Fatboy Slim; Two of the Geto Boys Storm Back; Swearing at Motorists Play Classic Indie Rock

Ahhh, the pitfalls of being a rock star?or should I say dance music star, which is an even more unstable condition. What is considered current in dance music changes faster than Britney changes breast-hugging outfits, and being viewed as an outmoded dance artist is about as taboo as the daddies who lust after her. So who can blame Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook for his decision to move away from Big Beat and its rock 'n' roll appeal on his latest record? This decision was probably, at least in part, intended to alienate the trendy masses and prove that he's an innovator and a musician, not just a party-throwing pop star with impeccable timing. The shame of it is, this record is too steeped in the Fatboy Slim mythos to reveal anything about Norman Cook at all.

It's really unfair to hold Cook to impossibly high expectations based on the first two Fatboy records (which we all have absolutely done). It was more his music's pristine production and fun, catchy pop sensibility than his being some kind of musical genius that made him a star. The title Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars relates to the fact that even though he now finds himself at parties with glamorous American movie stars, he's really just a 37-year-old club kid who'd rather make music for wide-eyed ravers than win awards, and he knows this can all end in a barrage of unflattering glossy-mag reviews and a collective shrug from his dance-scene core.

Nevertheless, Cook has decided to ignore the golden leave-well-enough-alone rule on the follow-up to 1998's You've Come a Long Way Baby. The first track, "Talking Bout My Baby," introduces the album with a bluesy, Southern soul tune. A piano loop and a vocal sample belting, "Under the big, bright yellow sun," slowly swell into a classic Fatboy buildup of synth stabs, chugging guitar and analog droning that just begs the funk soul brutha to give us release with the big, bright crashing breakbeats that addicted everyone from fratboys to soccer moms to his last record. But instead of gratifying us with block-rockin' beats, he builds the song up to its breaking point, then suddenly segues into a surprising four-to-the-floor house rhythm for "Star 69"?at which point (in case the Mobyesque forage into old blues and soul didn't already tip you off) it becomes obvious that we're in for a different ride this time around. When it comes to dance music rock stars, different is good. The rock-inspired Big Beat sound that Fatboy, the Chems and Crystal Method rode into mainstream America a few years ago sounds painfully dated now. The problem, however, is what do you do when you're the maharishi of big, crashing breakbeat dance music once it becomes passe? Although change is definitely good, this record is a disappointment. It's uneven, lacks a single that captures the brilliance of past cut 'n' paste masterworks like "Going Out of my Head," "Right Here, Right Now" or "Rockafeller Skank," and the house music songs are nothing more than adequate. But that assessment (however accurate and universally shared it may be) sells Cook short. This is an ambitious attempt to interject emotions other than those related to overindulgence and reckless abandon into his music. These songs are colored with soul, probably most effectively on the first single, "Sunset (Bird of Prey)," a wistful breakbeat tune that surrounds an obscure Jim Morrison sample with skittering breaks, dancing bass and ghostly ambience. He's also created a couple of great vehicles for Macy Gray's raspy singing, both on the old-school funk track "Love Life" and what is probably the album's highlight, the heartfelt, gospel-flavored "Demons." But those tracks would work better as highlights on a rawer, new Macy Gray record than they do here, where they get lost amidst the lackluster attempts at creating new Fatboy party tunes without using obvious, often recognizable samples like he's done in the past. "Ya Mama," the one Big Beat, chemical breaks track on the record is a fun romp through familiar Fatboy territory, but the "Push the tempo" sample doesn't beckon you to the dancefloor the same way "Right about now...the funk soul bruvva" did two years ago, partly because it's not nearly as cool a refrain, and partly because it's impossible to recreate that singular moment in popular electronic dance music.

So basically, for most of this record, Cook doesn't try. And while the straightforward house tunes "Retox" and "Star 69" are very nice indeed, there's a helluva lot more interesting house music out there for anyone who's looking for a fix of that. He seems to be onto something with the Latin lounge Pizzicato Five shuffle of "Weapon of Choice" (featuring Bootsy Collins), but its quirky sampledelic retro groove doesn't go anywhere, and by the album's second play it feels like filler.

Cook proves once again with this record that he is one of the cleanest, most precise producers in the biz. His carefully constructed sound collages give you the feeling that you're hearing each song exactly the way they played in Cook's head. But the record is simply too varied and uneven, sorely lacking in any distinguishable Fatboy Slim sound, which used to be his biggest strength. His Big Beat remixes of lesser-known artists like Bassbin Twins, Wildchild and Groove Armada are indisputable dancefloor classics with huge Fatboy Slim stamps on them. But the best songs on this record are the ones he's created for Gray to sing, sculpting music that fits her distinctive vocal style (which sounds uncannily like Donald Duck from the other side of a room).

