THE SWELL SEASON

THE SWELL SEASON

Once upon a time there was a boy. The boy played in an Irish band called the Frames, who had a few fans but weren’t even close to U2 on the Successful Irish Bands list. The boy made a movie with an unknown Czech girl. The movie became a surprise hit – bigger than the Frames ever were. Everybody fell in love with the movie and the boy and girl. And they fell in love with each other. The boy and girl’s movie won an Oscar. They toured. They were a hit.

Then something happened on the way to Happily Ever After. The boy and girl fell out of love. They broke up. They wrote songs about their relationship – the good parts and the bad. And they made a record about it.

The boy is Glen Hansard. The girl is Marketa Irglova. Their band is the Swell Season. And their album is called Strict Joy.

Hansard formed the Frames in Dublin 20 years ago. They’re huge in Ireland (their 2004 album, Burn the Maps, debuted at No. 1 on Ireland’s music chart), but they’re not so well known in the U.S. By the time they released their fifth album in 2006, Hansard was on his way to his first solo project, The Swell Season, with young Czech singer Irglova. At the same time, they starred in an independent Irish film called Once. He plays a street busker; she’s a shy singer. They make beautiful music together, but fall short of falling in love. It’s a wonderful movie.

Once won an audience award at Sundance in 2007. The following year, the film’s centerpiece, “Falling Slowly” (which first appeared on the Frames’ 2006 album, The Cost), won the Academy Award for Best Song. Not long after, Hansard and Irglova went on the road with a band as the Swell Season. “Put a bit of a story behind it, and it can take on a whole different meaning,” says Hansard. “It ended up becoming the catalyst for a whole shift in my career.”

Suddenly, after nearly two decades of relative obscurity, Hansard was a star. He and Irglova even appeared on The Simpsons – that’s how big they got. With the Swell Season, he was attracting audiences that skewed older than those who came to the Frames’ noise-drenched shows. The Swell Season’s soft, polite music was NPR-ready, and Hansard was ready for the career upswing. “Context is everything in this world,” he says. “But I’m not going to change what I do just because I’ve got people’s attention. When an artist tries to become his audience, he’s just chasing something. And whenever you chase the affection of others, you’ll always be let down.”

Hansard and Irglova spent most of 2009 writing and recording Strict Joy. They became a couple not long after Once premiered. But by last year, they had split up. The songs on Once’s soundtrack reveled in the open possibilities of new love; Strict Joy is the sound of two people falling out of it. (Hansard, 40, and Irglova, 22, write separately; he usually sings his songs, and she sings hers.)

“Of course she’s in my songs, and I’m in hers,” says Hansard. “We’ve both moved on, we’ve both had other lovers and other relationships. But she’s all over these songs. The only difference between this collection of songs and any other collection of songs is that the person you’re singing about is actually present.”

In the album’s best tracks – “In These Arms,” “Low Rising,” and “Feeling the Pull,” particularly – Hansard and Irglova chronicle a relationship that’s as stifling as it is liberating. It’s easy to read their fallout in the songs. They’re still close friends, says Hansard. “My relationship with her has been one of the best relationships I’ve ever been in and for sure the most fruitful,” he says. “What an incredible journey we went through.”

The Swell Season are back on the road, performing marathon shows — most concerts run at least two and a half hours (“We have a lot to get through,” says Hansard) — and charming audiences (Hansard is a funny and gifted Springsteen-style storyteller).

But he isn’t sure what’s next (the Cleveland House of Blues show is the Swell Season’s last before a five-week break). Maybe he’ll do another Swell Season record, or maybe a new Frames album — the band hasn’t released a record since 2006, even though most of its members are part of the Swell Season. “I’m just going with the flow,” says Hansard. “The only clear difference between before and after is that there’s an audience now.”

