The Rotters' Club - Hatfield and the North

The Rotters' Club (Hatfield and the North, 1974)

1. Share It - 3:03
2. Lounging There Trying - 3:16
3. (Big) John Wayne Socks Psychology on the Jaw - 0:43
4. Chaos at the Greasy Spoon - 0:31
5. The Yes/No Interlude - 7:01
6. Fitter Stoke Has a Bath - 7:33
7. Didn't Matter Anyway - 3:31
8. Underdub - 3:55
9. Mumps (20:22 total)
____a. Your Majesty is Like a Cream Donut (Quiet) - 1:59
____b. Lumps - 12:51
____c. Prenut - 3:55
____d. Your Majesty is Like a Cream Donut (Loud) - 1:37
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10. Halfway Between Heaven and Earth - 6:20
11. Oh, Len's Nature! - 2:00
12. Lything and Gracing - 3:58

Question: what happens when a record company pats you on the back, tells you you're big stuff, then leaves you in the cold, over £30,000 in debt? Answer: you squeeze out one amazing album on a shoestring budget and then implode. This is the background behind The Rotters' Club, the second and final album by Hatfield and the North. While the album is quite good in its own right, I can't help helplessly wanting more, even though I know it will never be.

Melancholy aside, let's dive in. The first side of the album (tracks 1-7) is actually more song-oriented than their previous self-titled album. Even though there are still no audible breaks, there are easier boundaries to draw. It all opens with “Share It,” an amusing (and apparently successful) attempt by the Hatfields to register on the Bristish censors' radar with a paean to communistic free love. It's a rather upbeat tune with a sunny keyboard solo that transitions into the jazz workout “Lounging There Trying,” one of two complex instrumentals provided by guitarist Phil Miller, the other being “Underdub,” which is equally tasty.

After that preamble, the band tighten their knickers and dive right in. “(Big) John Wayne” and “Chaos At the Greasy Spoon” are short little instrumental fanfares leading up to the jagged 13/8 jam “The Yes/No Interlude,” which features sax, angular lead guitar, and one of the happiest organ riffs around (covered by The Tangent in the “Canterbury Sequence” suite). The instrumental hijinks take a left turn into the tightly constructed “Fitter Stoke Has a Bath,” featuring thoughtful lyrics on the “glamour” of being in a rock band. The lyrics even take a turn toward quiet desperation: “Still, I'm happy just to sit around at home / With Pamela looking elegant and writing prose / If anyone's in need of me / I'm drowning in the bathtub.” Musically, the song mirrors Pamela's elegance (whomever she may be), with clean electric guitar, warm Fender Rhodes piano, and the Northettes providing understated “ooh”s and “aah”s. After the lyrics are done, a flute solo drives the song into an alternating 15/8 and 4/4 pattern with more creative soloing and lots of shape. Unfortunately, the instrumental adventures end in a minute and a half of weird, spooky sounds with anything but shape.

The first half wraps up with “Didn't Matter Anyway,” probably the most poignant of the songs. It might be about the end of the band, it might be about a lost love; the lyrics are open-ended and resigned. Jimmy Hastings guests on this track, and his flute playing shines as always.

Side two consists of the aforementioned complex jazz instrumental “Underdub” and the even more complex work “Mumps.” The Northettes have been mostly silent up until now, but they finally get their say all throughout the musical intensity of keyboardist Dave Stewart's magnum opus. The song starts lighter than a balloon, with soft textures backing the Northettes as they skillfully navigate the chord changes. Then drums kick in and the whole band takes off, but the gals still give them a run for their money, with abstract yet aggressive wordless singing throughout. The song has many different moods and even takes three minutes in the middle for a Richard Sinclair vocal about his affection for the alphabet (“I have minded my p's and q's / Tried not to damage any w's”). As a whole, it dances dizzyingly back and forth on the fine line between whimsy and technically accomplished musicianship. My only beef: there's a fadeout at the end of “Lumps.” For a band that excels at musical segue, this is a bizarre thing to find, especially in mid-track.

The bonus tracks are excellent and give a taste of what might have been, had the Hatfields been able to survive for another album. Thankfully, most of these guys got back together in a band called National Health, and someday I will find those albums...

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 Pamelas looking elegant and writing prose

() - Sigur Rós

() (Sigur Rós, 2002)

1. (Vaka) - 6:36
2. (Fyrsta) - 7:31
3. (Samskeyti) - 6:31
4. (Njósnavélin) - 7:30
5. (Álafoss) - 9:54
6. (E-Bow) - 8:46
7. (Dauõalagiõ) - 12:56
8. (Popplagiõ) - 11:41

Iceland's contribution to modern rock, Sigur Rós specialize in alternatingly somnolent and cacophonic rock experimentation. This album took a long time to grow on me, especially since all the songs are officially untitled (though the unofficial names are presented here for your viewing pleasure), and all the lyrics are in a made up phonetic language bearing a passing resemenblance to Icelandic. The album really is an outstanding opus, though, once you get to know it. This is music that can break your heart and make you catch your breath, provided you have enough time to let it work.

