Bobby Lightfoot: Tosser.
Look at that crap right there. Oh, my sweet god damn foot. There's no way this dude is heterosexual, incidentally. I thought "I Love Lucy" was back in the '20's or some crap. There is something so seriously flawed about "presenting" "something". I don't know what this guy's smoking. Crickey.
'kay, it's all here, kids. You got the fucking organ leslie thing and the vintage "warm" keyboards". You've got more "Bohemian Rhapsody" fucking massed flanged harmonies than you can shake a Jellyfish record at. Or preferably HUCK one so it breaks into a trillion derivative little pieces. Oh, Jesus it's "warm". "Matinee" "is" "so" "warm".
How gayly postmodern it is of this git to use the "quotes" so you know it's "pastiche" of the highest "order".
Anyway, where was I? Oh- this record is like the musical equivalent of if you took a picture of The Vaselines and made a perfect negative of it. I think everything's probably recorded with some gay-ass "tube mics" and "tasty tube preamps". It's that sort of god damn affair. It's like the Carpenters smoked about an ounce of "Maui Wowee" and Karen turned into this sort of dipstick guy with the mannered-out-the-ass vocals.
I really don't know who the fuck "Bobby Lightfoot" is trying to be. Someone should tell him that he can't be "The Gay Elton John" because Elton is already a card-carrying member of Rough Putter Royalty and Rufus Wean Right is next in the Line of Sucksession.
The songs? Well, let me put it this way. The songs are like pages from the notebook of a tosser. You know the thing. Sweeping peans to Old Europe and that. Someone should confiscate Bryan Ferry Lightfoot's '70's albums and put him on a diet of slow, drunken southern crunk, British protometal and Nashville Pussy. And don't let him dallie with whatever the hell sex he's into because he turns it into a succession of tenth-rate Van Dyke Parkserisms replete with white Wilsonesque Drug Addled Whimsy.
Did I mention the "warmth"? It's so "warm" is "Matinee". It's all "warm" and "punchy" and "mastered with real tube gear". This fucking dude makes me feel "punchy" as in punching his oh-so-clever upturned schnozz. All the "round" Fender Rhodes and all the "funky" "B-3 Leslie" organ makes me feel like I'm at a black roller rink and it's White People's Hour. Oh, and all the "lofi" drum loops make it just all so proper.
I don't know what the future of music is, you know? I hope it's crazy and bracing and inventive. It sure as hell isn't going to be records that have their "names" in "quotations". And the people making it won't be using tools and sounds that their granpappy would find quaint, and would remind him of his childhood.
What a lot of rot. This sort of piano bar balladry belongs in a cheezy ass tavern in Kankakee where sleazy salesmen hook up with the local talent. Definitely the soundtrack to a cheap pickup. If Barry White is the ultimate makeout music, then this stuff is like fall-asleep-inside- her music. Nasty, nasty stuff.
Nasty.
posted by Bobby Lightfoot at 00:09
4 Comments:
I caused this Charlie Brown post, didn't I?
Notes on "Matinee": It has too much soul to be so easily discounted. There's somethin' going on with those strings that's too subtle to be dismissed so quickly. And the electric piano does this calliope thing that I think is kinda creepy - I mean, all this in one tune!
And also, for me, the closing piano notes remind me of "Autumn" on They Only Come Out at Night by the Edgar Winter Group circa 1973. I'll say no more - it's a long story - but count it as a compliment.
Oh God, no. Not at all.
I just figure if I'm gonna go gunnin' I ought to at least empty a clip into myself every now and then.
It all started with this awesome Baffler article by I-can't-remember-which indie producer several years ago where he ridiculed recording and the recording industry wonderfully. It's that whole "warm"
and "punchy" thing.
I just can't figure out how to do anything innovative and it's tearin' the ass outta me. I think it's a touch hopeless because I want shit to be beautiful AND innovative and if it's going to be beautiful it almost CAN'T be innovative.
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHH.
But no, dude- I loved what you wrote and it's deeply true. And positive too. And I'm in some damn fine company. I guess I actually COULD use some direction from listeners; one gets so far up one's own butt.
Listeners - the horrible thing is the distribution bootleneck. Satan himself controls that, methinks.
And, yes, props to The Baffler, and their (as I remember it) annotated music "industry" contract for a new band. Ye Gods: Not since HP Lovecraft has so evil a document been unearthed. [The writer, not the band.]
I loved, loved, loved it! Great music, Bobby1
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