ALBUM REVIEW — BLITZEN TRAPPER

Blitzen Trapper

Destroyer of the Void

(Sub Pop)

With each album Blitzen Trapper get more ambitious, even as they become more predictable. On 2008’s Furr, frontman Eric Earley got about as close as he could to making a Dylan/Dead/Band record without actually inventing a time machine to transport his band back to 1969. Destroyer of the Void, their fifth album, cools down a little, still evoking dusty Americana but finding some identity along the way. The album opens with the golden-rayed harmonies of the sprawling title track, sounding like a squishy Fleet Foxes leftover. But after a minute or so, “Destroyer of the Void” begins to spin a mix of double-tracked guitar runs, tiny synth burps, and spacey time shifts. It’s rather epic-sounding, which is Earley’s intention. He aims big on Destroyer of the Void, loading songs with tons of this and that, never quite settling down. Or settling into a groove. For all its big ideas, the album lacks actual songs. It’s more like a series of elaborate multipart suites, with little guidance and no direction home.

CULTURE JAMMING — MAY 19, 2010

TOP PICK

The Jayhawks

(Lost Highway)

The alt-country pioneers’ 1986 debut (which fans refer to as “The Bunkhouse Album”) doesn’t sound much like their classic Hollywood Town Hall. But the ancestors they quote (particularly the Flying Burrito Brothers) and the foundations they lay here became the cornerstones of their quarter-century career. It’s finally on CD, so you can throw away your turntable.

DVD

Avatar

(Twentieth Century Fox)

One of last year’s best movies plays surprisingly well at home, even if the knockout 3-D is missed. For one thing, the focus now falls on the story rather than the technology. It sucks that there are zero extras on the stunning Blu-ray, but a deluxe edition won’t be available for a while. So this is your only chance to drool over a blue, and still totally smokin’, Zoe Saldana.

CD

The Essential Carole King

(Ode/Epic/Legacy)

This two-disc set divides King’s legacy into two parts: the singer and the songwriter. The first CD is justifiably heavy on Tapestry tracks (“So Far Away,” “It’s Too Late,” etc.). The second disc is more interesting, gathering hits by the Shirelles (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow”), the Drifters (“Up on the Roof”), and Aretha Franklin (“Natural Woman”) – all penned by King.

CD

Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings

(Concord)

Frank Sinatra and Brazil’s bossa nova king recorded a classic album in 1967, Francis Albert Sinatra/Antonio Carlos Jobim. This deluxe reissue adds 10 leftover songs from the sessions and a scrapped follow-up project. It’s cool, sultry stuff, with both masters at the top of their game. Call up your favorite dame, mix a couple of highballs, and you’ll be swinging in no time, baby.

DVD

Suburbia

(Shout! Factory)

This 1983 movie (part of Roger Corman’s Cult Classics series) follows two disillusioned friends who fall in with a group of runaway kids who spend most of their time listening to punk records. Old-schoolers will love the live performances by T.S.O.L. and the Vandals (director Penelope Spheeris made The Decline of Western Civilization doc). Look for Flea as a bratty punk.

ALBUM REVIEW — AGAINST ME!

Against Me!

White Crosses

(Sire)

Against Me!’s fifth album starts big, with marching drums, ringing guitars, and frontman Tom Gabel bellowing full throttle about smashing something. It’s a triumphant-sounding anthem for the Florida quartet and a pivotal moment on White Crosses, its follow-up to 2007’s breakthrough, New Wave. The band’s rousing punk is more refined here, as Gabel becomes a sharper and more melodic songwriter. He’s an unabashed Springsteen fan, and there are plenty of times on White Crosses where he lets his Bruce flag fly high. “I Was a Teenage Anarchist” barrels out of working-class suburbia with purpose and heart. “Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?” asks Gabel. The album is filled with such resignation (White Crosses is as much about growing out as it is growing up). Toward the end of “Teenage Anarchist,” the music stops and Gabel yells out, “The revolution was a lie!” It’s a telling line from a political-punk songwriter who’s outgrowing the occasionally stifling scene. There are some clunkers here – a couple of limp ballads, an acoustic number – but White Crosses sounds like a defining album in the band’s burgeoning career.

