I'd Love to Turn You On #246: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)

It’s 2005: the Internet is skyrocketing, New Orleans is underwater, and the War On Terror is in full swing. America the Cultured is in a cultural ditch: Destiny’s Child is breaking up, Flavor Of Love is in pre-production, and in his first televised bed-shitting, Kanye alleges that the POTUS is a racist. On the other side of the pop spectrum, Rock’n’Roll has gone full-on Sad-Boi™ and seems to have completely sold itself to corporate media. Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco are being crammed down the throat of nearly every emotional pre-teen and baggy-eyed Clear Channel jockey out there, driving them both to suicide. Between looming threats of another 9/11 and another forced serving of “I CHIME IN,” it was a scary time to be a young American – yet this national state of paranoia could never be enough to faze socially awkward college kids with dial-up connections. A smart, college-educated Brooklyn hipster like Alec Ounsworth, for example, is far too busy playing and promoting his band’s debut, chock full of weird guitar songs about young love and “…Young Blood” to Manhattan crowds that are growing larger and more prestigious by the night. (Imagine singing, “You look like David Bowie”, directly to the David Bowie....)

Originally released in June 2005, the self-titled debut from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah sounds as chameleonic as it does disciplined, and its distinctly “indie” lore remains intact to this day. Following exceptionally positive online buzz and culminating with a glowing review from an increasingly influential webzine called Pitchfork Media, demand for the album became so large that the band had to reprint and reissue the disc altogether, selling over 40,000 copies on their own by the end of September. They signed a deal with UK indie Wichita Records in October only as a means to get the physical disc across the pond. What started as a way for Ounsworth to channel his love of quirky 70’s/80’s new wave and 90’s alternative morphed into one of the Internet’s first overwhelming musical sensations – something reveled by both no-name bloggers and heavy-hitting industry titans (like Bowie and David Byrne who were both spotted at the band’s Manhattan shows).

In other words, freedom from the influence of label heads and industry execs allowed CYHSY total creative freedom, and this quality is immediately evident to the listener. The album’s off-kilter, unorthodox feel can be heard straight away in the eponymous opening track. On “Clap Your Hands!” a carnival Wurlitzer lays the red-paisley carpet for Ounsworth, the madcap master of ceremonies whose lyrics throughout the album are as nonsensical ("betray white water, delay dark forms") as they are woke ("Should I trust all the rust that's on TV/I guess with some distaste I disagree"). The record’s lyrical pinnacle is born on the powerful, Dylan-esque “Details Of The War”; here Ounsworth’s warbled “mezzo-tenor” croons “Nakedness, a flying lesson/Tattered dress, sunburned chest/You will pay for your excessive charm.”

After a point, it becomes futile to trace the sonic influence of CYHSY, as any two record connoisseurs will ultimately come up with different sources. While Ounsworth’s vocals do draw obvious comparisons to Byrne, and nods to Berlin-era Bowie are scattered throughout the otherwise sparse arrangements, the record also qualifies as an indie/alternative funhouse. Perhaps the most agreeable influence is that of Frank Black, whose Pixie-dust is sprinkled on the heavier, guitar-oriented tracks (“Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away,” “In This Home On Ice”), although another listener could easily make an argument for Pavement, or even Yo La Tengo at their loudest. The sonic sources become more ambiguous as the group channels everything from Stereolab (the euphoric “Is This Love”) to the Cure (the goth-pop of “Over And Over Again”), and utilized everything from toy pianos (“Sunshine And Clouds”) to digital Theremins (“Heavy Metal”). The album’s most ear-catching sound is the 8-bit synth patch heard on its only single, “By The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth,” which sounds like the soundtrack to your favorite old Game Boy game.

