphor (or perhaps because of it), we can really relate — this is a human’s life just as much as it is a pig’s, which is emotionally poignant and potent on so many levels (the shock of the relatability segues into an identification with the Pig protagonist insofar that some listeners might choose to go vegetarian by the song’s conclusion). This point really comes to a head during that climax: the way the Pig gratefully accepts his cruel fate is, in no small way, a pretty apt metaphor for the way we deal with our concept of God. He gave us life, so even when he’s come to take it back from us, we thank him for the time we had — “I’ve lived a good life, I’ve got no complaints.” Could any of us ask for any more than to truly feel that way, at the end of the day? And yet, even as God, Farmer Pete approaches the Pig with a gun in his hand and regret in his heart. Is that remorse real or imagined? Wishful thinking, or does Farmer Pete really feel something for this Pig the way we do? Regardless, the day has come, it’s finally here, and even when we are brave and accepting, there’s an existential disbelief that comes with this moment of harshest reality. It’s finally here…

What happens next is as grand a triumph as anything Cuomo — maybe anyone — has ever achieved through song. That climax is the sound of the Pig lifting up off the earth and out of reality, already catching a glimpse of the forever just beyond the clouds, be it a pearly-gated heaven or perhaps a blackness as dark and endless as outerspace. But suddenly we’re sucked back down to the moment on earth, where the Pig lays patiently before his maker on the stump of a fallen tree. Knowing what’s about to happen, his life quickly flashes before his eyes, back to the moment that started it all — “When I was a baby, I was so happy, I played with my friends in the mud…” — and the arpeggiating guitar lines reach up to the sky, a rattling tambourine symbolic of the last cool breeze this Pig will ever feel on his skin.

Bang. Wilson hits the snare, and just like that the shotgun shell courses down the barrel, through the open air and directly into the Pig’s bowed head. He was still before, but now there’s a certain lifelessness to him as the blood spills from his skull, gently rolling down the side of the tree stump. The plaintive strum of the guitar pulls the great big Camera of Life away from the scene, Farmer Pete pausing to wipe his spectacles beneath the sepia tones of the setting autumn sun. The farm is instilled with a quiet reverence for the memory of the fine Pig, but you can tell as the sun dips beneath the horizon and the image fades to black, that this is something none of them will ever speak of again.

***

People: this is a song. I would close with a thought about how this is what Weezer should be about nowadays, and how this is something that should not have to be relegated to outtake/bonus track status — but as I sit here in the wake of this song, that feels beside the point. Forget Weezer for a moment: this is what music should be about; what cinema should be about; what art should be about; what life should be about. It’s rare that a song can so totally consume the heart as to really inspire one to change the fiber of his very existence, but that’s the kind of thing this song achieves for me. Rather than a reprimand or a suggestion, I’d rather take this opportunity to thank Cuomo for a piece of his mind, heart and soul. He truly has a rare and precious beauty in them all.

Filed in Bonus Tracks, Deliverance At Hand!, The Red Album, The Very Best | | Comments (147)

Don’t Let Go

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

“I went through a massive Oasis phase in 97-99. I bet Liam [Gallagher] rubbed off on me. He’s a very non-dynamic singer. Perhaps his influence wasn’t a good thing.”
—Rivers, ‘asschun correspondence,’ 2002
(http://www.members.shaw.ca/ridd2/correspondence/asschun.html)

Perhaps the best example of Oasis’ detrimental effect on our dear Rivers Cuomo is the original demo of “Island In The Sun,” wherein a very lithe, open-air sketch of the classic tune — lovely organ line and all — is all but ruined by a scratchy, deadpan vocal that sounds like that kid who broke his leg on purpose to get out of PE.

