Reviews   © Bill Kopp - the critical lowdown on music you can actually buy.

Review of Los Lobos' Wolf Tracks: The Best of Los Lobos   © Bill Kopp

Reviewing best-ofs is a dodgy proposition; if the artist in question is good, then by definition the disc is good...generally. It's simple enough to point out a shoddy compilation, taking issue with any number of issues (song selection, poor remastering, lack of bonus/rarities, clumsy sequencing, lousy packaging, etc.). With all that in mind, then, how does Wolf Tracks: The Best of Los Lobos -- the third retrospective of the quarter-century recorded career of Los Lobos – measure up?

The first attempt to survey these Angelinos' recorded oeurve was 1993's Just Another Band from East L.A. A full eleven of 20 cuts on Wolf Tracks are repeated from the East L.A. set. More recently (2000) Rhino/Warners dropped El Cancionero: Mas y Mas, a sprawling box set. There's plenty of redundancy with regard to that package, too. Anyone owning either of the two previous comps, then, would have little use for Wolf Tracks, as it offers up only a single unreleased track.

Of course those people are not the intended market for this new collection. Wolf Tracks is designed as a single-disc introduction/overview of this influential, eclectic group. On that level it succeeds. The various stages of the group's development are well-represented in the space of eighty minutes. And unlike many groups' retrospectives, the music quality doesn't drop off a cliff 45 minutes into the listen. As expected, Wolf Tracks is full of energy. It's a party disc that encourages living-room dancing, yet bears up to close, careful, attentive, thoughtful listening.

Review of Isaac Hayes' Ultimate Isaac Hayes: Can You Dig It?   © Bill Kopp

Finally we have an Isaac Hayes career retrospective that is both succinct and sprawling. Of course “The Theme from Shaft” is here; it leads off the first disc on this two-disc, non-chronological compilation of Black Moses' finest and most commercial offerings. Isaac Hayes is the ideal example of a performer's artistic aspirations dovetailing perfectly with the zeitgeist, resulting in both critical and commercial success.

Hayes, as presented on Ultimate Isaac Hayes: Can You Dig It?, provides something for every taste. The romantic soul balladeering of slow jams like "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" flows smoothly into his legendary reinvention of pop hits like the epic "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "The Look of Love;" Hayes truly makes the songs his own. His soundtrack work on blaxploitation films like The Men and Three Tough Guys strikes just the right vibe.

The two discs are sonically packed to the limit with classic Hayes, mostly from the Stax era (1966-1975) with a few important later pieces thrown in. A bonus DVD completes the lavishly-appointed set, and includes an excerpt from Hayes' legendary 1972 performance at the Wattstax festival. Bring things up to date, the DVD includes a clip from South Park, featuring Isaac Hayes in his role as Chef performing the immortal "Chocolate Salty Balls."

Isaac Hayes' music is classified as soul. He covered white pop standards. His songs made it onto the charts of soul, R&B and pop. His music is widely sampled by current artists. You can -- and should -- dig Ultimate Isaac Hayes.

Review of Hayseed Dixie's A Hot Piece of Grass   © Bill Kopp

Hayseed Dixie is bluegrass music's answer to Dread Zeppelin. But then, who asked the question? Hayseed Dixie's high-concept approach recasts hard rock songs in a bluegrass context (for a secret message, say “Hayseed Dixie” out loud, over and over, until you get it).

These guys most certainly have a sense of humor -- how else to explain a bluegrass reworking of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs," replete with banjo, fiddle and mandolin. Hayseed Dixie moves beyond the major-chords-only confines of bluegrass, interpreting the nuances of rock's warhorses in a fresh way. Jimmy Page's descending guitar groan on Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" is presented here as a screeching fiddle. Green Day's "Holiday" is retooled as a reel-around-the-campfire singalong.