In this day and age, where every self-righteous “gifted” millennial is pirating Ableton on uTorrent and publicly claiming they’re about to produce the next channel ORANGE, the grassroots creation of CYHSY seems almost too good to be true. Although M.I.A. had blown up MySpace in the year prior, and the Go! Team had received serious praise from mp3 blogs, there had yet to be an unsigned act that tapped into musical virality. Even Merge, a renowned indie, was driving the seismic impact of the Arcade Fire. To that effect, CYHSY is one of the first and most lasting testaments to the power of post-millennium DIY culture; its recording and release chronicle a young band’s journey from virtually unknown local favorites to international sensation in the matter of weeks. It’s not quite Beatlemania, but the thing that hooked people onto CYHSY – what set them apart from the pack – was their status as a totally organic, bare-bones guitar band that built their sound, image, and promotional material all on their own apart from any major external force. Additionally, the one force that did catapult this group into the spotlight from obscurity was an exponentially budding music blogosphere that had not yet been swayed by money and corporate interests.

The main lyrical theme of the album – the disillusionment of intelligent youth, poor and heartbroken, in a superficially materialistic Western society that lives in constant fear of mass destruction – is something that is transcendent in the best of all Western pop music, yet Ounsworth’s freewheeling energy and epileptic delivery make these age-old themes seem urgent and uniquely contemporary. Still drunk off the mercurial splash that was Funeral, journalists and A&R men everywhere were desperately looking for an answer to the Arcade Fire, and (if you asked Bowie/Byrne) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were it. In sound, structure, and style, this is as indie as it gets.

- Ethan Griggs

I'd Love to Turn You On #244 - Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele (2000)

            Lately I’ve been getting caught up in the Hulu show Wu-Tang: An American Saga. Even though it’s kind of a shitty show, it’s reminded me that revisiting my love of the Wu-Tang Clan is something I need to do occasionally. I’m certain I’m not alone in my assessment that when the Wu-Tang Clan came to prominence, they were a cut above the rest in terms of the hip-hop of the ‘90s. They quickly became one of my favorites and it didn’t take long for me to start tracking down every solo album by every solo rapper even tangentially related to the Wu.

            Among the masterpieces to grace the world at the turn of the new millennium was Supreme Clientele, the second solo record by the inimitable Ghostface Killah. Released at a time when most Wu-Tang members had either already ventured off onto their own solo paths or were about to, de facto leader RZA could not oversee production on all of them, and it often showed. He did, however, opt to man the boards (and contribute some rhymes) for Supreme Clientele, enlisting the help of a small team of other RZA disciples. Incorporating the sexiest of obscure R&B samples (the cover photo of Ghost crooning into a retro microphone makes it even look like it could be a 1970s Jerry Butler record or something) into the sleaziest of beats and loops, to produce a result that is pure Staten Island sound: pure Wu-Tang. Ghost’s lyrics provide vivid narrative structures emboldened by deep personal introspection while laced with abstract, ostensibly nonsensical poetic liberties. Many of the lyrics on Supreme Clientele were written while Ghost was on a several month-long trip to Africa, incorporating much of his experience with the culture there (and his subsequent disdain for American consumerism) into his words. And the flow doesn’t stop with just Ghost. In fact, not only is he joined by RZA but other fellow Wu members Cappadonna, GZA, Masta Killa and Raekwon pop in and out to take a verse or two, making it just about as close to Wu-Tang-Proper as it gets.

            The thing about Supreme Clientele is that it’s quite notoriously one of the most-loved, if not the most-loved of the non-Wu-Tang Wu-Tang projects. At least one of the highest charting ones, if I’m not mistaken. And deservedly so. It’s not only a step up creatively from its predecessor, Ghost’s powerful debut Ironman (which is also great), but production-wise too. Supreme Clientele is stamped front to back with that unmistakable RZA sound which, by 2000, just wasn’t as ubiquitous as it once was. In the 19 years since this record came out, the world of hip-hop has only gotten more incredible and complex and the landscape is constantly changing. There are countless talented emcees and DJs out there and with Soundcloud and Bandcamp and the like, it’s easier than ever for some of the lesser-known talented acts to be heard. Even Ghostface himself has gone on to release material that far surpasses that of Supreme Clientele. In fact, 2006’s Fishscale is high in the running for best hip-hop record ever, in my opinion. But this… this is the one. This is, I think, the reference point that people will point to when talking about solo Wu-Tang albums. When this record came out, I could not get enough of it. And now, listening back to it as much as I did in preparation to write this, it still sounds as fresh and exciting as it did when I first bought it.

