33 rebellions per minute
"To be convinced that we're doing the right thing, protecting the world from the dark + the frightening"
1992
Rise Robots Rise, S/T
So far in these reviews I've had occasion, or at least spur-of-the-moment pretexts, to briefly discuss male vs
female, old vs young, homosexual vs heterosexual, left-wing vs right-wing, hunter vs hunted. I haven't
mentioned skin color, black vs white. But if you've read more than a few reviews here so far, I bet you'd
guess I'm white. No surprises: I am. It's a serious pity that the presense of Simon & Garfunkel but the
absence of Jimi Hendrix, my definition of folkie as Joan Baez instead of Tracy Chapman, my devotion to
Yes instead of James Brown, even within-genre my long review of Soft Machine and the quick in-and-out
plug for Eric Dolphy, should have any such meaning. But it does: when the audience at a Rush concert is
99% white, and the audience at an Erykah Badu concert is 99% black--- and I'm not making those numbers
up--- statistical significance has been achieved. Oh, and I attended a Rush concert myself, but am relying on
two different Badu small-concert reports, each filed by the only white person in attendance. I dislike Badu's
music, myself. I have no explanation to offer for any of this. If it's just upbringing, why do I enjoy
Metallica and Non Credo and John Zorn, all completely unlike each other or the nice music Mom raised me
on, but not Boyz II Men or Otis Redding or the Superemes, who seem much closer to my childhood music
world? I just don't know.
The recent successful intrusion of black rap groups into my collection--- Public Enemy, Aceyalone, Urban
Dance Squad, Jungle Brothers--- is a surprise to me, since I know from unfortunate and unasked-for
experience that I find most popular rap boring and/or unpleasant. My decision to seek them out was inspired
by this Rise Robots Rise debut, which I bought for $3 based solely on liking the band name. This album is
another on my very short list of perfect albums, as good a choice for #1 on my faves list as any, but I'd
have avoided it had I read a review or two: it's an intricate but heady mix of rap, gospel, lite jazz,
adventurous late-era Motown, and SGT PEPPER-isms. While it plays, it completely overcomes all of my
reservations about the first four of those genres (enough, as I said, to unseat my objections to the first of
those permanently). The songs were written and played by two white Julliard students named Nitze and
Mendelsohn. I don't know what to make of that, either.
What definitely are relavant are the following: that Nitze and Mendelsohn are terrific rappers, emotionally
expressive, with great feel for rhythm and rhyme, and with the range to be fully qualified by themselves to
play all the male voice-overs in the cartoon remake of Do The Right Thing. That at least one of them is a
great drummer and drum programmer, versatile and inventive in moving the songs along (and to judge by
"Mars" and "Zombie Demons", earning an A+ in African Polyrhythms class). That one of them is a guitarist
with a gift for clean but searing electric leads, like Jimi Hendrix as a session guitarist for Stevie Wonder.
That 9 of the 10 tracks feature guest singers (yes, singers), black women I believe, and that while Michelle
Johnson is merely excellent, Tracey Amos is literally, no hesitations here, my favorite singer on the planet,
with an unbelievably beautiful voice which she uses skillfully. The song structures, too, are often
fascinating, with at least two different-styled rap sections and often with two different choruses--- usually
within the context of an overriding groove, but sometimes messing with your head a bit.
The lyrics justify that structure. If you focus on how the words read, instead of how they sound (where
the internal rhymes and free associations come to life), the results are mixed in quality, but also,
interestingly, in purpose. The overall theme would be something like "human potential", but not in a vacant
cheering sense: they want everyone free to think and act, but also to be responsibile and voluntarily choose
niceness; they want you to join in this, but they also recognize that all your good intent in the world won't
overcome starvation or the power structure's mindless gambles with human extinction. So the songs are
left-wing and idealistic, but it's idealism in the '90's, where even "Get Ready" (in funky 7/8 time), the
obvious update of the woolly-headed Youngbloods' staple "Get Together" that was covered by the Indigo
Girls and smothered by Nirvana (in the "Territorial Pissings" intro), goes "We could go on like this forever,
if we could learn to trust each other, wouln't you like to touch somebody, before we all get blown away". It
comes three songs after the opening lines of they album, and those go "Pick up your piece and count down
your reasons, violence is the only way left to get even", which is not a final enough statement to quite be a
contradiction, but the edge of despair is real. The disconnected, spooky "The Pipe Talks To You" isn't
pro-psychedelic, it's anti. "All Sewn Up" and "Zombie Demons" are clearly in our modern time of economic
redistribution: "You can try your luck, but it's all sewn up. A door once open has now been shut. Comes as
no surprise" or "it ain't easy being greasy and slimy and cold. Never had nothing, never been nothing,
always been told where to go"--- but the latter then choruses "Don't believe them, the demons in your
head", trying to ensure you don't use economic depression as your opening for emotional depression,
because aren't the demons _aiming at_ your head problem enough?. "All Sewn Up" and "Mars" are
environmental songs, and they rightly place blame squarely on the rich nations tearing up resources at
warp-speed, not on the poor people daring to have children.
Best is "Flowers and Birds", perhaps my favorite song of all time. It's easy (and fun) to mock, from
Tracey's superb gospel opening "When we return, we will be flowers and birds", to the chorus, duplicating
melody and gorgeous feel from Bob Geldof's "This Is The World Calling", where thae flowers/birds line is
sung in back of hilariously ungorgeous overstatement like "One lonely Amercian soldier counts the medals
on his shoulder. One million American children are marching off to their oblivion". But most of the lines,
just as ridiculous in a song context, become true, and important, when you remember to stop laughing. If
you then want to laugh again, try to perfect your own M.L.King-to-a-rhythm-track delivery of "Will our
children be sacrificial lambs offered up to ease the fears of the multinational corporations like so many
brainwashed media zombies? Petroleum and its byproducts should _not_ be a dependency in a
technology-based society. Nothing lasts forever, and we cannot ask God for our gasoline!"--- vital wisdom,
and trying to orate it cracks me up every time. But seriously, while there's a lot of anti-war songs and a lot
of pro-peace ones, it's rare to see a song manage both the anger and the hope to be both, as this does. And
even rarer is seeing gospel lead to in-yo-face rap, then to quietly intense rap, then to AOR pop (with synth
marimba, yay!), leading eventually into a fife-and-drum bridge before the final relaxed sing-along, all within
less than 5 minutes, and all done perfectly. In fact, the only way to hear that trick is to get this album. It's
out of print. So bribe me. Peace and love, -Brian
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