The first four songs are more in the "heartbreaking beauty" vein. Named (unofficially, of course) after the drummer's daugher, "Vaka" unfolds slowly to a cathartic bloom, featuring spare, melancholy piano and organ that anchor the cooing tenor vocals. "Samskeyti" (Attachment) is built on an arpeggiated piano riff that gently climbs and descends over swelling drones of violin and clean guitar. "Njósnavélin" (The Spy Machine) is the most successful of the softer songs: warm organ, icy guitar, relaxed drums and bass gently nudge the subtle harmony vocals through a fairly catchy (if slowed down) tune. The melody in the bridge, first stated by organ, then piano, then incorporating the whole band, is startlingly poignant.

The second four songs lead that beauty and melancholy into more turbulent terrain. "Álafoss," named unofficially after the band's studio, starts as a funeral procession. Musically, the chords and melody are a repeated descending figure over spare, brushed drums. The song has a classical elegance and soulfulness. At the end, it builds to a magnificent volume, with forceful drums and distorted, growling bass underneath a triumphant Hammond B-3 organ, which always stirs my heart to noble deeds.

The highest heights come in the last two songs. "Dauõalagiõ" (The Death Song) creeps up slowly from nothing, then folds in on itself several times, swelling and pulsing with melody and noise, cresting in two desperate explosions around the 4 and 7 minute marks. Lead singer Jonsi's mournful croon stands sharp and isolated above the dying drones, and you think it's all over. Then the drums come back in, insistent and crashing, the drones swell back to full force, and the vocals swirl in a vortex of howling lament. When the echos die, all that's left is a single, frail voice, breaking.

Despite its friendly appearance, "Popplagiõ" (The Pop Song) doesn't coddle the listener that just survived the dying star of " Dauõalagiõ." The first five minutes do start out as a fairly positive, relaxed tune. A simple yet emotive picking pattern on clean electric guitar supports understated harmonies and a big, even sunny, chorus. At the 6 minute mark, though, a doomsday distorted bass note hits, the drums start building, and Jonsi begins a plaintive, stark wail over the apocalyptic music. The drums are positively furious at the end, their unrelenting industrial assault like fireworks blazing above the mountain of sound.

The only thing holding back the album are the two songs I haven't mentioned: "Fyrsta" (The First Song) and "E-Bow." And even these aren't that bad, it's just that "Fyrsta" sounds like a lesser cousin to "Vaka," and "E-Bow" is way too close to "Álafoss" to justify a separate song, even though I do want to support any bass player who uses an E-Bow and gets his band to (unofficially) name the song after it.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 epic drones

The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio

The Decameron (Boccaccio, 1350-1352; trans. Mark Musa, Peter Bondanella)

When the Black Death descends on Florence, seven young ladies and three young men leave the city for a couple weeks of idyllic escape. Against this backdrop, Boccaccio presents a compendium of fables, practical jokes, urban legends, tragedies, fantasies, and adventures of the Middle Ages. More striking than the stories themselves is the picture they present of a society very different than ours, yet just as fallibly human.

Boccaccio's stated purpose for writing is to amuse and distract ladies languishing in love, though with the constant praises of love found within the pages, he might be trying to kindle love in hearts where it doesn't exist. Romantic love is definitely the theme of the collection. All the Hollywood cliches are born out: characters fall in love and can't help it; usually, the high precepts of love are used to justify sex; the person loved is attractive, rich (or secretly of noble birth), and practically perfect; and any other earthly consideration should be ignored or cast aside in order to pursue love/sex, no matter how unwise. Love is held up as a separate deity, equal with God in pre-Reformation Europe.

The deification and reappropriation of Love is very seductive and contemporary, but the stories run the gamut and perhaps undercut the idealization. Affirming stories of love and devotion between husband and wife can be found alongside stories of unhappy marriages and faithful loves tragically divided. Many adulterers end their stories happily (and discretely) in each others arms, but many more are caught, shamed, punished, or worse. Young lovers overcome odds, enemies, and fate to end up together, while others lose all in the name of their love. And then there are the people who do all they can, through wit, deception, flattery, or outright manipulation to use each other, usually with hilarious results. In this respect, The Decameron might be the prototype for the sitcom.

Not all the stories are great, but there are more gems than junk. To summarize a few:

* A young man goes to the big city and survives a series of misadventures involving a thieving temptress, a latrine, a well, and an open grave.

* A lascivious friar tells a vain woman he is the Angel Gabriel to convince her to sleep with him; when she starts telling people who her lover is, the whole town determines to get a glimpse of the angel.

* A young woman can't stand the sight of annoying people, and her loud complaining prompts her uncle to suggest she get rid of all her mirrors.

* Growing tired of the constant advances of two men she doesn't love, a woman asks them to prove their love with tasks designed to keep them out of her hair for good.

There are a series of stories involving the buffoon Calandrino and his friends Bruno and Buffalmaco that are particularly amusing. I would guess these stories are the redneck jokes of Boccaccio's day. In one, Calandrino thinks he has found a stone that makes him invisible, and his friends play along. In another, Bruno and Buffalmaco steal one of Calandrino's pigs and then prove Calandrino stole it himself. They also enlist a doctor and convince Calandrino he is pregnant in order to sell him some medicine. In distress, Calandrino berates his wife, "You're the one who always wanted to be on top; I told you this would happen!"

On the whole, I would definitely recommend this classic of world literature. The foibles and philosophies of a different age illuminate those of our own. The characters, plots, and sentiments present a wide range of human experience, and they're a lot of fun to read, too. The best moments come when, more often than not, a very recognizable humanity stares across the years, with a laughing countenance despite unthinkable tragedy.

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 pregnant buffoons