            Honestly, I wouldn’t ordinarily choose to write about a record that’s already received as much critical and commercial praise as Supreme Clientele has received. I mean, theoretically it’s already had so much smoke blown up its ass over the years that I couldn’t possibly have anything to add that would be useful. And anyway, the point of these reviews is to “turn you on” to something you may have otherwise missed. It’s just that I truly believe that this record still needs to be talked about because it’s a god damn masterpiece. Whether you’re new school or old school, there’s something on Supreme Clientele for every hip-hop fan.

            - Jonathan Eagle

I'd Love to Turn You On #243 - The Killers - Sam's Town (2006)

            When The Killers' debut album Hot Fuss came out in 2004 I begged and begged my dad to take me to see them at City Stages in Birmingham the next year. They played the entire album and I was hooked instantly; I became a forever fan and my poor dad had to stand there with a screaming teenage girl. I still wear the t-shirt I got at the show and am amazed it still fits me. I guess it’s just that Killers magic. When their second studio album Sam’s Town came out the year after that I instantly went out and bought the CD and later when I got my first turntable it was the first new record I bought with my own money. It was a departure from the synth and auto-tune featured heavily in Hot Fuss, while still being very much a Killers album at its core. It’s a love letter to Las Vegas - where the members either grew up or moved to when they were young, and where the band formed.

            I guess a little background on the band will make their love of Las Vegas and the Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall make a little more sense. Lead singer Brandon Flowers, drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. and bassist Mark Stoermer grew up in Las Vegas while guitarist Dave Keuning moved there in his early 20’s. But all four of them met in the City of Sin under the bright lights and formed The Killers in 2001. As a child Stoermer could see the Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall sign from his bedroom window. Las Vegas gave them an edge that they couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. The album was even recorded in Las Vegas. With Vegas in their hearts and minds they as a group decided to move away from the new wave Brit-pop sound of Hot Fuss and record an album that sounded more like where they came from.

            Sam’s Town kicks off with the title track, a larger than life rock anthem. It gives you the feeling of walking down the Las Vegas Strip at night soaking in all of the bright lights and big sounds. It comes from a place in Flowers' heart, because he grew up doing just that. Two of my favorite things about Sam’s Town are the “Enterlude” and “Exitlude” tracks bookending the album. You can imagine Flowers as a lounge singer in a casino, welcoming in patrons as the night begins and softly letting them know it’s time to go when the sun comes up. My other two favorites off Sam’s Town, “Uncle Johnny” and “Bones,” fill in the sex and drugs part of “sex, drugs and rock & roll” for the album. “Uncle Johnny” is raw and feels like a person strung out on cocaine while living it up in Las Vegas. “Bones” is a throwback to the synth-pop sound from Hot Fuss, but with a little more Mojave Desert dirt mixed in. Both tracks don’t hold anything back and that is what makes them stand out on this album.

The Killers didn’t hold anything back when making this album, and while most reviews of the album were not stellar, the album holds true to their Las Vegas roots and that desert sound. It isn’t flashy, it doesn’t try to copy their sound from Hot Fuss, and it stands alone in the pantheon of Killers albums. It’s raw, it’s dusty and it’s very Las Vegas. While Hot Fuss tends to get all the glory, Sam’s Town in my opinion is a truly Killers album. They made it the way they wanted, they recorded it where they wanted and to me it works, even if the rest of the world didn’t seem to think so.

P.S. Brandon Flowers' debut solo album Flamingo is also a beautiful heartfelt love letter to the city of Las Vegas and is well worth a listen.