The second half of A Hot Piece of Grass presents a clutch of originals. In a sense they suffer from loss of the rock context; measured on their own merits, they're great tunes. The album wraps up with an breakneck-paced rendition of "Dueling Banjos" (coauthored by the daddy of mandolin axeman Deacon Dale Reno).

Hayseed Dixie moves all at once toward both hard rock and traditional Appalachian music, doing so with intelligence and wit. The liner notes are a hoot as well. A facsimile of the band's stage setup plans is included, clearly delineating the required location (and contents) of the onstage beer cooler. And the copyright statement has been reworded to admonish that "unauthorized duplication is prohibited, is not very sporting, and may well result in a full on East Tennessee ass whooping."

Review of Sucka Brown's Extra Medium   © Bill Kopp

Upon hearing its drums-and-shouted-vocal leadoff, one could be forgiven for guessing that Extra Medium, the debut album by Boston-based Sucka Brown, is the latest white hip-hop act. That guess, however, would fall wide of the mark. Some twenty-five seconds into the track, Todd Denman's tasteful electric guitar kicks in with a tone and style that owes more to 70s prog-jazz. Most tracks on the self-released Extra Medium are uptempo exercises in genre bending. The rhythm section's shifting tempos contrast with overdubbed harmonies from vocalist Brendan Hall. "Cognizant Paranoi" lays down retro funk/soul vibe then shifts into a modern rock feel. Throughout the virtually angst-free disc the playing is tight, and the arrangements are inventive yet familiar enough to ground the group's sound. Only on the nonsensically titled “Chainsaw Tweezer Farm” does the group stumble toward shopworn neo-Metallica shredding territory, and even there they manage a stuttering bridge that adds interest.

The album seems to improve with repeated spins. If there's a downside to Extra Medium, it's the running time; the disc is over is under a half hour. But faced with the choice between quality and quantity, quality wins every time, and Extra Medium's a winner. And hey – there's always the sophomore disc. Upon completing a critical listen of this album, one could be forgive for thinking that -- should they decide to -- Sucka Brown could pursue a successful career in any number of musical idioms. And in this case one would in all likelihood be correct.

Review of BG (aka B. Gizzle)'s The Heart of Tha Streetz Vol 2 - I Am What I Am   © Bill Kopp

In 2006, intentional mangling of words (anything-izzle) and "creative" spelling are the hiphop equivalent of a rocker bellowing "Hello, Cleveland!" Fans of more-of-the same are in for a treat with the latest release from B.G. aka B. Gizzle aka Christopher Dorsey. On his latest, The Heart of Tha Streetz Vol. 2 - I Am What I Am, B.G. raps over eighteen tracks, covering territory familiar to Dirty South aficionados.

B.G. sent out enough guest invitations to fill an Escalade; all but three tracks feature guest artists. To his credit, the man credited with giving the world the phrase "bling bling" chose well. By far the best track on the disc is "Move Around," featuring Mannie Fresh, one of the founders of Cash Money, B.G.'s former label. "Move Around" boasts a driving beat that all but forces the listener to obey its command, and Mannie Fresh is a spirited vocalist, free of the crypto-stoner mumblings found elsewhere.

No Dirty South styled release would be complete without a helping of misogyny (or humor, depending on one's viewpoint and/or gender), and I Am What I Am does not disappoint. In some alternate universe "P**** Pop" is schoolyard jump-rope doggerel. And B.G. employs generous use of the N-word, the F-word and their frequent lyrical fellow travelers. Back when B.G. was in diapers, that was shocking, revolutionary. Not today.

Still, a handful of the beats are relatively strong. And there's lots more where this came from: Volume 1 dropped eight months ago, and New Orleans native B.G. has an extensive back catalog.

Review of Randy and the Bloody Lovelies' Lift   © Bill Kopp

The album's opening couplet "Oh if you kill or steal or lie / you'll go to L.A. when you die" might be a tipoff that Lift is headed for smart-aleck territory. In fact the lyrics sketch out situations and character studies, but the emphasis isn't so much on irony or humor. If Ben Folds had a Missouri drawl and was influenced more by Billy Joel than Burt Bacharach, he might sound like Randy Wooten.

