Ted Leo/Pharmacists
“Ted Leo is tall and skinny almost to the point
of emaciation—he dresses like a graduate student working on a Ph.D. thesis
about an obscure 20th century American poet. His lyrics are both earnest and
ironically detached, and the vast majority of human beings have never heard of
his band. In other words, he is an indie-rock god.” – Excerpt from an article
in the Yale Herald (BOO!!!!
HISSSSS!!!!!)
“Hey Ted, can your drummer fill my Levitra
prescription?” – Mike Ditka
Albums Reviewed:
This one’s for Jerry, my band friend who I don’t know for sure if I’ve seen since November, because I’ve sort of unofficially dropped out of band at this point (But come on, I’m dating a girl at another college. How would you spend your Friday and Saturday nights? Playing a gig or with your girlfriend? Thought so. Next question?). Anyhoo, Jerry sent me the mp3’s last fall sometime, I finally got around to listening to them last month, and here we go! A page on a band I’m not confident ANYONE I know well, besides Jerry, has actually heard of. Ha!
Thankfully, Ted and his band are pretty good. I don’t actually know the names of any of the Pharmacists (by the way, whose idea was it to call the band “Ted Leo/Pharmacists” instead of “Ted Leo and the Pharmacists?” The fuck is that slash doing there? That’s TOTAL bullshit), because this is fully Ted’s show. Ted’s an indie rock hero, i.e. the kind of guy I wouldn’t usually give two shits about, and I’m gonna freely admit that, were it not for Jerry, I’d probably never hear a single song by him. That’s a shame, really, because everyone needs to hear “Biomusicology” (Wotta forkin’ song!), but you can probably go without hearing these two records in your life and survive. They’re plenty good, though! Ted has a cool jangle guitar sound augmented by some neat, expressive, sometimes-falsetto vocals (which sound nothing like Geddy Lee), and many of his songs can definitely be described as “catchy” and “better than Good Charlotte, who, lest we forget, is the worst band in the world.” I should also add that, according the All Music guide, these are actually Ted’s 3rd and 4th albums, but one is an impossible-to-obtain piece of noise crap (apparently), and the other is less then twenty minutes long, so whoever listed it in the “album” section is clearly not an intelligent human being. He’s so stupid I bet he votes Republican! And now I have finished the intro.
And, onto the reviews!
Oh, sorry the picture blows goats.
The Tyranny Of Distance (2001)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Biomusicology”
I’m predisposed to dislike indie-rock. This is because, unless I know and respect the person talking to me, I HATE being told what I’m supposed to like. I’m predisposed to dislike anything on MTV, I’m predisposed to dislike anything critics splurge over that I haven’t heard (For instance, I disliked the Strokes before ever listening to their first album…fuckin A’, was I wrong!), and I’m predisposed to dislike indie-rock. I see no difference between critics who hoist up the White Stripes (my actual opinion of them is yet to be determined, by the way, though I must say “Seven Nation Army” was probably one of the best songs of 2003) as the saviors of rock and roll and indie snobs who trash Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. and listen to random rock bands no one’s ever heard of because they have “indie cred” like Les Savy Fav or something (although their 800-pound, bald, bearded, ridiculous lead singer is probably coolest guy I’ve ever seen in my life). I have no desire to be an indie hound. I don’t have time.
And thus we come to Ted Leo, indie-rock god extraordinaire (as described in that Yale Herald article I quote from above…and no, don’t ask how I found it. Not an exciting story. I googled “Ted Leo lyrics” and it came up. Wow! Interesting!), and the three other people he’s dubbed the “Pharmacists” for reasons known only to himself and C. Everett Koop, unless C. Everett Koop is dead by now (I’ve got no idea). In any case, Ted Leo IS indie-rock. He looks like it. He writes lyrics like it. His pseudo-experimental-but-not-really guitar jangle pop with wavery falsetto vocals sounds like it. I mean, I don’t have all that much to say about these records. I’ve come to like, enjoy, and respect Ted Leo’s music from repeated listens. It doesn’t hit my “personal taste meter” all that much, I think, but he’s good! He writes neat, interesting, jangly guitar songs. Lyrically, sometimes he’s a little wordy and tries to cram like three sentences into a section that shouldn’t have more than five words, but the lyrics are pretty alright if you pay attention (and the few times they DO annoy me don’t occur until the next album, so let’s just leave that be for now). Beyond that, what can I say? I dunno. But I’m gonna keep typing, dammit, because I got my first invitation from a high school today to come visit and interview (I’m attempting to become a Latin and/or Greek teacher next year…scary thought, I know), and even though it doesn’t look like the greatest school in the world and there are like ten other jobs that have all my materials and know of my existence I’d probably rather have, I’m still pretty happy about it, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than reviewing a couple Ted Leo albums!
