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A Worm's Life Crash Test

Dummies Arista/BMG

When your most popular tune is a funeral song for the Man of Steel, you can’t help ' but laugh. When your latest video, for ‘He Liked to Feel It’, gets banned for promot- ing self-mutilation toa _ generation of over-pierced, over-preached twentysomethings, you have to think. And, when you play to a packed house that promptly starts moshing to a semi-slow tune, you have to wonder why you’re the one people call strange.

The Crash Test Dummies are an interesting phenomenon. If1 didn’t live in reality, I might suggest opening an X-File on these guys.

Since their inception in Winnipeg, the Dummies’ focus has been the banal, the bogus, and the body part. Each Dummies album is a bizarre episode of Seinfeld: the Musical. Well, Part III (aka A Worm’s Life) is finally out, with Brad Roberts’ distinctive baritone providing the answer to the oft-asked question: Just what the hell is it like to be pickled in tequila?

Musically, the Dummies are always challenging themselves and their listeners with odd time signatures and off kilter key changes. It’s not unusual to need a few listens to even get a Dummies’ tune. For some, you just never do. And, strangely, their tunes have become more obscure with time, rather than less so. Regardless, it’s hard to not be grabbed by a line like but now I’ve grown bloated on seal fat.

I can’t help but wonder how many more such outings we’ll see from the Dummies. Roberts’ fascination with everything from birthmarks to toasters surely can’t be all-encompassing. One song on Worm deals entirely with writer’s block, and compares it to picking scabs. The last tune, called ‘Swatting Flies’, begins with the line, Now that I've used up all my ideas....

In a world where Bryan Adams can essentially re-release the same album five times and sell the world over, we need bands like the Crash Test Dummies. Let’s all hope to foot-shufflin’ God they haven’t run out of ideas. by Jason Kuyrlo

Thriller Son Warner

It’s best said in one word: Ugh.

But, since I got flak for the four-word Scheer review a couple issues ago, I’d better wank a bit on this one. Fitting, really, as that’s what the album’s really all = about.

Basically, it’s like this. Some corpulent young white trash (read: Son) gets stoned. Whilst in this precarious state, he listens to some old Prince albums. You know, the early stuff, before the purple one became the pretentious, self- appointed shithead one. <pause> Can you see where this is going? <sigh> So, young shithead wannabe that he is, Son decides that he can be a musical geius, too, just like his hero du jour, The Artist Formerly Known as “The Artist Formerly Known as ‘Prince.’” Well, the result, Thriller, proves him outrageously, horribly, and let’s hope shame- fully wrong.

The fact is, this pathetic collection of awful techno-pop- rock drivel is the work of a drunken high schooler that couldn’t cut it in shop class, so he snuck into the band room. How he got signed, and why the compa- ny’s pushing this shit is beyond me. All the fabulous bands out

there, and this pusshead’s got a deal, an album, and the arrogance to put his ugly nug on the back cover of the cd.

Usually, I have something constructive to say, regardless of product. Hell, I’ll 2ven go out of my way to find the positive side of gangsta rap, an ‘art form’ I find totally repulsive and worthless. I looked for that smidgen of positive here. I 2ould only find two good things about this record: 1) It’s not good enough to be ylayed on the radio, so I won’t have to be subjected to it ever again. And, 2) It wasn’t a double-album.

- Ugh.

reluctantly, by Jason Kurylo Positive Grassy Knol] Nettwerk

Ambient music doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention these days. It’s seems hat the stuff that gets radio play is the only stuff that gets heard nowadays. srassy Knoll is a band that should not be overlooked just because they’re not on he radio. Brian Eno and John Cale projects come to mind when Knoll’s music is slaying. This album would be a great addition to any ambient fans repertoire.

by Kim

Recovering the Satellites Counting Crows Geffen

The last couple years has seen a few huge break- through albums for young bands. Alanis comes to mind. Hootie, too. But, musically anyway, Counting Crows have bragging rights as having the best album of the bunch.