- Anna Lathem

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #228 - The Host (2006, dir. Bong Joon-ho)

            Meet the Park family, proprietors of a snack stand along the touristy Han River in the South Korean capital of Seoul:

Gang-Du, the eldest son of the generous and caring widower Hie-bong, Gang-Du’s wife left him with their precocious young daughter Hyun-seo years ago and left him emotionally arrested at that stage in his life.

Nam-Joo, Hie-bong’s youngest, a champion archer with a penchant for choking when the pressure is on.

Nam-il, the educated activist middle child who has been unable to find gainful employment despite his education and who drinks to cover up his anger.

Hie-bong, the gentle patriarch who is struggling to care for his family economically, and who is ready to fight to hold them together.

Hyun-seo, youngest of the Park clan, trying to succeed in school despite a difficult upbringing and a father who, though he tries his best, fails her in many ways.

While the Parks work their snack stand, miles away an American military scientist examines the contents of his laboratory with his Korean assistant, sees hundreds of bottles of chemicals he deems to be spoiled, and has a conversation that culminates in the words “That’s right, let’s dump them in the Han River” - we know this can’t be good. Sure enough, shortly the local fisherman begin to notice fewer fish, and some of the ones they catch seem… different, perhaps with more tails than they usually have, and also perhaps a little more bite-y than usual. A man preparing to jump off a bridge sees a huge black shape moving in the water but can’t tell what it is.

And instead of spending half the film building up to the reveal of the monster as in most monster classics (Alien, Jaws, King Kong), we’re suddenly right into the thick of it - a mutated, amphibious monster that resembles a giant, dangerous tadpole with legs and too many teeth is running rampant along the walkways of the Han, crushing and flinging aside onlookers, grabbing some with its mouth or its tail, going in and out of the water. Naturally this happens right by the Park family stand at the most crowded and busy time of day, and as the monster runs wild through the crowd Gang-Du sees young Hyun-seo in danger and springs into action intent on protecting his family, one of the few onlookers who dares to assault the beast instead of running away screaming. But the monster nabs Hyun-seo with its tail, flees back to the water and off to its lair. Shortly afterward those who have come into contact with the monster are quarantined by the military because of their exposure to a virus the beast is carrying, and this includes the entire Park family. And so begins the meat of the film - the family coming together over their longstanding personal difficulties to find Hyun-seo. Which means that they not only have to find the monster's hidden lair in the city, but also evade the authorities who want them locked up and away from the general populace as they prepare to test a new chemical agent to destroy the beast - and possibly sell it for chemical warfare in the future.

Gang-Du (Bong regular Kang-ho Song) is both funny and touching as the eldest son, a slacker father lamenting his departed wife and dotingly focused on his daughter Hyun-seo (superbly played by Ko Asung), suddenly awakened out of his torpor to rescue his captured child. The film follows out many threads of the progress of different family members - Gang-du’s younger archer sister, his activist younger brother, and his father Hie-bong trying to keep them all together (and who, like his surprisingly active slacker son, is a real fighter when it comes to the monster). And of course there's resourceful young Hyun-seo, cool-headed under threat of being eaten by the mutant tadpole threatening all of Seoul.

Bong Joon-Ho's ease in genre - and also rejection of it - is a major plus here. Like all his films (that I've seen), he starts with what appears to be a straightforward genre piece and slowly sends it off the rails until it's something else entirely. Is this a thriller about a government cover-up? A family drama? A giant monster horror film? A black comedy? The answer is yes to all of those things. And the reason I've spent so much time talking about the family is because Bong took the time to think about them as well - he invests what could be a tawdry CGI-centric genre piece with real, flawed, believable people (helped immensely by an excellent cast who make us care about their foibles, about their problems), and helps us believe it when a giant killer tadpole snatches their daughter to its hidden lair to be eaten at a later time.

If you need a great horror film for your October viewing, check this one. If you need to see the earlier work of this year's Palme d'Or winning director, check this one (and also check out the superb Memories of Murder, itself another genre-defying genre film - this time a police procedural) before you go see the excellent Parasite when it opens. But really, Bong Joon-Ho hasn't stepped wrong in anything I've yet seen - I started with The Host and have yet to be disappointed, and you won't be either.