That concerted anti-dynamicism absolutely pervades The Green Album, however, and it’s apparent from track 1 — “Don’t Let Go.” The song floats along on a thick and creamy bed of chugging guitars and buried synths, a lil’ ole three-chord pop rock tune that is made minorly remarkable by the fact that its generic and predictable progression is played and layered by somewhere around seven or eight guitar tracks. And as if laying comfily upon the many six-stringed bed he has made for himself, Cuomo sounds just a bit too laid back to perform anything resembling a believable vocal. He hits the notes fine — especially when he doubles and triples his vocals in a winsome take on traditional doo-wop harmony — but there’s just no feeling or emotion behind his paint-by-numbers plea to a girl who’s thinking about walking out the door.

While we’re on the subject of Cuomo’s predictable lyrics assembly line of the era, it’s worth noting that the song’s repeated “Confrontation’s on my mind / Got me running out of time” bridge is pretty much the exact same melody and delivery as the all-too-similar opening couplet from Green b-side “O Lisa,” “Simple stages in my mind / Now I’m running out of time” (which itself sounds like a rehash of the chorus to Green album track “Simple Pages” — “simple pages on my mind”). Also, the “Don’t Let Go” lyric, “anything you desire I will set at your feet,” seems to have first appeared in a song we’ve as of yet only heard a brief rehearsal clip of, 2000’s dark and foreboding “No Way” — which sounds more interesting than just about any of the other songs referenced in this paragraph.

Slight tangents aside, “Don’t Let Go” simply wasn’t a respectable way to reintroduce the band whose last album-released thought was the beautiful and plaintive aubade, “Butterfly.” Half-hearted, phoned-in radio pop (that’s too boring even for radio — thank GOD Rivers wouldn’t let Geffen make it the first single!) of this kind should have never been the follow-up to two of the sharpest and most original pop rock records of the ’90s — and the bigger insult was that this was just the first three minutes of a record that, for the most part, rehashed this simple concept for the entirety of its all-too-brief 28-minute run. (Record reviewer Mark Prindle had a keen thought about this at the time: seeing how the band had taken five years to concoct less than half an hour of predictable pop rock on a record that was their *second* self-titled, he figured Weezer had been dipping into the heroin during their time off. Much less interesting than the true life story of psychosis and creative self-discipline that really got the band into this mess, but a funny insight regardless.)

Still though, there’s something mildly appealing about the way this modern ’50s-pop throwback is so careful not to offend, and that’s because at the heart of it, there’s the kernel of a good song here. Cuomo and company grappled with that concept for a long time: as early as summer 2001, guitarist Brian Bell and soon-to-be-jilted bassist Mikey Welsh were adding a couple new backing vocal melodies into the mix to fill out the song’s skeleton a bit, and there exists a bootleg of a truly bizarre performance from 5/19/02 in Fukuoka, Japan, where Bell injects some strangely-shaped guitar leads in the pre-chorus (some of the fuzz sounds rather out of tune and, albeit surely unintentionally, a bit Pinkertonesque!), new bassist Scott Shriner proffers some sour milk falsetto for the vocal fold, and Cuomo tears into a Mala-metal guitar solo that veers far from the unimaginative melody retread of the album version.

Still, it wasn’t until 2005 that the band really figured out how to do this one justice. Their AOL Sessions from that year document a new version of the track (half a step up) that benefits from some very-audible synth leads (played by Bell), backing guitar from touring tech man Bobby Schneck, a more nimble bassline as plucked by Shriner, and a Cuomo vocal performance that actually sounds like it gives a damn (Bell’s shouted harmony adds some muscle, too). Bell and Schneck indulge in a deuling guitar solo that breaks the monotony quite nicely, and Pat Wilson is even allowed to drum a fill here and there. Still, for my money the definitive version is the one we have from the band’s late-December ’05 dates in Japan, which you can see for yourself (in living color!) here:

“Don’t Let Go” — Live In Japan, 2005

Wilson hits the kit with dexterous conviction, Bell switches between the keys and the guitar with rock star poise, and Cuomo is in full-on popstar mode, running around the stage, grabbing the hands of Japanese fan girls, shimmying back and forth, and — most importantly — kicking the SHIT out of his vocals. The big crowd singalong during that doubled-up guitar solo is just the icing on the cake. When I add this song to the Grand Playlist, this is most certainly the version I’m thinking of.

