Sinister: TWATTYBUS review

[c hall]

Lars Ulrich, drummer for Metallica, has to be the crankiest musician 
alive (at least, he used to be).

His trademark in interviews is to rip apart every band in the Western 
world, including metal ones. In fact, for a while there, I thought the 
only group he really liked was Diamond Head. (He actually went so far as 
to moonlight as liner-notes scribe for their Behold The Beginning 
retrospective.) And I seem to recall him saying that the video for REM's 
"Shiny Happy People" made him want to smash his television to pieces.

Now, for some sick reason, I began to use Mr. Oilrig as a sort of music 
measuring tool -- as in, "Wow, Lars would really hate this song!" And 
then I got to thinking that it might be a fun idea to make a tape called 
"Songs That Would Probably Drive Lars Ulrich Fuckin' Bananas!" The list 
would include well, yes, "Shiny Happy People," but also Kate Bush's 
"Wuthering Heights," Madonna's "I'm Going Bananas," Roxanne Shante's 
"Roxanne's Revenge," DeBarge's "Be My Lady," Suede's "Sleeping Pills" 
and, most definitely, the Roches' "Ing."

The point I'm trying to make here, is that music lovers often conceive 
of musical irritation or obnoxiousness or drawing lines in the sand as 
the province of brutish metallers, punkers or sometimes, if they thought 
hard enough about it, even gangsta rappers. Indeed, those are the very 
qualities so frequently cited in defense of the value of such music. But 
I'd like to posit that, while most of the above songs for Lars' tape 
have listeners that like to feel pretty and witty and gay, we shouldn't 
downplay their power to irritate the shit out of, say, a world-hating 
art student or a reality-obsessed Source reader. The shiniest, happiest 
song can produce as extreme an effect as the loudest, snottiest screed.

How this relates to Belle and Sebastian is that I would definitely 
include "Judy and the Dream of Horses" (the last song off their 
breakthrough album, If You're Feeling Sinister) on Lars' tape. The title 
alone is enough to make me laugh out loud at how Lars wouldn't even give 
it the time of day.

In fact, scanning the titles of a Belle and Sebastian album reminds me 
of paging through those Scholastic Weekly Reader catalogues that sold 
books like "Freckle Juice" and posters that read something like 
"Everyone Has Bad Days" and were adorned with pictures of kittens caught 
up in yarn. Regard: "Spaceboy Dream," "The Boy with the Arab Strap," 
"Simple Things," "The Rollercoaster Ride" and "Ease Your Feet Into The 
Sea," all of which are from the new album. If any band could set the 
silliest book title I've ever heard ("Frosty: A Raccoon To Remember") to 
music, it would be Belle and Sebastian.

Of course, there are also titles like "It Could Have Been A Brilliant 
Career," "Is It Wicked Not To Care" and "Dirty Dream #2," so I don't 
want to misrepresent the band. In fact, they rarely radiate a childlike 
cuteness the way Papas Fritas or Shonen Knife sometimes do. But their 
songs do access the quality of those obnoxious songs about clowns and 
whatnot with which your niece or nephew (or son or daughter) return from 
their first few weeks at kindergarten. Not in terms of content, but in 
their simple humability, their sheer insistence. Apart from a stray 
Shante or Missy Elliott rap, the songs of Belle and Sebastian are the 
only ones I teach to my friends who don't listen to music.

Teach to sing, that is. I have no idea what Stuart Murdoch and company 
are singing about, and I'm not all that interested. Besides, my friends 
are only hip about hair and clothes, so I'd have no one with whom to 
discuss their content. The primary fascination Belle and Sebastian hold 
for me is that for all their verse-chorus-verses and rhyming stanzas, 
these aren't songs, but rather viruses. They're insidious carriers that 
get under your skin and infect your hum reflex. Symptoms include bobbing 
your head from side to side to the beat and doing Eddie Murphy's White 
People Dance.

Usually, this menace is achieved by repeating lines with slight 
variations, making it easier to break down your immune system. From "It 
Could Have Been A Brilliant Career": "Painting pines (vines?) in a 
school that was too well-known/ Painting pines with a friend that had 
gone before." From "Sleep The Clock Around": "It takes more than this to 
make sense of the day/ Yeah, it takes more than milk to get rid of the 
taste." From "Ease Your Feet Into The Sea": "Stay with us 'til we get 
old/ Stay with us 'til somebody decides to go."

If you have the slightest weakness for their intimate, AM 
radio-influenced folk-pop, their tunes will barge into your life and 
paralyze your mouth into a Cheshire grin for the duration. (I happen to 
be in this deliriously happy category.) But, if all you see around you 
is ugliness, the catchiness will abrade like Chinese Water Torture.

How's your forehead now, Lars? 

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