I made a handful of cufflinks today. Sixty will go to a larger project that a friend inspired. But, as I went through my old cufflink making supplies, as one does, I discovered there were some colors and fabrics that didn’t exist in my personal cufflink catalog. So, having remembered the workflow, my fingers regaining their muscle memory, I made a few extras for myself.
Now I just need to pull a french cuff shirt out of the closet, to show them off.
So I made 72 cufflinks. The three-part History Channel George Washington docudrama. Just trying to clear things off the DVR. There are so many things on the DVR.
Let’s watch something else.
Last weekend we were at The Ryman with the Indigo Girls. This was the third single off their sixth studio album, 1997’s “Shaming of the Sun.” (I wrote some more about the record in February.) This is, perhaps, the least good song on a terrific album.
Amy Ray talks about how this is the beginning of a new kind of sound for the band. There’s more rock in there, some Patti Smith perhaps, and some literate punk elements, too.
Tom Morello did a remix of this song some years back. I had no idea this existed until now. It’s a remix. Every remix basically feels like this — Yes, I liked your song, though this is how it should have been done, in a longer, and still lesser, way — but at least you can hear Ulali on this version of the track. (Sadly the a capella group is not on this tour. Though they toured with the Indigo Girls for part of 1997.)
That song was a big part of the setlist on the original Lilith Fair tour, turns out. They released an EP alongside it. (That Morello remix was on the EP). In one of those curious examples of timing, the 1998 double live CD that went alongside that particular music festival is playing in my car right now.
I really ought to move beyond the late nineties, I know.
The Re-Listening project will probably bring us the Lilith Fair album on Monday or Tuesday — because this is suddenly a music blog? — but first we have to work through one other record. The Re-Listening project, of course, is just an excuse to write about, and play some of the music I’m listening to in the car. In the car, I am listening to all of my old CDs in the order in which I acquired them. Today, that CD is Dishwalla’s second studio album, released in 1998 “And You Think You Know What Life’s About.”
I know I picked this up a bit late, based on the 1999 album that came before it, in my CD books. Then as now, it’s a soft, crooning filler. Nothing too remarkable here. The Re-Listening project isn’t about musical reviews because, who cares? But, if you’re interested in that, the Critical Reception section of Wikipedia has an incredibly spot-on summation.
The Washington Post noted that “the band’s most bombastic choruses contain echoes of the slick power ballads that grunge banished.” Entertainment Weekly wrote that “when they pull out the cheesy Top 40 stops … like on the ballad ‘Until I Wake Up’, they come off like a modern-rock Journey—a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.” The Ottawa Citizen determined that “the band remains a non-innovator, relying on go-to guitar riffs and catchy rock melodies.”
Stereo Review concluded that “Dishwalla spends part of its second album whining about the success of its first one.” Rolling Stone thought that frontman J.R. Richards “has managed to shed his grumbly, disaffected vocals for a softer croon on tracks such as ‘The Bridge Song’.” The Boston Globe opined that “Dishwalla’s chameleon act seems in total defiance of establishing a trademark sound.” The Los Angeles Times wrote that “this angst-filled and metal-tinged sophomore try sinks quickly under the weight of overblown emotion and puerile lyrics.”
It started with such promise, too.
The second track gives the whole game away.
Already, you can see what a handful of harried, on-deadline music reviewers were finding out.
Their first record felt like a gateway into pop-friendly distortion bars and industrial sounds. Not as a slight, but I think this record just hit on all of the same things every other band hit on, about nine months later, and at about 80 percent saturation.
I saw them on their first national tour, they were opening for Gin Blossoms, and, at that moment, they were almost as popular. The lead singer, J.R. Richards, was doing his rock lothario bit when he split his pants on stage. He was embarrassed, as anyone would be. Not so much then, but after that first album, it was all downhill after that. This was one of those records I bought, listened to a few times, and found few reasons to ever play it again.
I think we’re in another none of those stretches of the CD collection, stuff I listened to only a little, looking for the next heavy rotation winners.