MOVIE REVIEW — SHREK FOREVER AFTER

Shrek Forever After

Sometime over the course of three sequels, the Shrek franchise stopped being a parody of super-saccharine kids’ movies and became one itself. I place that moment around the middle of 2004’s Shrek 2, when Puss in Boots first shows up, making a play for Donkey’s spot as the ogre’s annoying sidekick.

What started as an occasionally hilarious and sharp satire of Walt Disney (the animated features, the corporation’s front office, the trusted trademark) in the first Shrek from 2001 had become repetitive and critically unfunny by 2007’s Shrek the Third. Justin Timberlake as a picked-on boy-king? A scatterbrained Merlin? And don’t even get me started on Shrek and Fiona’s new triplets.

So it’s probably a good thing the gang (Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas — they’re all back) is calling it quits after Shrek Forever After (in 3-D, of course). This time, Shrek (Myers) thinks he’s lost what it takes to be a big, bad ogre. So he makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin that goes horribly wrong, ending up in an alternate Far Far Away (what is this, Lost?) where he’s never met Fiona and ogres are hunted by villagers ruled by the evil Rumpelstiltskin.

At the start of Shrek Forever After, the once-fearful ogre’s life has become an endless series of diaper-changing, play dates, and household chores. He actually pines for the days when there was a reward for his big green head. “You used to be so fierce,” autograph-seeking villagers tell him. After a particularly hectic birthday party for his three kids at a medieval Chuck E. Cheese, it dawns on Shrek that he’s become a “jolly green joke.”

He signs a contract with the diminutive and weaselly Rumpelstiltskin (expertly voiced by Walt Dohrn, a behind-the-scenes guy at DreamWorks Animation) to trade a day from his childhood for a chance to be a real ogre again. But the deal sends Shrek to a Far Far Away where Fiona leads a revolution, Donkey pulls carts, and Puss is a fat and pampered pet.

It’s a welcome twist on the series, which was sputtering by Shrek the Third. But the whole alternate-universe plot isn’t a very inspired one; it’s merely a device to throw all the usual characters into new situations without resorting to the last two movies’ wheel-spinning. And while on the surface the 3-D seems like one last opportunity to make a killing with the big ogre, it really sparks the adventure.

Thankfully, there aren’t as many pop-culture references shoehorned into the script (though there are still plenty of obtrusive pop songs, which are going to seriously date the Shrek movies in the long run). And it’s nice to see the familiar faces – Pinocchio, Gingy, the Three Pigs – doing something a bit different. There’s more life in Shrek Forever After than there was last time, but the fairy tale ended a while ago for the series. At least it’s going out with a little heart, a fighting spirit, and, best of all, having some fun.

CULTURE JAMMING — MAY 12, 2010

TOP PICK

Rock ‘N’ Roll High School: 30^th Anniversary Special Edition

(Shout! Factory)

The Ramones show their solidarity for a group of students standing up to their rock ‘n’ roll-hating principal by playing some songs in this ’70s exploitation movie, which is part of Roger Corman’s Cult Classics series. The 30^th-anniversary DVD includes commentary by Corman, a making-of documentary, and audio outtakes of the Ramones practicing three chords.

DVD

Bump in the Night: The Complete Series

(Shout! Factory)

This four-disc box includes all 26 episodes of the short-lived 1994-95 claymation series, as well as an hour-long Christmas special. Bump’s star is a green monster who lives under the bed and eats dirty socks. His best friend is a squishy blue creature who hangs out in the bathroom. And the greatest episode, “Night of the Living Bread,” is about a zombie-like slice of bread.

BOOK
It Looks Like a C***k!

(St. Martin’s Griffin)

This book (compiled by two guys named “Ben & Jack,” who apparently have a lot of spare time) gathers dozens of photos of things from around the world that resemble dicks. There’s a cactus that looks like a penis. There’s a cloud that looks like a penis. That guy kissing a dolphin? Looks like he’s kissing a penis, doesn’t it? Can’t wait for the sequel: Looks Like a Cooter.