OK! This record is better than the next one because Ted’s trying more things, and the songs are more varied, interesting and sometimes vaguely quasi-proggish. “Biomusicology” is the best tune on either album (and being the first Ted Leo song I ever heard, it fooled into thinking he was a GOD until I listened to everything else and realized he was just, like, pretty darn good), and its expert buildup, super tom-tom usage, interesting chord sequence/guitar strumming, and weird feedback noises wah-wah-wah-ing throughout my speakers never fail to excite me, despite this sentence’s lack of an exclamation point. Nothing left matches it, though! Though (by the way, where the hell did that last exclamation point come from? I must be drunk…) enough is good. The almost country-ish “Timorous Me,” the superhappy “The Great Communicator,” and the lyrically VERY interesting “My Vien Ilin” are my picks for best remaining tunes. “The Great Communicator” in particular, in addition to its neat-o melody, has this cool coda-ish end part that I thoroughly endorse. “Dial Up” and “Squeeky Fingers” (two more cool songs!) also have similar parts, and the endings to THESE tunes sound almost like some kind of weird pseudo-prog math rock hibbity jibbity, albeit played on indie jangle guitars and thus not math rock at all. They’re cool! “Parallel or Together?”, which has a drum part that sounds like a crappy imitation of Larry Mullen (who isn’t the best to begin with), and “Under The Hedge,” whose guitar riff WOULD be cool if I could make the damn thing out (it sounds like a noteless mush) are my picks for weakest songs here (and they’re tracks 2 and 3, right after “Biomusicology! BOO! Poor sequencing! A pox on thee, Ted Leo!), but they’re not that bad, and no song on the album ends up blowing any real, noticeable cock.
There are some stabs at diversity, too! First, a couple extendo-tracks, which turn out as rocky and uneven as the road to democracy in Iraq (Yeah, I swear that psychotic Muslim warlords won’t take over that country within twelve hours of our leaving in June or whenever we’re supposed to pull out o’ that ho. Really, I swear it). “Stove by a Whale” is Ted’s take on something low and sludgy, and it features a riff containing a grand total of TWO NOTES repeated ad nauseum for eight minutes. Thankfully, it’s got a cool vocal melody, and Ted adds some neat stuff as the song grinds its way along, but he really shouldn’t try stuff like this, even if it does turn out well both here and on “St. John the Divine,” which bores me to death for a few minutes before Ted decides to break out the loud, feedback guitar tastiness and kick my ASS for a few minutes more. Cool! A little long, though. I actually think he should think about writing a few more really SHORT songs, like the gorgeous acoustic/strings two-minute “The Gold Finch and the Red Oak” and the melodically brilliant 90-second closer “You Could Die (Or This Might End).” They’re actually two of my favorite songs here, and they’re TINY. But they’re CUTE!
No, this review doesn’t have a coherent conclusion.
Hearts Of Oak (2003)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead”
Not as good, but not for any one, specific reason that jumps in front of you and goes “I AM THE REASON THAT THIS RECORD IS NOT AS GOOD AS THE TYRANNY OF DISTANCE, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A COOLER ALBUM COVER! ME! AND ME ALONE!!!!!” There’s none of that. Just a lot of little things weakened, lessened, or cropped away, thus leading to the overall less satisfying listening experience you see me having retroactively typed a few days ago. Ted’s going for more pure pop on this record, so he’s trimmed off some of the fat from Tyranny, neglecting the fact that I LIKE the fat, and fatty foods in general (I’m a disgusting pig, what am I gonna do?). The vaguely psuedo-proggish 30-second half-coda things that were on a few tracks from the last album have been excised, for the most part. These songs just end! Like normal songs! Bastard. At least he kept it around for “Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead,” which is my favorite track here for completely unrelated reasons, but it’s still appreciated. There’s less variety, too, and I’m not even sure if there’s ONE change in pace from the indie guitar jangle pop. “The Crane Takes Flight” is the only extendo-track left, but it’s not really that extendo (only five and a half minutes…actually, it’s shorter than the completely normal pop title track! I’m an idiot!). No guitar noise fun. No eight-minute sludge-a-thons (though maybe that’s a good thing). No acoustic/strings little pieces of gorgeousness. I guess “First to Finish, Last to Start” is a reasonable facsimile of a “You Could Die (Or This Might End),” but the only reason that one stood out on the last album (besides being really fucking good) was that it was short. It still uses regular Ted Leo indie jangle guitar. Variation in length does not constitute diversity. Not that I’m saying Ted should institute some sort of quotas to INSURE diversity, just that he should make more of a general effort to promote diversity in deciding which songs he admits to his records, thus creating a more diverse environment that promotes a free and open exchange of cultures and ideas.