Therein lies the problem, though: why’d it take Weezer more than four years to find the perfect way to play such a simple tune? One figures the boons of its current version would’ve been plainly obvious to the band while recording way back when…Though I suppose the demanding recording and touring schedules of the time simply took its toll on Cuomo’s better judgment (who gets the brunt of the blame for that particular era’s failures, as that was the height of his most brutally dictatorial period as frontman).

Interesting and worth noting: if you can find the “early leak” version of The Green Album (perhaps someone could post it to the comments?) and crank it on a system with a decent subwoofer, you might just be able to pick out the rather cool bass fills Welsh was playing in the studio (and were, even by this point, mastered and compressed to the point of near oblivion). Also, as we can see from the making of the Green Album footage on Weezer’s Video Capture Device DVD, a sort of gang vocal singalong for the chorus of this song was at one point recorded (featuring album producer/Cars frontman Ric Ocasek!), but if these recordings were ever used, they’re so far buried in the mix as to be nonexistent (like many Green tracks, Cuomo’s multi-tracked voice is the only one to be heard). Lastly, a live b-side version of this song was released (anyone remember on what single? my Googling can’t save me now), which captures a pretty unremarkable 2001 rework of the song (Bell sure is singing loudly…perhaps to make up for not being heard on the record!). Rather wittily, Cuomo offers up some post-song banter — “Or, let go…If you prefer” — which I feel was sadly the main inspiration behind releasing this particular performance on official disc. Ho-hum!

Filed in The Grand Playlist, The Green Album | | Comments (68)

Preacher’s Son

Monday, February 23, 2009

Somewhere down the line, the Summer Songs 2000 inadvertently start to blur together for the listener. For me, that happens somewhere around “Preacher’s Son.” Trying to imagine the song’s different sections without first playing it, I imagine “Preacher’s Son” beginning with the guitar intro from “Modern Dukes” — and even though I get through the general gist of the verse and chorus all right, from there my inner stereo immediately goes into the post-chorus from “Mad Kow,” which takes me a moment to realize is actually not “My Brain.”  And these are all songs I’ve heard at least a couple dozen times before.

The actual “Preacher’s Son” is pretty okay. Musically, the song is a no-nonsense, 2-minute blast of pop rock energy that is bookended by some pretty great squalls of upper-fretboard abandon. The verses feature some decent vocal harmony ideas, and while the choruses narrowly miss giving the song the lift it needs to really go somewhere, the solo is an oft-overlooked shredfest that recalls the kind of tense guitar catharsis Rivers Cuomo used to conjure with songs like “Why Bother.”

The lyrics have momentary flashes of inspiration, but in total they just don’t add up. For starters, I’m not sure what the opening couplet about “living for peace till the day is done” as “the preacher’s son” has to do with the usual relationship case study that follows. And even that sounds self-contradictory in that Cuomo sometimes sings from a position of power (“I’m gonna mold you into something that I like”), and other times he seems self-depracting and helpless (“If you need a fix, then I will be your tool”). And then there’s the matter of the chorus (“Always take me back / Falling off the track”), which intentionally or not is a very direct lift from “The Good Life” (“I wanna go back / And I don’t even know how I got off the track”). And regardless of the band’s intention, in this context it feels more like an unwitting bastardization than a well-placed reference.

Oh, and inevitably we must mention the last line of the chorus: “I’m on fire to be with you tonight and make your body come.” This is about as crassly sexual as Cuomo’s ever been as a lyricist, and while it might read a bit ridiculous as a Weezer line on paper, something about the raunchy guitars and brash rock’n’roll confidence makes it work. There’s definitely a difference here, between this and the infamous “sex you” line…(Even then, “Preacher’s Son” is covered for never having been released proper)

Anyone used to hearing this trim 2-minute edit might be surprised to know that its actual live performances were often a minute longer. As a bootleg from 6/21/00 illuminates, the song used to have a second verse that was wisely cut from the final version, since it seems  to drag and makes the lyrics even less coherent (“I can’t be someone that you wish I was / Just a tag-along, like you too because / But I will never let you go…”). In addition, there’s a studio demo of the song that suffers from not only the addition of this cumbersome section, but also a subpar solo and a lack of the harmonies that drove the verses onstage. It’s also interesting because while it sounds rough and sloppy enough to be a live rehearsal take, Cuomo’s layered overdubs are the only backing vocals on the track, making one wonder if he was beginning to enforce his vocal track monopoly that would later characterize The Green Album as early as 2000.

