Boomerangst
1. Pete Yorn, Back
and Fourth (Columbia)/live at the Roxy, L.A.: "Baby I don't know/What I think of us," sings Pete Yorn on "Country," one of the
songs on his just-released fourth album. "Won't be here tomorrow/I get so mixed
up." No one turns ambivalence into yearning passion like the shaggy-haired
heartthrob troubadour who appears to have gotten a second life by traveling out
to Omaha to do this record, his first using a full band, with Saddle Creek producer/musician Mike Mogis [Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley]. Seems like only
yesterday--but it was over eight years ago--he was Columbia Records' pick to click, though
he was eventually overshadowed by yet another not-so-shaggy-haired, but
ultimately even more of a lothario singer/songwriter in labelmate John Mayer. But, while Mayer has
drifted towards cougars, guitar muso-ship and the blues, in that order, Yorn has
gone from major label indie-rock auteur to country-folk crooner, the new album's
sound as spacious and airy as the Nebraska plains where he made his home with
Mogis' family during its recording. Turned out to be a good thing, too, as songs
like "Don't Wanna Cry," the epic "Close" (which utilizes his ability to go from
a falsetto to an affecting bass in a beat) and "Shotgun" enlarge the canvas for
Yorn's lush melodies and affecting vocals by adding pungent horns and orchestral
string arrangements. Live, for a special day-of-release show at the Roxy before
a room full of enthusiastic fans, the new songs, like "Paradise Cove," which he
dedicates to his pal, Wallflowers keyboardist Ramee Jafee's Malibu
trailer park home, and "Last Summer"--even a great. rockin cover of New Order's ‘80s hit, "Bizarre Love
Triangle"--are seamlessly interspersed with first-album crowd faves like "Life on
a Chain" ("That's the first song we ever played in this club"), "Murray,' "For
Nancy," "On Your Side" and the closing "Strange Condition." At this point,
thanks to Rick Rubin's interest and
input, Yorn could position himself anywhere in between Conor Oberst and Coldplay, for whom he'll open several
dates this summer. He remains just as tuneful as ever, and he doesn't even have
to worry about being linked to Jessica
Simpson or Jennifer Aniston in
the tabloids. Maybe he did get the better deal, after all, though I would
suggest he begin Twittering a bit more if he wants to boost his
career.
2. P.J. Harvey and John
Parish at the Wiltern Theater, L.A.: While
it would seem that alternative darling PJ Harvey's time may have come and gone
to cross over to the great unwashed, the gender-bending androgynous rocker,
sorta the U.K. cousin to Patti
Smith, retains a strong cult following, enough to practically fill this
1,500-seat venue just a few short months after playing the smaller El Rey. An
enthralling performer, Harvey's visit this time was in connection with A Woman a Man Walked By, her second and
latest collaboration with musician John
Parish, who writes the music and she adds the words. The funny thing is,
while most consider this her less-commercial project, it's actually a lot more
accessible, with Harvey taking on the role of lead singer only, barefoot in a
loosely-fitting black dress, her sensual Isadora Duncan-meets-Twyla Tharp dance moves perfect in
consort with the music's doomy, swelling prog-rock. You really can't take your
eyes of Harvey, whether she's demanding, "I want your fucking ass!" in the
album's title track, trilling her ethereal falsetto in "Passionless, Pointless"
or yelping like she wants to be our dog in "Pig Will Not." With a band that
includes veteran Captain Beefheart keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman, the
Parish-led outfit ends up freeing Harvey from her role as band leader, allowing
her to disappear inside the music itself a lot less self-consciously than if she
were fronting her own group...which turns out to be a welcome change for her and
us.