Anyway, like I said, this album is basically just Theodore Leonardo DiCaprio (is a pussy)/Prescription-Fillers playing regular guitar jangle pop without much variety, and the only new feature NOT included on The Tyranny of Distance is this weird fuzz bass tone that sounds like some sort of strange Moog keyboard thing, and that I actually don’t like at ALL. Its use, along with Ted’s shouting/rapping/yelling (and NOT singing) some completely ridiculous, cringe-inducing lyrics about having to know “Basque or…CATALAN!!!!”, makes “The Ballad of the Sin Eater” the only song by this band I can say I REALLY dislike, even though the percussion breakdown at the end is alright. There’s no guitar! Just like spoons and weird percussion shit! And NO GUITAR! I guess it’s an example of diversity, but I refuse to consider pieces of shit “diversity.” “You couldn’t think they could hate you now, DID YA!!!!” WORST…CHORUS…EVER. This song BLOOOOOWS.
Whatever,
everything else is fine, except for “I’m a Ghost,” which rhymes “ghost” with
“toast” in such a ridiculously stupid way I’m gonna let you all discover it for
yourselves, and the boring, aforementioned “The Crane Takes Flight” (although
the whistling in there is sorta cool).
“Building Skyscrapers in the Basement” is just a weird, “artsy” intro
thing you can consume and immediately forget about, but, once you get through
it, and you skip the songs I’ve described as not up to snuff, you’ll find
plenty of fine tuneage! “Where Have All
the Rude Boys Gone,” the title track, and “Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead” (which
is my favorite because it has what I think is an ORGAN in it! NOT because of the breakdown at the end. Though, sure, that’s OK too) are the best,
but plenty of cool songs still remain.
“Dead Voices” actually slows things up a bit and comes out none the
worse for wear. “Bridges, Squares”
mentions
Conclusion? I dunno. I should probably hash one out, since it’s not like the last review had one. Well, Ted Leo writes good, catchy, jangle guitar songs that he often inserts fun trappings into (though more so on the first album than this one). He’s a shitload better than most of what’s on the radio, and I like him fine, but he and his happy, intellectual, guitar jangle pop-rock absolutely does NOT fit into any of the pre-established “radio genres” out there (but it probably should, because it’s a lot better than rap-metal or nu-metal or poo-metal or whatever-the-fuck-you-want-god-really-who-fucking-cares-metal), so I don’t picture him ever getting tons of success unless he crappifies his approach a little and has Mike Shinoda do a guest rap on a song called “I’m Filled With So Much Angst and I Hate My Parents.” But he’s good, and I’m sure those pharmacists he’s always hanging out with are quick at filling Cialis prescriptions, so I say thumbs up all around.
Alright, I’m going to bed.
Shake The Sheets (2004)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Me And
Mia”
It took me a while to locate a cheap and/or free copy of this bad boy (an event which finally happened when I found an undoubtedly illegal Russian mp3 site that allows you to download full albums for 10 cents a song! Yee-hah! Between that and BitTorrent, my album collection has grown by like 300 in the last 2 months. When given the means, I am a FIEND), but part of that is because I really didn’t put much effort into obtaining one. “The library doesn’t have one? OK, I’ll just put it off for three months. Gotta get that 3 Doors Down album that’s most likely far worse! Yes!” I’ve always tried to think of myself as someone whose personal taste doesn’t coincide with that of asshole Pitchfork writers who give 8.5’s to anything they can describe as “wistful, elastic indie-pop” and a 2 to the new Mars Volta album without actually listening to it (not that it’s that great or anything…but a 2???? What the hell are you morons doing?). I know they LOOOOOVE Ted Leo over there, so I figured I’d just review the damn album whenever the hell I found it because “I’m not indie” and “I don’t give a shit about Ted Leo,” even though I actually like him.