GADGET

Pogo Stylus

(Ten One Design)

I love my iPod Touch. But I hate scrolling through all my apps when I’m eating Cheetos. It gets the screen all slimy and orange. This cool stylus (which is compatible with the Touch, iPhone, iPad, and probably anything else you can poke) solves the problem. It also helps if you have fat fingers. It comes in four colors. Unfortunately, Cheeto orange isn’t one of them.

BOOK

Star Wars Head to Head

(Scholastic)

If you ever wondered who’d win a fight between Jar Jar Binks and Jabba the Hutt, this one’s for you. This fun book (loaded with photos and facts) pits characters and vehicles from the Star Wars universe against each other to see who’d triumph in battle. There are endless combinations. By the way, Jabba wins, hands down (or rather butt down), by sitting on Jar Jar. Yes!

MOVIE REVIEW — IRON MAN 2

Iron Man 2

The first Iron Man, from 2008, was the first big superhero movie powered entirely on pure, stupid joy. Unlike the same summer’s The Dark Knight – sinister, twisted, brilliant, and the best comic-book movie ever made – or Fantastic Four (just plain stupid), Iron Man slapped a bam!-pow! aesthetic on top of a dumb-ass story and stumbled on a compromise between dim-witted and terrific.

The Spider-Man series flirted with the concept, but too often director Sam Raimi strived for psychological insight or character redemption (or a suck-ass story). Iron Man steered clear of such lofty idealism. Its star, Robert Downey Jr., isn’t a great or even a very likable actor. And its hero – super-rich arms industrialist Tony Stark who unreluctantly becomes the metal-encased crimefighter – isn’t a great or very likable guy.

But the compromise paid off big. You can shut your brain down for two hours and enjoy Iron Man as an action-packed popcorn flick and one of the best movies the genre has to offer.

Iron Man 2 – made by the same director as the first, Jon Favreau, and once again starring Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow as his faithful gal pal Pepper Potts – is more of the same. A lot more. With so much running through its 125-minute length, it’s hard to keep it all straight.

The sequel picks up six months later, and Iron Man is a global hero. There’s finally peace on Earth (which Stark takes credit for), but the military wants Stark to hand over his plans to the Iron Man suit so it can make weapons based on its revolutionary technology. On the other side of the world (Moscow, to be precise), enraged Russian Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke, in a typically batshit performance) also has his eyes on Stark’s metal suit.

It isn’t long before Ivan shows up at the Grand Prix (where Stark is racing for some reason), decked out with electronic whips and a bad attitude. After a brief prison stay, he’s recruited by an oily weapons industrialist (Sam Rockwell) who also wants a piece of Iron Man.

Don Cheadle (as Stark’s best pal Rhodey/fellow superhero War Machine), Scarlett Johansson (as a Stark Industries employee with a secret), Samuel L. Jackson (as Marvel Universe hero wrangler Nick Fury), and Garry Shandling (as a ball-busting senator) show up too. There’s also a matter of Stark slowly dying. And that’s Iron Man 2’s main problem: Nobody here is given much attention since the movie is too busy bouncing between the many subplots.

There are some knockout sequences – the Grand Prix one is a stunning mix of action and malice – but so much of the movie tries to outdo its predecessor that it ends up bigger and dumber. Not that the first film had a whole lot of heart, but Iron Man 2 is all about the big bang. If all of the commercials — pushing soda, candy bars, hamburgers, and cars — showing up on TV dozens of times per hour over the past few weeks hasn’t beaten it into your head already, the movie is mostly concerned with blasting everything around you, including your senses and intelligence.

CULTURE JAMMING — MAY 5, 2010

TOP PICK

The Sticky & Sweet Tour

(Warner Bros.)

This DVD/CD combo compiles four shows from Madonna’s globe-spanning 2008-09 tour. Filmed in Buenos Aires — where there are more gay men per capita than anywhere else, or so it seems by the hyperventilating fans in the audience – the DVD reworks several classics (“Vogue,” “Into the Groove”) in a set that’s part greatest hits, part club party, and all butt-shakin’ cougar.

