Mr. Lif

A hazard of this project is that I won’t always have much to say. Sorry about that! At least I have music for you.

Claw Hammer, “Caravan”

Claw Hammer was a bit of a strange band in the underground of the 90s. For starters, their first album wasn’t really their album. It was just a cover of the entirety of Devo’s first album. Jon Wahl sang in some kind of demented John Fogerty meets Joe Strummer kind of howl. They sounded like a blues band crashed into a punk band and decided they liked it that way. Through it all, they clearly were just doing their own thing. They were often exasperating, but sometimes brilliant.

Here are today’s tunes.

Richie Hawtin, “Call of the Wild”

Last time this album came up, in one of the cutting bits of analysis that Five Songs is known for, I mostly bitched about the ID3 tags on this album. TRENCHANT! Anyway, I managed to say nothing about the album or the artist last time. I see no reason to change that today.

Wilco, “Ashes of American Flags”

In the first entry on Wilco, I ranked their albums, which remains the INDUSPUTABLE and DEFINITIVE rankings of their records. I am here to point out that despite the definitive nature of those rankings, the first three albums are very, very close. If you argued for a re-ordering of those three, you’d be wrong, but only barely. You’d also agree with various versions of Josh. That three album peak, from Being There to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, is just an incredible stretch of songs. If Being There established that Wilco was going to be far more than an alt-country band, and Summerteeth established that the band was going to be a tremendous pop act, YHF showed that their palette would even expand to include some sonic experimentation around said pop songs.

Music!

The Beautiful South, “The River”

Another relatively toothless song from the later period of the band. I can’t wait for some early tracks to show up.

Melvins, “The Mechanical Bride”

Another tune from the “double duo” years, when they had an extra drummer to augment their usual trio. This comes from (A) Senile Animal, a great album. One of the many thing I love about the Melvins is their use of space. Yes, they can just crank out headbangers, but they’ll often leave plenty of space for menace to build up, for the drums to breathe, for the compositions to evoke a mood beyond “GRRRRR”. (That mood is “GRRRR…(pause)…GRRRRRRRR”.)

I don’t have a lot to say about today’s songs. Sorry about that.

NoFX, “Total Bummer”

Yup, that’s a NoFX song. Damn, I have a lot of NoFX albums. I really did enjoy them a lot at one time.

Mr. Lif, “World Renown”

Yeah, that’s more like it. Always happy to hear Del the Funky Homosapien show up on something. This is from Lif’s comeback album, Don’t Look Down, a welcome record to show up. I’ll always have room for a guy rhyming “Charybdis”.

Will we get a repeat artist again? I’d figure out the odds, but seriously, nobody has time for that. Will we get five songs? PROBABLY!

Mr. Lif, “The Unorthodox”

Boston MC Mr. Lif was one of the highlights of the early 2000s rap underground, along with others like Edan, who collaborated on this release, Emergency Rations. Concentrating on political and social commentary at a time when that was pretty rare, Mr. Lif was a breath of fresh air. After a long hiatus, he returned last year with another strong album and EP, which was a welcome development. I’d start with I Phantom for a first record, but he’s been strong all throughout.