Well, joke’s on me, because this is the best record Mr. Leo has made with the Pharmacists backing him up. Also, not so shockingly, Pitchfork’s review was noncommittal and disappointed. Because you wanna know what this music is? Huh? Do you? Well, it’s COMMERCIAL PEPPY POWER POP!!!!! Yeah, it uses jangle guitars and Ted still does that echoey, wailing voice thing, but this is not “indie-rock” in the Pitchfork-approved musical sense of the word. See, on both The Tyranny of Distance and Hearts of Oak, Ted sometimes “experimented” a bit with different genres and things. He tried (successfully) some extendo-songs on The Tyranny of Distance (like “Stove by a Whale,” which rules!) and Hearts of Oak had a completely horrendous percusso-tune called “The Ballad of Sin Eater” that makes me throw up in my mouth every time I hear it (not surprisingly, in his disappointed review of this one, Moron Q. Pitchfork cited that exact song as one of the “magical moments he doesn’t sense any of on here” blah blah blah). Plus, Ted had this annoying habit of trying to read the entire works of Leo Tolstoy in a three-second span during his songs, thus ruining the commercial potential of a handful of great tracks being as needlessly wordy as possible. Apparently, this is “indie.”
He doesn’t do any of that shit on here. Every song here is a mindlessly catchy blast of peppy, speedy, jangly, powerful power pop goodness! Every single one. It’s the most straightforward album Ted’s ever made (well, with this band…I’ve never heard anything by Chisel). He does nothing but craft lovely, jangly chord sequences, play them really fast and with lots of power and conviction, and write catchy-as-syphilis melodies to back them up. The record is over in forty minutes and, except for the slightly overlong “Little Dawn” (which actually totally kicks my ass most of the time and is probably my 2nd-favorite tune here, but has this two minute outro that really needs to be euthanized for the good of the country), every song is done in an average of between three and three and a half minutes. There are no genre experiments. There are no extendo-tracks (or super-short tracks, either, since Ted used to toss on a few of those too). Ted’s melodies are super-happy, upbeat, commercial, and not wordy at all. In short, he doesn’t get caught up in any of his little “habits” that annoyed me in the past and focuses only on making his songs as catchy, compact, big-sounding, and rocking as possible. And makes me happy. And makes Pitchfork unhappy. But I am smart.
Individual songs? Sure! I got time. What the hell. The thing preventing this album from receiving a rating higher than 8 (something I actually considered for a time, such is the quality of this tuneage) is that most of the record is just “really, really good” instead of FUCKING GREAT, and there are not enough orgasmic high points to warrant one of the top two ratings, with the INSANELY FUCKING INTENSELY SUPERB lead-off track “Me and Mia” providing the best example of one of these high points and my current favorite Pharmacists prescription. What’s so special about it? To be honest, except for saying “It’s really catchy! Hee!” there’s not all that much to talk about there. Ted has crafted this record with a very uniform sound (possibly the other complaint one could make, but he tosses in enough tricks and breaks and guitar tone variations to make it not ever bore me). The chorus of “Little Dawn” packs on the distortion and rrrrrrrrocks before the aforementioned outro presents the only blatant mistake Ted makes here. A song or two start off with an acoustic intro, a few of them have interesting almost-metal verse guitar parts, the closer “Walking to Do” is mildly shuffle-esque, and Ted overdubs and harmonizes his voice in many excellent and creative ways, but other than that there’s not too much to say besides “these songs are just very, very strong.” Maybe it’s a little less interesting than The Tyranny of Distance, but never before has Ted consistently and convincingly kicked my ass with the kind of authority he does here. Albums with jangle guitars and a singer who likes to hit weird, elastic high notes do not normally ROCK without qualification, but that’s exactly what this one does. Just exciting, urgent, rocking, catchy, well-crafted jangle power-pop. Ted makes an album for us non-Pitchfork types. And kicks our ass.
By the way, go me for going “individual songs? Sure!” and then only mentioning like three. I clearly rule.
Living With The Living (2007)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “C.I.A.”
