Dad Rock Podcast - Episode 1: Blowin' Superchunks

The first episode of the Dad Rock podcast has arrived! IronFishLantern and I discuss life, growing older, and Superchunk. Dig in and Dad out!

Your Majesty, I Present To You: Shredding

(Note: Dr. Dunkn'Dank and I are going to try something new. The idea is that we are going to attempt to tag-team some reviews. This should provide some unique perspective, clunky transitions and insightful thoughts, especially when it's an album we both enjoy. The goal here is to not only alternate ideas and thoughts, but to do so without talking to each other along the way. This may or may not be a trainwreck. Here's to finding out!)


I've been thinking about my age a lot lately. Apparently this is something that people do a lot when they approach a certain age that rhymes with "blurdy" and happens to be more than 29. Even just writing reviews for this site, going through older albums helps to remind me of just how long it's been since I first heard these wondrous sounds. The gap feels weird. Thankfully, I didn't know Superchunk when they started making music, or listening to their 2010 comeback album Majesty Shredding would have made me feel remarkably decrepit. It's the type of album that seems to perfectly mirror my own struggles, simultaneously feeling markedly youthful and exuberant while managing to curse those young punk kids on the lawn all the same. It was exactly what I needed when I heard it. It was a glorious reminder that getting older doesn't mean I had to stop being young.

*****

Dr. Dunkenstein here. One hopes my choice of font helps differentiate our alternating passages (and doesn't lead to Crossed Wires... tee hee). Besides, I've always felt I was much more serif-y than IronFishLantern. Despite having 1 more year to live before the dreaded "blurdy" than he does, I too have felt the impending sense of inevitable doom. I basically have 400 days to complete all of my athletic, youthful, perverted dreams. I didn't know much, if anything, about Superchunk's music before IFL turned me onto to Majesty Shredding, but their name did have an odd familiarity. I feel like I was always vaguely aware of their presence on the periphery of my musical scope (or perhaps that was Supergrass?).

As stated above, Majesty Shredding has an undeniable youthful feel. Mac McCaughan's voice may have been frozen in amber at the age of 17. It's almost a caricature, but I've become addicted to his coarse, enthusiastic falsetto. The band invariably accompanies this perfectly with high-speed upbeat instrumentals. Sticking to their guns, the entire band's sound has remained astonishingly unchanged since they formed in 1989. Appropriately, much of the album's lyrical content reflects on past events and life's gradual changes. I'm not sure you could get more simultaneously energetic and wistful without doing a techno remix of Morgan Freeman's monologues from The Shawshank Redemption.

On the Beach: Part Duex.

*****

When I stumbled across a Rolling Stone review for Majesty Shredding I knew as much as the good Doctor did about Superchunk. Upon tracking the album down and hearing the first few seconds of "Digging for Something", I was immediately in a comfortable and familiar place. Though the voice of Mac has a borderline emo quality to it, the angst comes across as legit and sincere as opposed to manufactured. It's a great way to open an album, especially when you combine that with the "oh oh oh's" and the gnarly guitar. Right from the start you've got yourself an exuberant burst of power punk pop and there are many days where that's enough to keep you sane. The song concludes with a well orchestrated horn section that helps shows a subtle twist the 'Chunk have in their arsenal. The second track, "My Gap Feels Weird" rises from the ether of a child struggling with the loss of a tooth. Brilliantly, it transitions into a perfect descriptor of the chasm between us blurdy-somethings and the youth of today with their turned up collars and eye liner. Containing a beautifully executed ping-ponging, point-counterpoint Plinko-esque guitar solo, this track should allow our youth to marvel at the ability of their elders. It also makes me feel a little more human. No one wants to be the old guy screaming "get out of my daughters makeup", but I've certainly reached a point where the disconnect between myself and the young chaps they speak of seems as distinct as ever.

*****

I agree that Majesty Shredding starts stronger than Mark Henry. "Digging for Something" and "My Gap Feels Weird" are instant favorites. Intentional or not, this is genius album construction, as the listener is instantly hooked by the first two tracks and subtly trained not to skip ahead. This inclination to let the album play is quickly rewarded with the opening groove of "Rosemarie". In the lyrics, Mac pleads for a cynical friend to open her eyes and notice the good things in life. After repeated listens, I've fallen in love with the song's understated chorus. 

