I suppose it's impossible to do long strings of interviews as a musician and avoid coming off like a big dummy sometimes. At least, it seems to be impossible for me.
Is that really me in there, claiming to be "misunderstood"? Yep, it is. Poor baby. I sure don't remember saying that, exactly, but I had (probably) had a few. (I realize that one cannot continue to use that as the sole excuse for everything, forever. One cannot, yet one somehow does. Life is mysterious.) In the interview situation, cliches seem to form of their own accord, take shape effortlessly, emerge without warning, and quiver uncomfortably in the air before they are conveniently forgotten; but then, having been caught on tape, they are transcribed and splattered on newsprint by rock critics. And I mock them for going around saying how everything is "seminal" all the time. Jeez. Note to self: must learn to express entirely justified self-pity and persecution complex in more original ways.
I was five years ahead of my time about four years ago; now I don't know.
All that aside, it's a nice, generous piece. I like how it mentions this here weblog's songwriter-audience dialogue experiment, and there's some good stuff about songwriting and recording in ideal and reality, even if some of it is in the form of clumsy quotes from an insufficiently circumspect yours truly. As in so many situations, anxiety over whether you look too fat in that dress is basically counter-balanced by a sense of relief that anyone is even bothering to check out how you look in the dress in the first place. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make more effective use of your brief time on the radar. Bad Frank.
Remember the Prefab Sprout song from a few years back? "Electric Guitars"?
Had a dream that we were rock stars
and that flash bulbs popped the air
and girls fainted, every time we shook our hair.We were songbirds, we were Greek Gods
We were singled out by fate
We were quoted out of context-- it was great!
Anyhow, as I remarked to Matt Welch at the gig last night, many things have changed since the last time I put a record out, not the least of which is the fact that you can now keep up with your press clippings by means of google news alerts. It's a bad habit, but I can't help it. So here are a few more random, kind reviews/blurbs/mentions of the album: from Billboard (from which I learn, to my relief, that I have managed somehow to avoid having become a pathetic novelty; result!); from our own Todd Anderson; and from Glenn Reynolds. And I don't know what feels weirder: that this extremely kind "CD Pick" review appeared in the Boston Globe; or that it got reprised/re-linked on the front page of the Kiribati Post. Crazy.
Posted by Dr. Frank at January 22, 2004 04:20 AM | TrackBackyou are a sensitive artist. no one can understand you b/c you are so deep.
Posted by: anne at January 22, 2004 05:26 AMYes, Anne! I totally am! The bastards...
Posted by: Dr. Frank at January 22, 2004 05:31 AM39! And Portman! Any relation to Natalie?
That was a real nice piece, I thought. You are actually kind of difficult to summarize quickly (you should have seen the horrible rock-writerese I sent to Layne last night in my description of the Troubador show). I also really liked Todd Anderson's comment about "a template for growing up gracefully."
Posted by: Matt Welch at January 22, 2004 06:40 AMBillboard review is very complimentary, if ultimately in a backhanded way. Too bad they misstated "Hammer" as "Flower" -- makes it look like there are two "flower" songs on the CD.
The Globe review is a bit puzzling -- I never perceived the sentiments of "Hammer" as intrinsically "sad".
Posted by: JB at January 22, 2004 07:05 AMOh, it's sad. Almost as sad as "Sad, Sad Flower".
Posted by: Wes at January 22, 2004 07:50 AMGood call on the Billboard, JB. You do get the impression that Dr. Frank is weirdly preoccupied with flowers. Besides, the preferred typo has to be "Big, Strange, Beautiful Hummer."
Most of these things are pretty embarassing to read, I'm gathering, but that Billboard review is just stunningly barfy. The worst is the "ZZ Top-meets-Descendents" business...I think it beats the Guttermouth/Vandals stuff down the page... Actually, it seems to me, there are (very broadly) ZZ Top-ish moments scattered through the MTX catalogue, but here it's just like they performed some weird statistical analysis or surveyed middle-aged Japanese or something. At any rate, I guess that--assuming MTX shows are even remotely like they were when I was ~17--it'll be useful to have around a few "head-bopping contributions" (not to be confused with "infectious life observations") to "pacify the mosh pit."
Posted by: spacetoast at January 22, 2004 08:38 AMsee you at the fireside bowl on the 17th, frank. that's cool as hell that you're playing with even in blackouts!
Posted by: resident jason at January 22, 2004 03:48 PMThose guys are crackheads..ZZ-top??? If anything I saw shining as more Ted Nugent than anything. Strange, Beautiful Hammer is sad???? WTF??? hahaha good phrase...I see it as an ode' to losing virginity.
Posted by: Channon at January 22, 2004 06:38 PMChannon, I agree there's not much ZZ Top in that song. But in fact I did try to use ZZ Top as an example when I tried to persuade everyone to go along with the idea of using the stereo synth-machine 1/8 note rhythm overlay.
Posted by: Dr. Frank at January 22, 2004 08:06 PM*makes mental note to play zz top during next kalx show* :P
Posted by: anne at January 23, 2004 10:40 PM