You know I’ve had this album on my computer for over a year now? I even listened to it a whole bunch back in the spring of ‘07 because I was gonna go see Ted live a week or two later with some friends and didn’t want to be “out of the loop” when it came to his new material (the show was kick-ass, by the way). So I was going through the artists I’d reviewed on my site that had put out new albums since I started on Bowie (who I’ll finish soon enough, don’t worry) and then went into grad school hibernation again and actually totally skipped over Ted because he had put out that album like a year ago, right? So it’s not like he had put out another one since. A little later I clicked on his page because I had forgotten what I had given Living with the Living and I was curious, except the review wasn’t there! The fuck? Hadn’t I reviewed that thing when it came out last year? “Oh, shit! I was in grad school hibernation then too and had forgotten about the damn thing! Whoops. Oh well. I guess I’ll review it now, then.” This is a fascinating story, I know.
Anyway, I don’t like this one as much as the excellent Shake the Sheets because Ted reverts back to some of his old Ted Leo Tendencies that I talked about in my reviews of his first two albums. He’s still more streamlined than on Hearts of Oak, so that one remains my least favorite for now, but the random short songs, the needlessly long endings, the cramming of three lines worth of lyrics into one line worth of space, and the occasional over-eager rhyming are all back to some degree. Tendency #1 can be seen in “Annunciation Day / Born on Christmas Day,” which would be a great triumphant ending to a song if it weren’t technically a song in itself. Tendency #2 can be seen in far too many places, but the most egregious is “The Lost Brigade,” which is all well and good for two or three minutes but decides to run to seven minutes anyway without throwing out any new musical ideas (and it’s not like Ted is Stevie Wonder and thus can get away with this). Tendency #3 isn’t really a big deal here, actually (beyond “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”, where it’s the whole point of the song and is actually pretty badass), so I should probably think next time before I type. Tendency #4 can be seen in “Colleen,” in which every line in the entire song rhymes with “Colleen.” This probably shouldn’t be a big deal, but for some reason I’m just incredibly bothered by it. I’m probably just being a jackass, but since when is that news?
I know Ted is an indie-rock icon and everyone loves his diverse, interesting, idiosyncratic albums and all, but, as you probably know if you’ve read my Shake the Sheets review, I’m more ambivalent towards that whole concept and instead just want Ted to write speedy power-pop songs. That’s what he’s best at, dammit! Why do you think “The Sons of Cain” is so nicely kick-ass? And why do you think my favorite track on here is the closing “C.I.A.”? They’re straightforward power-pop songs! They do nothing else! Sure, “C.I.A.” is six minutes long, but that’s because the last minute or two is a bunch of difference vocals getting overdubbed over each other in supremely melodic ways and I love that! The songs that don’t try to kick my ass so much just aren’t that good. I know “A Bottle of Buckie” is cute and charming, but it’s also dickless and annoying, and I don’t really want to hear Ted try dub reggae again (see: “The Unwanted Things”). The totally out-of-place song I like is the aforementioned “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”, which is the most aggressive thing Ted’s ever written and might contain his best-ever lyrics (that is, if you can call his pissed-off pseudo-conversational yelling “lyrics”). “No need for face-to-face, or even worse to put a perfectly spit-shined brand new pair of leather boots on the dirty, busty ground!” It’s great because you can practically feel the bile spewing forth from your speakers. If Ted’s not gonna write the one style of music I think he’s aces at, he might as well get really pissed off and scream a bit.
The return of the Ted Leo Tendencies I’ve been talking about, as well as the fact that only a handful of songs on here strike me as “really good” (beyond the three I mentioned in the last paragraph, I suppose I’ll throw “La Costa Brava” in there too, even if it’s probably too long) means that this, more than anything, is “just another Ted Leo album.” The number of songs on here that make me think “well, that certainly sounds like a Ted Leo song” on here is most definitely higher than it should be. Really, what innovation does “Who Do You Love?” or “The World Stops Turning” or “Some Beginner’s End” bring to the world? Quick pace. Jangly guitars. Elastic, occasionally falsetto vocals. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. Sure, they’re fine, but they’re nothing more, and they don’t have that extra bit of energy and melodic know-how that we see in “The Sons of Cain” or “C.I.A.” (or, for that matter, most of Shake the Sheets). At this point I don’t even think I like “The World Stops Turning” at all. It’s just so blah. I don’t like blah. Apparently, though, some people do. Otherwise, how would Maroon 5 have a career?
Anyway, I’ve always had a healthy respect for Ted Leo, and this respect certainly went up after I saw the energy and charisma he plays with live, but (except for Shake the Sheets, which I like the most because it doesn’t sound like a “Ted Leo album”) the man has never totally been my cup of tea. I probably should like him more, but eh. I don’t.