3. Eastbound and
Down (HBO): The comedy pedigree for
this six-episode series is pretty impeccable. Created by Jody Hill (Observe and Report) and star Danny McBride (Pineapple
Express, Tropic Thunder), who previously teamed up on the martial
arts indie sleeper The Foot Fist Way, its executive producers include
Will Ferrell (who also appears as a sleazy, white-haired car dealer) and
frequent collaborator Adam McKay (Talladega Knights,
Anchorman). The thoroughly obnoxious McBride plays Kenny Powers, a
John Rocker-like, mullet-wearing, ex-major league pitcher forced to take
a job as a high school phys. ed. teacher back in his hometown, where he moves in
with his hapless brother (Deadwood's John Hawkes) and saintly wife
(Jennifer Irwin), while pursuing the old flame he left behind (a busty
Katy Mixon), now engaged to the nerdy school principal (Andrew
Daly). The show takes a while to find its métier, but once it does, it turns
into the most unrepentantly, unapologetically transgressive comedy in memory,
dishing equally on everyone. McBride's Powers steamrolls over anything in his
path, with a false bravado and anarchic reign of destruction that, rather than
repelling people, inexplicably attracts them. There is the acute squirm factor
of Curb Your Enthusiasm and the abject humiliation of The Office,
mixed with the exaggerated lowbrow/highbrow humor of My Name Is Earl, but
with an X-rated pay cable vocabulary that might make Artie Lange blush.
There are lapses--turns out McBride throws only a little better than
Bababooie tossing out the first pitch at a Mets game--and there's a
jarring body double when Mixon finally reveals her luscious tatas, but overall,
Eastbound and Down is about as black as you can get, and still be
described as "comic." It does for sexism and misogyny what All in the
Family did for racism and religious prejudice... making them both look as
absurd as they are ridiculous.
4. Hung (HBO): The latest zeitgeist-capturing HBO series, this one from the
husband-wife team of Dmitry Lipkin (The Riches) and Colette
Burson, smoothly takes its place among such other post-recession dramedies
as Weeds and Breaking Bad, where normal, law-abiding, middle-class
citizens are forced into illegal activities, from dealing pot to cooking meth,
to support their diminishing lifestyle. This time around, it's slightly
gone-to-seed Thomas Jane's one-time big man on campus-turned frustrated
high school basketball coach Ray Drecker, forced to rely on his own, ahem,
devices, after his childhood home burns down and his wife--a shrewish Anne
Heche--leaves him for a more successful, but nerdy, dermatologist, played by
Eddie Jemison. With the guidance and encouragement of perky,
corkscrew-haired Jane Adams' poet cum pimp Tanya Skagle, Jane launches
his career as a male escort, thanks to his titular tool, which is frequently
lauded as the largest in the shed. For a show that revolves around sex, there's
precious little of it on display in the first few episodes, the act merely an
excuse to reveal people's needs, desires and neuroses. Meanwhile, Jane's two
goth teenage kids make do, just like their counterparts in Weeds and
Breaking Bad, forced to grow up prematurely and increasingly, fend for
themselves, with parents too wrapped up in their own lives to help. Trouble is,
as good as Charlie Saxton's Damon and Sianoa Smit-McPhee's Darby
are, it's impossible to imagine these two overweight misfits as the children of
Jane and Heche, which essentially short-circuits any sympathy they might
generate. Still, the idea that we should each use our strengths in determining
how we make a living, as well as the metaphor of a potent phallus standing in
for re-tooling, if you will, our flaccid economy, both offer some intriguing
possibilities. Would the legalization of victimless crimes like marijuana,
prostitution and gambling jump-start our capitalist system, or would we end up
in a world much like Potterville in It's a Wonderful Life, with sleazy
bars, garish neon-lit strip clubs and a medicinal pot dispensary on every
corner? And would that even be so bad? Or are we better off with a
Starbucks, a McDonald's and a Wal-Mart? Hung doesn't
really set out to answer any of those questions, but the fact that it forces us
to ask them has to be considered a step in the right direction.
5. www.bongtvlive.com: Call it Stoner TV, one of the best inventions to come from
so-called pot culture since the grinder and the Twinkie. The brainchild
of one Bong Rip, a curly-haired connoisseur who prefers his marijuana indica and
his pipes glass and unused, like all great ideas, it's a simple one. With his
brother Dr. Dube, he is the 21st version of the Fabulous Furry
Freaks, a post-slacker Cheech & Chong team that have turned their
lives into a 24-hour reality web series as they remain in steady contact with
their Stoner Army, committed--not to getting laid, stupid, though it happens--but
legalization, so it's all for a good cause. Following the goings-on in seven
different video chat rooms, as well as an ongoing text chat, Bong Rip proceeds
to get wasted, calling every few minutes, "420," so that everyone lights up
together. Why sit home and get ripped alone when you can communicate with
like-minded crazies doing just what you are? Whoa... MySpace for the spaced out,
Twitter for the toasted, Facebook for the wasted... What'll they think of next?
What was I just saying?