Missouri native Wooten wears his own influences on his sleeve; there's no arguing with his eclectic taste. “Blue Horizons” conjures The Band. “Nadine” brings to mind Harry Nillsson and Randy Newman. “New Disguise” evokes peak-period Elton John.

The album features all sorts of ear candy, wrought forth from Mellotron, pedal steel, fiddle and more. “Under Starlight,” the album's longest and best piece, with beautiful string arrangements straight off John Lennon's Imagine LP, feels like an perfect album closer…but it's not the last track. That honor goes to “Cobblestones & Gin,” a song that channels (again) early 70s Elton, and sounds like a deep album cut.

The more upbeat numbers are sequenced toward the front of the album to draw the listener in, yet there's not a weak cut on the disc. This is one of the better albums of its type; it's on a par with the New Radicals 1998 release and Owsley's 1999 debut, both remarkable albums that made nary a dent in the marketplace. They deserved better, as does the warm and wonderful Lift.

Review of Walk The Line (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) CD   © Bill Kopp

Val Kilmer would be proud. The nearest, best antecedent to the soundtrack to the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line is Kilmer's vocal turn in Oliver Stone's The Doors. In the Cash film, the decision was made to use new recordings of old classics, rather than having actors lip-synch to other recordings (presumably robbing Ashlee Simpson of her chance to co-star as June Carter Cash).

Paradoxically, the approach lends an air of authenticity to the proceedings. Neither Joaquin Phoenix (Johnny) and Reese Witherspoon (June) apes their subjects; instead they work to capture their feel, their essence. Arguably they nailed it.

Throughout the disc -- though most notably on Witherspoon's "Juke Box Blues," Phoenix's opener "Get Rhythm" and the rollicking "Jackson" duet -- the musical spirit of Americana is faithfully evoked. In spots, the vocalists sound slightly winded; this merely adds to the charm and "authenticity" of the renditions.

Credit is due as well to T-Bone Burnett, an old hand at this sort of thing (The O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack, Spinal Tap) for his pastiche approach to production values. No overt attempt is made to "update" the songs or soften their edges for contemporary audiences.

In sum, Walk The Line is quite successful for what it is, and (perhaps most importantly from an artistic angle) likely to encourage a generation of new fans to seek out the original recordings. For an extra credit assignment they should find out why Johnny Cash, this most American of artists, wore black.

Review of MC5: Kick Out the Jams DVD   © Bill Kopp

On one hand, it's necessary to give credit where it's due: little moving picture footage of the MC5 exists, and Kick Out the Jams co-producers Leni Sinclair and Cary Loren have done a commendable job of synching clips of that footage to (often bootleg-quality) audio of the band. Vocalist Rob Tyner did them an unintentional favor by always holding the mic high, obscuring his mouth. For all we know, the images might be a performance of one song, grafted onto audio of another.

It's true also that for fans of MC5 (and make no mistake – they're the intended audience), there aren't many opportunities for viewing any footage at all of this seminal late 60s group. While the recent theatrical release MC5: A True Testimonial is well produced, exhaustive, and poised to win over those who don't like or know of the group, that film's DVD release is held up pending litigation. Indeed, it might never come out (though pirated copies do circulate).

Viewers prone to seizures are hereby advised to avoid the DVD. The swirling, pulsing light show serves as glue to hold the project together, and is appropriate and effective, but wears out its welcome after awhile. Further, the audio edits are jarring and seemingly arbitrary. Even fans of Detroit rock (see also: Amboy Dukes, Frijid Pink, Alice Cooper, The Rationals etc.) might find this disc tough going. Still, as a rare artifact of an important band just now getting its due, Kick Out the Jams is, alas, essential.

Critical Review of Pink Floyd 1967-present   © Bill Kopp

Critical Review of Todd Rundgren 1967-present   © Bill Kopp