Another highlight is "Fractures in Plaster". The longest song on the album, it reveals a slower more deliberate side of Superchunk (with gorgeous strings!). The feedback-laden guitar at the beginning of the track provides the perfect amount of perpetually youthful energy to complement the nostalgia of the lyrics. Throughout their discography, Superchunk's guitar work reminds me of a socially well-adjusted J Mascis. The screaming guitar at the end of "Fractures in Plaster" is prime example of this (as is "Rope Light"). 

The next track, "Learned to Surf" cranks the joviality back up to 11. It's repeated chorus, backed by a chunky palm-muted rhythm guitar, should convert any of your friends that were somehow not convinced by the album's first two tracks (if not, get new friends). On the surface, the lyrics may make you feel regret for never pursuing that hobby that always piqued your interest. If you dig a little deeper (for something), you'll uncover a lesson about not letting the negative things in life drag you down into the abyss. Unfortunately, it often takes until middle age before you're skilled enough to gracefully rise above and navigate the inevitably rough waters of life. Sure, being young and carefree is fun part of life that we'll all miss, but life really begins once you have enough experience to actually enjoy it for what it is.

I don't know what to do with my hands.

*****

Turns out those damn adults who told us things when we were young may have been onto something. With all the changes that adulthood brings, music like this is what you can use to simultaneously feel young while still remembering to pay your taxes. The tempo of your life fluctuates just as the tunes do on this album. Things slow down until one day an oddity stands out. The mid-tempo "Winter Games" is like standing up in your late twenties and trying not to freak out upon the realization that your knees sound like a box of Rice Krispies exploding. This rumbling tune is propelled by the excellent drumming of Jon Wurster, giving you a chance to get your bearings (and throwing in another killer Dino Jr. riff-rip just to remind you why you're old enough to have creaky knees). And now that you're finally standing, the aforementioned "Rope Light" is the perfect song to thrash every awkward limb you have as delicious riffs go hand in hand with Mac weaving a tale that evokes the late night pursuit of unrequited love. Turns out, arthritic knees feel a lot better when you have a steady someone to get you an ice pack.

The album closes with "Everything at Once", another of my favorites. "Here's a song about nothing, and everything at once" is one of the amazing kind of nonsensical lyrics that Uncle Neil would have been proud to craft. The same power-punk groove that kept the band relevant throughout the last 25 years gives you a chance to reflect on the life you've lived. Paraphrasing the enigmatic genius that is Joe Walsh in the new Eagles documentary, as it happens your life seems like an extremely random collection of unrelated events (the nothing) but when you look back on it later it comes across as a well planned novel whose dots all connect (the everything at once). Youth is a glorious time filled with glorious moments. We all tend to lionize those moments from our past, soundtracking those mind movies with the exact kind of music Superchunk manages to crank out on Majesty Shredding. The album becomes a much needed reminder that growing up is not too bad and in fact, actually pretty cool. Nothing could prove that more than the timeless music of a group of musicians who swore otherwise not too long ago.


IronFishRanking's Final Score: .86 You're Living All Over Mes 

Rick Rankstardly's Final Score: .89 Animals

Average Final Score: .875 You're Living All Over Animals

Bottle Of Whiskey, The Boss And A Map Of The U.S.

As a new contributor I was asked to pick and review my ultimate album. My mind immediately went to The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Where’s the fun in that though? Both artists and their catalogues have been dissected to no end. Not to mention, I've heard them ad nauseam for the last 15 years. So I started to think about albums I've discovered within the last few years that have had a profound effect on me. I kept coming back to one album. Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen.

I shrugged and wrote off The Boss for years, pegging him as some kind of American loving patriot wiener thanks to the song "Born In the USA” that seemed to be everywhere when I was a kid (how young and dumb I was and apparently unable to understand sarcasm). This mentality kept up for much longer than I'd like to admit until one day I was listening to a band (who shall remain nameless) that incorporated Springsteen lyrics into a live performance of one of their own songs. I was so taken by the lyrics that I asked around and found it was the first few verses from "Thunder Road". That was the tipping point because after that I knew that if I could have been wrong about him I might be missing out on something good and I'd at least have to investigate. Now to this day, while I love Springsteen, his work is still extremely hit or miss.  Even on what’s considered some of his best albums, I'll love half the songs but can't stomach the other half. It’s crazy, I know. However, in my eyes his best record start to finish is 1982’s Nebraska.

