"As Smart As We Are"
By One Ring Zero and various authors
Soft Skull Press
Order from Powells.com
Speaking of Gaiman and Lethem, both have lately taken a detour into songwriting -- as have other authors like Dave Eggers, Paul Auster, Margaret Atwood and more -- on this strange two-headed hydra from Soft Skull. A CD/book featuring lyrics from the aforementioned stalwarts put to the bizarro neo-cabaret sounds of Brooklyn's own One Ring Zero, "As Smart As We Are" is a compelling yet hilarious listen that recalls Eggers' clever work with They Might Be Giants. Which is no accident -- this collaboration landed its sea legs after One Ring's Michael Hearst tracked Eggers down shortly after moving to Manhattan in 2001. The rest, as they say, is history.
One Ring Zero are well-suited for a project like this, because they're not afraid to travel beyond the usual guitar-bass-drums territory into more abstract, alien lands where accordions, toy pianos, theremins and other strange instruments rule the roost. Plus, their musicianship is wide-ranging enough to encompass the varied structures and styles -- everything from blues and high lonesome to torch songs and ballads -- that the authors throw at them. There are numerous standout tracks, but high honors go to Paul Auster, whose tongue-in-cheek "Natty Man Blues" boasts some stellar twists of phrase ("There ain't no sin in Cincinnati/ since I been in Cincinnati/ I gotta get out of Cincinnati/ or else I'll go plum dumb and batty/ since I mean to sin wherever I am") and Calexico-like desert country. Denis Johnson's "Blessing" is also a western hoot, blending noodling guitars, mandolin, theremin and a rumbling bass with strange lyrics about Mel Gibson's favorite cinematic subject: "Christ by the dumpster/ Peeling and tossing your lottery tickets/ O Nazarene, drinking dust/ Christ rising and a-falling/ Jesus Christ giving us the finger." Fans of They Might Be Giants, Black Heart Procession and Tom Waits' diagonal songcraft will be crying in their whiskey after this CD winds down on Lethem's fractured "Water."
Now I know that Soft Skull Press nabbed a mention in the last column, but have you taken a look at its catalog? It's a blast. Plus, the press has been taking a beating, even in these hallowed pages, for picking up the late J.H. Hatfield's controversial screed on George W., "Fortunate Son," as if they should have just passed on it. A book exposing the grifting ways of the Bush clan written by a guy who stored a corpse in his trunk? How can you resist that? It's freakin' gold!
"De-loused at the Comatorium"
By Cedric Bixler and Jeremy Ward
24 pages
Gold Standard Labs
While we're on the subject of music, you would have been hard-pressed to find the ambitious prog-punk epic "De-loused at the Comatorium" on critics' Top Ten of 2003 lists, but that's probably because they preferred the amateurism of Dizzee Rascal or the color-coded cuteness of the White Stripes to Mars Volta's vertigo-inducing swirl of high-impact poetry, muscular guitars and 10-minute jam sessions. In a perfect world, those critics would have their passes revoked: Mars Volta, more than any band in recent memory, has convincingly fused Led Zeppelin's riff library, Pink Floyd's conceptual strivings and Fugazi's sheer fury into one cathartic lump.
Next page: Psycho-scatalogical torrents of words