DVD

The British Invasion

(Reelin’ in the Years)

The best parts of this five-disc box (also available separately) gather vintage TV clips and interviews from the Small Faces and Dusty Springfield, who’s decked out in a huge bouffant and armed with an even bigger voice, singing some of the era’s best blue-eyed soul songs. But here’s some advice: Keep far, far away from Herman’s Hermits, who should have stayed in England.

DVD

Crazy Heart

(Twentieth Century Fox)

Jeff Bridges won a well-deserved Oscar for his role as a drunk-ass country singer living the rough life that he often sings about. The music – which also snagged an Academy Award – is really good too, especially Ryan Bingham’s “The Weary Kind.” Blu-ray bonuses include deleted scenes, additional music, and commentary by Bridges. The Dude presides!

VIDEO GAME

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City

(Rockstar)

This Grand Theft Auto IV expansion (which came out last year on the Xbox 360 and is now available for the PlayStation 3) finds brand new ways for you to slap around whores and jack some cars. There are two games here: The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. The first one is about motorcycle gangs; the second is about some gay dude named Tony.

BOOK

Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock ‘n’ Roll Photographs Selected by Graham Nash

(Chronicle)

Nash is the second most annoying guy in Crosby, Stills and Nash. He’s also a photographer. His photos in this hefty book aren’t bad, but the best work belongs to pros like Daniel Kramer and Annie Leibovitz, who contribute iconic shots of Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, and Johnny Cash. There are also pics of people who aren’t dead, like Elvis Costello and Michael Stipe.

ALBUM REVIEW — DEFTONES

Deftones

Diamond Eyes

(Reprise)

Before System of a Down claimed the title of metal’s most experimental weirdos, the Deftones were filling albums with a combination of vicious power riffs, random noise bursts, and a medium-size dose of pretension. In 2008, their bass player was left in a coma following a car accident, and in a way, the Deftones’ sixth album is the group’s reaction. Musically, Diamond Eyes sounds a lot like other Deftones records: moody, violent, dreamy. But it’s their most optimistic album – signs of light in the darkness, if you will. “Time will see us realign,” Chino Moreno sings in the opening title track, which layers piercing guitars over a half-hazy art-rock soundscape. The best songs here — “Royal,” “Rocket Skates” – fuse and streamline the Deftones’ past 15 years into an album that’s the band’s most celebratory and mournful.

CULTURE JAMMING — APRIL 28, 2010

TOP PICK

David Bowie: Deluxe Edition

(Decca)

Before he became Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust or the Thin White Duke, David Bowie was a folksy singer-songwriter inspired by Swingin’ London psychedelia. His 1967 debut gets the special-edition treatment here, with singles, outtakes and radio sessions added to the two-disc set. The best songs hint at the performance-art personas Bowie would adopt over the years.

DVD

All Together Now

(Capitol)

The making of Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show Love is chronicled on this comprehensive documentary, which includes appearances by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison’s wife and son. There’s some tension (Ono despises what the troupe does to John Lennon’s “Come Together”), but it’s mostly equal parts tribute and inspiration.

VIDEOGAME
Just Cause 2

(Square Enix)

This sequel to the hit game (for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) about a gun-toting agent who infiltrates a fictional South Pacific island is even more fun than its predecessor. There’s plenty of action, as you guide hero Rico Rodriguez on 200 missions on the ground, in the air and on the water. Best of all, almost everything around you is capable of blowing up real good.

BOOK
Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen

(Viking)

Hitmaker Wynette was married to country legend George Jones. But as combustible as their relationship was, it’s nothing compared to all the other shit she had to deal with. Pills, booze and her fading star eventually took their toll on the singer, who died in 1998 at age 55. Jimmy McDonough’s bio gets to the heart of the music and the fractured woman who made it.

DVD

Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love

(Oscilloscope)

In 2001, world-music star N’Dour (who’s performed with Peter Gabriel and Neneh Cherry, among others) recorded Egypt, a revolutionary and controversial album that sat on the shelves for three years amid 9-11 fears. This engaging documentary tells the African singer’s life story and chronicles Egypt’s world tour, which divided fans and won a Grammy.