-         Patrick Brown

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #227 - The Social Network (2010, dir. David Fincher)

My freshman year in college I somehow got my hands on a screener copy of The Social Network. I think a friend of a friend was in film school at Auburn or maybe it just magically appeared in my apartment, I'm not sure. One thing I am sure of is that I watched the hell out of it. It grew on me the more I watched it. It is after all a movie about Facebook. But not just about Facebook, it's about all of the people Mark Zuckerberg stepped on the heads of on the way to the top. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin weaves two complicated legal cases into an epic story scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The cast is all over the place and yet somehow it works perfectly to tell this story. In the end, it might just show you that if more people had stopped, watched this film and looked into the deceitful things Zuckerberg did to make Facebook, some of you wouldn’t have been so surprised when Facebook itself became a deceitful thing.

            The first thing that won me over about The Social Network was that Aaron Sorkin wrote the script. As a massive fan of The West Wing, I love a good Aaron Sorkin walk-n-talk peppered with iconic lines. What better than for him to write about than a bunch of nerds arguing in court over who came up with what. There is a reason he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Sorkin adapted Ben Mezrich’s book Accidental Billionaires into an amazing script that was easy to follow, interesting and still had enough tech lingo to be not dumbed down for the masses.

This film has a massive cast, some big names and some unknowns at the time. Jesse Eisenberg plays insufferable nerd Mark Zuckerberg like a super villain with absolutely no regard for people other than himself. Watching him tell an attorney for the Winklevoss twins that he doesn’t deserve his attention with not one single human emotion on his face was insane, seeing as I had only seen him in Adventureland before this. In the role of Eduardo Saverin (AKA best friend and cash cow for Zuckerberg), is the adorable Andrew Garfield, who even with his adorable face he still does the job of showing just how far Zuckerberg went to get to the top. You understand his frustration with the situation - Zuckerberg made him not a part of Facebook. Armie Hammer - man if only there really was two of him. But alas, there isn't. He plays the Winkelvoss twins as two big dumb (but not that dumb, because they go to Harvard) jocks and still gives each twin their own personality. Who better to play Napster founder and all around douchebag Sean Parker than Justin Timberlake, a musician who was definitely affected by the creation of Napster? He did an amazing job of playing Parker as the paranoid bad businessman that he was. 

And finally, the music. If the score wasn’t super-duper out of print I think I could do an entire review about it. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Boy, what a team! I wouldn't have passed a few college classes if it weren’t for this score. As soon as I saw the film I had the music stuck in my head and to this day it's my go-to study/get things done music. It’s honestly worth a listen on its own, but hearing it woven into this complicated story is really something. “Hand Covers Bruise,” a melancholy tune that you can hear throughout the film, is also my favorite of the tunes. An intense, strange version of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” sets an even stranger mood for the Henley Royal Regatta where the Winklevoss Twins lose the race. Again, there is a reason this won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. While the score dominates the film it is opened and closed with two great song choices. Opening the film in a crowded college bar is The White Stripes' “Ball and Biscuit,” which sets a mood for the verbal beating Zuckerberg is about to receive from a soon to be ex-girlfriend. Closing out the film with The Beatles “Baby, You’re A Rich Man” while Zuckerberg sits alone after a deposition refreshing his Facebook page, waiting to see if the same ex-girlfriend from the beginning accepts his friend request is just the icing on this cake to an already fantastic sounding film. 

I find it kinda funny that this blog will be posted on the Twist & Shout Facebook page. The version of Facebook in The Social Network isn’t the same Facebook as today. In The Social Network it was exactly that, a network for socializing, that isn't the case anymore. Today it’s for arguments and weird relatives that overshare among other things. Around the time I was obsessed with The Social Network I also stopped putting every second of my life on Facebook. I don’t know if I was just bored with it or if the film made me see it in a different light. All I can say is that I am not one single bit surprised by all of the chaos Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have created in the decade since the film was released.

- Anna Lathem