For my first CD reviews of the new year, I've got to take care of some old business before getting to one of the first releases of 2002. The old business concerns a release from late last year that features music played and sung by 9- to 12-year-olds, and the new involves a trio of L.A. rockers returning after an eight-year absence. Untrained youngsters’ CD
turns out to be
a rocking treat"The Langley Schools Music Project: Innocence and Despair"
(Bar/None)"Group Therapy"
Concrete Blonde (Manifesto)
Review by Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comI had read about the buzz surrounding "The Langley Schools Music Project," a compilation of recordings made in 1976 and '77 in a cavernous gymnasium by elementary school students from British Columbia. While there have been a few disparaging remarks about the quality of the performances -- and, granted, we're talking about untrained kids here -- I'm one of the many who have been charmed and, at times, moved by this naive "outsider music."
When it comes to a chorus of school youngsters singing rock songs, most of us think of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" and, more recently, P.O.D.'s "Youth of the Nation," both po-faced commentaries of the "oppressive" educational system that uses children's voices to drive home their point. The Langley CD, however, shows what could blossom in the unlikeliest of places and circumstances, when a combination of kids from a rural and conservative area of western Canada and a long-haired, itinerant rock musician from Vancouver get together to create real moments of musical joy.
And this music isn't of the "Awww, ain't they cute!" variety. Teacher Hans Fenger was convinced that he could forgo the standard juvenile repertoire, the boring rote music, and instead teach the kids more interesting pop and rock songs.
Fenger took the rock songs of the time -- songs by Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, even David Bowie, Eagles, Neil Diamond and Stevie Nicks -- and wholly transferred the songs' "adult" lyrics and arrangements to his kids, and overall, they surpassed his expectations. You couldn't find a better argument for the benefits of music education than this album.
The CD's subtitle, "Innocence and Despair," is part of a quote taken from someone's reactions upon first hearing 9-year-old Sheila Behman singing "Desperado." With just Fenger's accompaniment on a school upright piano, Behman's quiet yet convincing rendition is better than both the Eagles' and Linda Ronstadt's versions.
Behman's recording, along with the 18 others compiled on this disc, was originally never meant for public consumption. Vinyl LP copies were printed up for the kids and their families only. The story of the discovery of one of these LPs in a Canadian thrift shop and project producer Irwin Chusid's subsequent search for Fenger is a remarkable instance of lucky happenstance.
While there are tunes like the old Herman's Hermits hit "I'm Into Something Good," the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night" and "Help Me Rhonda" that the kids expectedly sing with youthful gusto, their renditions, under Fenger's tutelage, of "Good Vibrations," "God Only Knows," "Band on the Run," "In My Room" and an ambitious (complete with low-tech sound effects) "Space Oddity" by David Bowie are minor masterpieces in lo-fidelity.
THE LANGLEY CD works as a total piece. Concrete Blonde's first album in eight years is best taken in small doses. Featuring the smoky, emotive vocals of Johnette Napolitano and the sure-handed guitar work of James Mankey, the Los Angeles trio enjoyed a brief run between 1987-90 during the heyday of alternative rock. Now rejoined by the band's original drummer, Harry Rushakoff, "Group Therapy" will please longtime fans of the band but does little to attract new ones.
There's very much of a survivor theme through all of the songs. Several of the more ruminative numbers are guilty of meandering, but the album's last two songs, "Angel" and "Memory," have an effectively haunted quality about them.
There is nothing here as strong as the band's earlier hits like "Joey" and "God Is a Bullet," but there is a thematic similarity to them in the two leadoff tunes, "Roxy" and "Violent."
Napolitano professes her love for the English art-glam band Roxy Music (although affectionately calling the band's music "my maggie may" is a bit confusing metaphorically), and "Violent" shows her grabbing her rock 'n' roll muse by the collar (or some lower extremity) in a celebration of living life to the fullest.
The other out-and-out rocker, "Fried," could've used a little more of a sonic punch 'n' crackle to get its message across. "When I Was a Fool" and "Take Me Home" are both wistful look-backs at a life of being a habitué of a then-flourishing underground music scene, of alcohol-fueled romance and when "life (was) beautiful & terrible & strange."
Click for online
calendars and events.