In conclusion, I was wondering if someone a little more theoretically trained might be able to shed some light on why so much of SS2K sounds the fuckin’ same. Are most of the songs written in the same key? Are some of the progressions retreads, or close to? Maybe Cuomo’s formulaic writing style had simply grown too refined for its own good.

Filed in Summer Songs 2000 | | Comments (26)

Don’t Worry Baby

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

We could stay up all night counting the Beach Boys references in Rivers Cuomo’s work. And depending on how things go, we might even conclude that Weezer’s Blue debut can be interpreted as, at least in one sense, a sort of alt-rock/Gen X homage to the golden California boys who, by the time Cuomo discovered the band at the onset of his 20s, had grayed and frayed into a fragmented, retirement-home shadow of their former selves. There’s the lazied up, early-’90s slacker take on the Boys’ immaculate harmonies that grace nearly every track (the Matt Sharp falsetto of “Say It Ain’t So” being my personal favorite), which, when set against Cuomo’s late-’80s guitar metal affections, feel like something of a dark and wonderful perversion of the perfect world and innocent youth Brian Wilson sang and wrote about in the mid-’60s. (Hell, “Undone — The Sweater Song” might capture the kind of lunacy Wilson descended into better than any of his own work did! …SMiLE notwithstanding.)

If you’re looking to get specific, “Only In Dreams” features a lyrical reference to “Then I Kissed Her,” and “Holiday” contains at least three very intentional references to Wilson and the Beach Boys (gold star to the first to identify all three in the comments!). Cuomo even wrote his own surfing song in “Surf Wax America” — though references to kegs and I’ma-do-the-things-that-I-wanna-do defiance modernize it as a slacker anthem in its own right (irony and all…perhaps early claims that Weezer was a cleaned up, radio-friendly Pavement weren’t completely offbase). There’s also the matter of how Pinkerton centerpiece “Across The Sea” has an intro that melodically mirrors that of the Beach Boys’ brilliant “You Still Believe In Me,” which is worth a quick comparison if you haven’t made the connection yet. And as Cuomo notes in the Alone II booklet, Wilson’s use of syncopated and non-syncopated beats in the vocal melody were a big inspiration — one most notably apparent in the fantastic “No One Else.”

The Beach Boys song that taught Cuomo that technique is “Don’t Worry Baby” — and you can hear him practicing it in this April ’93 home demo cover, which finally saw release this past November on Alone II. It’s a pretty serviceable, predictably crunchy Weezer update of the old classic — Cuomo brings the big drums and fuzzed-up amps, but does it in a way that’s tasteful and just restrained enough. His lead vocal is a fine tribute, but the most intersting thing going on vocally is the choir of backing vocals he recorded to fill out the Boys’ five-part harmonies. Cuomo made theoretical homework out of dissecting and notating each one of their melodies, and even sped up his 8-track tape, chipmunks style, to hit notes his voice couldn’t otherwise manage — which may account for why some of it sounds a little off-key. (We ought to give the young man a break, though; he never imagined his older self would be releasing this someday.) Cuomo also adds his own little touch with the injection of a brief guitar solo, nicely breaking up the pace of the song before quickly disappearing.

All in all, it’s a fun and catchy little glimpse into a gifted young musician’s creative process, and one that I’m glad we fans got to here. Of course, this makes one wonder whatever happened to that cover of “Surfer Girl” Cuomo recorded two summers later, or that clutch of Beatles covers he churned out around the same time…

Filed in Alone II, Covers, The Grand Playlist | | Comments (31)