They may not have sold as many records as those crazy, kooky Blowfish, and they may not have seen August and Everything After conquer Billboard’s Top 20 for a just under a million years like our favourite Canadian Ironicist. But Adam Duritz and company should be damn proud of that debut of theirs, regard- less of where their career paths go from here.

Luckily for August fans, it doesn’t look like those paths stray too far from where they started — yet. There are hints of things to come: thicker, bluesier arrange- ments; <gasp!> even a sense of humour about the whole self-bashin’ thang. (If anyone hasn’t heard ‘Einstein On the Beach’ (for an eggman), a tune Duritz admits “wasn’t mopey enough” for August, I suggest picking up the bargain DGC Rarities Vol. 1 just for that.) But even with these pointers, your final product is still Counting Crows.

Duritz’s vocals conjure that guy or gal in high school your friends wanted and your parents loved, but when you got him alone, he confessed problems that would have made Hunter S. Thompson blush. One minute he’s the most promising young man in the world, the next he’s a neo-suicidal hooker taking pills to get through the night. Strangely, it works. And well, at that.

Basically, if you liked the first album, you’ ll like the new one. Almost any tune from Recovering the Satellites would fit nicely on August, and vice versa. You’ ve got fourteen new tunes here, all with the same odd mix of self-deprication, confidence, sloppiness, and charm you’re used to.

by Jason Kurylo

Permanent Records

First Book starts off with a little ditty called ‘This Day’ which is immediately catchy, and has all the earmarkings of a radio-single waiting to happen. This is probably the best song on the disk.

The overall sound of MudGirl is agreeable but not unique, with a little help from MudGirl’s great sounding voice. The tunes are simple, alternative-

rock sounding stuff which let the smooth clear lyrics shine through.

BR-5 BR-5 BMG

I’m not an over-zealous country and western fan. However, I found this refreshing. It’s reminis- cent of a childhood when TV was fairly new and expensive, and when radio and record players were the affordable choice of entertainment. My dad used to listen to country & western on the old 78’s, rock and roll was young and our parents thought it would corrupt us so there wasn’t much variety in family entertainment.

Country & western has changed so much over the years that it’s almost unrecognizable but BR-S is back to basics, a revival of old classics. A good blend of twanging guitars, bluegrass and a swinging beat, real honky-tonk.

The album offers six originals and five classics made great by the likes of Mel Tillis, Ray Price and Gram Parsons. It proves that not only true country fans can appreciate the sounds of Nashville.

by Inez

Fyulaba SNFU

Alright, these guys have changed band members probably about as often as they’ve

changed their under- wear, you can decide how often that is. I like the band for their sound, I don’t care to follow their members, nor their underwear. Granted the vocals may change over the albums, but their sound has always been great. I like to look at it this way... people enjoy the VSO. They like it because of the emotions driven by the music, they don’t really notice if some of the individuals change because the sound is consistent. The same goes for SNFU, the look of the band may change, but the music is still fast, furious and bloody smart.

by Kim

First Book

Mudcirl Happily Ever After Rose Chronicles

Nettwerk

The melodic voices of this Vancouver group are hypnotizing. The Rose Chronicles have a sound

similar to that of the Cocteau Twins. They have recently appeared on the Foxfire soundtrack, also on Nettwerk.

This album is easy to listen too, and very relaxing. If you ever have a chance to see them live, I would definitely recommend it.

There is a slight static-type edge in her sound that doesn’t let the album sound overproduced.

With lyrics like Jf they say to you / that I’ve gone koo-coo, / it’s not true, the song ‘Con- tact’ (the only one not written by Kim Bingham a.k.a Mudgirl) is a letdown at the end of what is otherwise a pretty good EP. This rhyme is annoying and repetitive, and what’s worse, it’s one of those things that sticks in your head all day and drives you nuts.

The overall artwork on the album cover is pretty cool (this is important to an image-guy like myself). Its nice to see a girl who’s not afraid to carry her own disembodied head by the hair and not worry about messing it up. The inside photo of Kim Bingham is less than flatering, though.

As an initial offering, First Book is worthwhile, but with only five songs, it leaves one wondering “will there be a Second Book?”

by Chad Iverson by Kim

18 October 291996 The Other Press