The Zero Review

1. Jejune, R.I.P., “Early Stars”
I first heard Jejune at the Troubadour in Los Angeles back in the late ‘90s. (That wasn’t the show when I was stung by a bee at the ol’ Troube, thank goodness, although other pitfalls have come and gone) (see, the stage has this metal stripping around the edges to hold the carpet down that catches on your jeans and leaves you with a row of unstitched denim tufts along your thighs) (I tell you, I was always due for some form of self-destruction when I went to the Troubadour, sometimes mild, like thrashing my jeans, and sometimes extreme, like the time the singer for Death By Stereo crouched down on one knee, grabbed me by the hair, wrenched my face up next to his sweaty, unshaved cheek, and we screamed into a spit-saturated mic for a stanza; now that was a sore throat...alas, I digress.) Jejune was playing on a four-band bill that also included Gameface (suck city, man), Sense Field (a revelation), and Jimmy Eat World (pretty dang good, really—this was before they sold their musical souls for a hit single). Jejune performed second.
So I’m waiting for Jejune to start, and this tiny woman—Araby Harrison, I’d later discover, the band’s singer—walks up on stage and straps on a dirt-brown Fender bass that’s nearly as big as she is. By the time she put it down, I swore that I’d name one of my daughters Araby. I was totally in love, blown away, eagerly entertaining all the cliché superlatives that suddenly had new meaning in light of what I’d heard. This track, “Early Stars,” perfectly captures what I experienced—a slightly bad sound system, roaring guitars, and Araby’s pouty alto-cum-diaphragm voice plunging through the mix like an icepick into tapioca pudding. It’s what made second-wave emo so exciting when it first emerged from rock’s underbelly: oscillating dynamics, pathetic (see: pathos) vocals, two-guitar harmony—and it all flowed from this girl like lava.
When I left the Troubadour, my ride’s car was being towed down the street.

2. Counting Crows, Films About Ghosts: The Best of Counting Crows, “Angels of the Silences”
Who says that Counting Crows can’t R-A-W-K? No one, hopefully, after hearing this barn-burner. I can only imagine how many speakers they blew recording it. And, yet, it’s more than that; after all, Counting Crows is staffed by a group of very talented, trained musicians, and to merely rock would be beneath them.
Thus, we have this, a very refined stompfest. On one hand, the rhythm guitar bangs out a moderately fast, palm-muted four-chord pattern (G#5—Amaj—Emaj—B5, if you care) for most of the piece. On the other, the lead guitar solo in the middle is so incredibly musical (it even briefly hints at an oblique motion-based run toward its climax) that you know that no theory-devoid punker could have conjured it, even by accident. Add to this Adam Duritz’ voice, which—in my opinion—sounds fantastic when it’s strained, and you’ve got a winner.

3. Tom Waits, Big Bad Love (Music from the Motion Picture), “Long Way Home”
I’m no Tom Waits fanatic, but the genius of this song is self-evident. His voice—which was described in his lawsuit against Frito-Lay as “a raspy, gravelly singing voice [...] [,] like how you’d sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades [...] [l]ate at night [...] [a]fter not sleeping for three days”—is present in all of its tainted glory. I’m not sure whether this song is inspirational—when Norah Jones later covered it, she made it infinitely more poppy, more upbeat, and I’m not if that’s correct—or not, but it is what it is, and it’s honest. Waits is no sellout, even when he writes a song for a movie, and that’s one of the biggest compliments I can give.
I’ll confess that the first time I heard Waits sing, I didn’t like it. Nope. That voice was just too much, the growling and all. But I took a deeper listen, and that voice—which previously had sounded like fingernails on a very coarse chalkboard—took on a tenderness that few vocalists achieve. For further evidence, take a look at Waits’ album Mule Variations, which is simply unbelievable in its blue-tinged notes.
An interesting anecdote: When Waits’ son asked him why he didn’t have a regular job like everyone else, he said, “In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, ‘Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.’ And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, ‘Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.’ So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”
Well said, sir.

4. The National, Alligator, “Abel”
ALERT! The National is now my favorite contemporary band—and this song comes very close to being the band’s shout-along anthem. You must download this song. You must. You will then not be able to get it out of your head, but that’s a good thing. You can dance to it. You can yell to/at it. You will thrill. The percussion work alone is worth a Nobel Prize.

5. The New Amsterdams, Story Like a Scar, “Turn Out the Lights”
The New Amsterdams emerged from The Get Up Kids, a lovely little indie-pop group that I must’ve seen live about half a dozen times. This is the definition of sweet melancholy, and I love it. It doesn’t depress, either, which is always a plus.

Well, I think I’ve rambled enough.