One of the reasons I find it so interesting, is the legend around it. Springsteen dropped Nebraska on an unexpecting fanbase. Springsteen demoed songs that would make up this album at his home on a 4 track with mostly acoustic guitar, some harmonica and the occasional slight backing vocal. He had always been a storyteller in his songs, but these were different. These were songs about the dregs of society, people so desperate that murder and theft were the only options left. When he showed the E-Street band the demos, they couldn't get the sound the songs needed. Ultimately, it was decided to commercially release the demos AS the album. This was a radical idea for the time but it captures something special. There’s an uninhibitedness in the performance with warts and all that he believed only a few people would ever hear, not the record buying populace. Lines from one song will end up in another over the course of the album, further proving its “rough draft” state but also connecting the album through cohesiveness.

The album starts with title track about the Charlie Starkweather murder spree from the 1950’s sung from the killer’s point of view. Right from the lonesome harmonica blast that opens the song you can practically see the waves of heat cascading off a car that’s driving through suburbia. Springsteen delivers the lines of the killer with deadpan and no remorse “They declared me unfit to live/said into the great void my soul’d be hurled/they wanted to know why I did what I did/well sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world”.

“Atlantic City” is the closest thing to a radio friendly song on this album and it’s far from it. A story of a man caught up against the odds in a life of crime but trying to go straight. “I got a job and tried to put my money away, but I got debts that no honest man can pay” It’s the outline to a low rent gangster flick or film noir. Another track, “Johnny 99” describes a man at wits end after he loses his job and the bank is ready to foreclose on his house. He gets drunk and out of desperation shoots and kills a night clerk. The judge gives him 99 years but he pleads for death instead. It’s slightly uptempo shuffle almost betrays its dire message. “State Trooper” does not have that problem. It’s one of the creepiest songs I’ve ever heard. Sung in a hypnotic whisper, it’s the sound of driving in pitch black at 3AM. A plea to a State Trooper to not pull the narrator over, “Maybe you got a kid, maybe you got a pretty wife/The only thing that I’ve got’s been botherin’ me my whole life”. The end of this song contains one of the spookiest yells I’ve ever heard. It affects me every time.

Both “Mansion On The Hill” and “Used Cars” look at the other side of the album, away from the bleakness and despair and highlight Bruce’s timeless storytelling. “Mansion” discusses a house that literally looks over the town. “At night my daddy’d take me and we’d ride/through the streets of a town so silent and still/park on a back road along the highway side/look up at the mansion on the hill”. In “Used Cars” it’s a simple song from a child’s point of view of him desperately wanting his family buying a new car when all they can afford is a used one. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it’s elegant and simple and on an album with such intense lyrics a palate cleanser is needed occasionally.

 The centerpiece of the album is the song “Highway Patrolman” a remarkable and in depth character study and a meditation on what it means to be family. Our narrator, Joe Roberts works on the local small town police force in Michigan. He’s married, settled down and lives a good honest life. The problem is Joe has a brother, Frankie “and Frankie ain't no good”. The song takes us on a journey through the past as we learn about the brothers and what it means to be part of a family. “I catch him when he’s straying’ like any brother would/man turns his back on his family, well he just ain’t no good”. Joe’s dedication is tested when he gets a call to go check out a dispute at the bar. When he arrives he finds a man in a bloody mess and he knows Frankie was the cause of it. He jumps in his car and pursues him through the back country roads. After he sees Frankie’s headed towards the Canadian border, he pulls to the side of the road and turns his car off to watch Frankie disappear. The chorus picks up again and we are left to ruminate over their relationship. A simple tale of morality becomes more philosophically complex with each listen. It sounds like a modern update of the songs from Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album.

I find the writing on this album to be remarkable, it’s taught and it’s lean. It follows the principle Hemingway bestowed upon himself to write the truest sentence he could once a day. Well old Brucey’s got an album full of them. Each song is its own short story or vignette. The older I get, the more I can empathize with certain characters and see different interpretations in the lyrics. It’s like it’s constantly evolving with me. The vocal quality is so gentle and spooky at times, there are songs that literally give me goose bumps on this record. It’s so intimate that I find myself always wanting to go back to it like the good novel that it is. Art should make you feel something and that’s what I chose Nebraska as my ultimate album. I always get a reaction from it every time I hear it. The music is timeless too, so 30 years from now when trends change it will never sound dated. It’s here for eternity.