Perhaps it's time for Norman Cook to retire the Fatboy Slim character. Fatboy Slim is the platinum-selling Big Beat artist who made "Praise You" into a song popular enough to be appropriated by Al Gore in his presidential bid. But Norman Cook has been making music since the mid-80s when he was in an indie guitar pop band. Perhaps killing off the character that made all that tasty dance-music junk food would free Cook up to do more than react to his bloated success. I mean, really, even You've Come a Long Way Baby is in actuality little more than a few excellent singles and a bunch of filler to keep the party going. Those singles were somehow able to attract still-disco-phobic America to modern dance music. But now that that's a done deal, it's time for Cook to take stock of his life?not the life of Fatboy Slim.

Mike Bruno

The Last of a Dying Breed Scarface (Rap-a-lot/Virgin)

Loved by Few, Hated By Many Willie D (Rap-a-lot/Virgin)

As the most fully realized statement of black identity since bebop, hiphop seemed to have unstoppable potential?the technology was new, and so was the message. Like rock in its infancy, if not adolescence, rap seemed to be a musical explosion that quivered with the pulse of the here and now. But time passed, and hiphop became just another commercial form of music?it happened about the time the original NWA broke up for the first time and Dr. Dre emerged as its McCartney, with Ice Cube as its Lennon. Looking back, NWA really were the start of it all. They were not only the first rap group to have the famous breakup, but even before that the first one to have separate identities, kinda like the Beatles. And if NWA were the Beatles in those days, the Geto Boys were the Stones?an even fiercer alternative but essentially cut from the same cloth (i.e., gangstas). I remember at the time writing for a rap paper in the DC area and broaching the subject of a Geto Boys piece with the editor, then having him call me during dinner one night in a panic, begging me not to go mentioning his magazine around those trigger-happy fellows. They inspired that kind of reaction in people.

Two integral functions of the equation were Scarface and Willie D?but I always suspected the real brains of the group was the midget, Bushwick: more than just a mascot, his foulmouthed, cigar-chomping savvy made him able to stand tall amongst the Big People. So the question that arises, on the heels of these two rather flaccid solo offerings from two of the "big people" in the group, is: Where's Bushwick? His Phantom of the Rapra in '95 was the last good rap album ever, a crazy equivocation of rap and opera that had Bushwick in the role of almost-delusional mysterioso. He was also doing interviews at the time, claiming that Bob Dole was an A&R man for Dionne Warwick's label. Bushwick foresaw the vast conspiracies in the rap industry, long before Tupac or Biggie Smalls was gunned down. So maybe somebody had to silence him? I mean, it seems odd that, even though rap artists are the kings of the "shoutout," neither Scarface nor Willie D mentions the Wick anywhere on these two LPs. Scarface sidesteps the whole issue by saying something to the effect of "shee-it, there's so many of yo mofos yall's knows who you are," etc. And Willie D mentions stiffs like Big Mike?BIG MIKE!?but no Bushwick. And what of Gangsta NIP?

Scarface's album is okay?I mean, it's not horrible, it's just more of the same. It starts with the screaming of a newborn babe?how many rap albums have begun with this scenario? The intended statement is that of the depersonalization of the young black man, born in the ghetto and tossed to the wolves. But then the next five songs are all about how big the protagonist's balls are. This is old hat; it's old hat from Scarface and it's old hat from Eminem and it's the single reason rap has ceased to be a vital musical form. They just can't get beyond this macho identity-crisis thing, and they're not gonna do so with warmed-over beats like these. As Dylan's voice changed between the time of, say, "From a Buick 6" and "Just Like a Woman," the whole tempo of rap decelerated between the time of the first Geto Boys album and the first Snoop Doggy Dogg. The Geto Boys' first album was one of the best of its era due to the shrapnel-flying intensity of the rapping. In that case, the vocals themselves acted as an instrument, a mellifluous spitfire that created its own complex rhythm, not that different in tonality from a Charlie Parker solo. But at some point, perhaps around the time of Snoop's arrival, commercial rap became this completely formulaic slow-groove. It sure sounds dead now, listening to this new Scarface album. Why's Scarface bragging about how he's in rap's winner's circle? Weren't his last few albums bombs?

In the original incarnation of the Geto Boys, Willie D was the Gangsta of Love. Now he's just the Prince of Fools. And he has a lot of fools along for the ride?the same yes-men who made up the cast of the Geto Boys epic "Bring It On," perhaps the very last minute of primal Geto Boy fury. But that particular track, from 1993's Till Death Do Us Part, was in a way a curse, because every bit player on that opus suddenly had to have his own CD as leader. Delivering one verse on the customary grand finale/shoutout is a lot different from having to come up with material for a whole LP. Then again, what does it matter when Willie D, one of the leaders of the old school, is still getting away with sprouting nonstop cliches like the ones here? For instance, the low-smolder 70s soul vibe of "Lil Killaz" has been done to death (not the least by Bushwick).

But Willie D's album is still slightly better than Scarface's because it's a bit more interesting musically. Where Scarface's album is totally static, at least Willie D attempts to vary the texture once in a while, even if, tempo-wise, the stamped-over Stevie Wonder vibe of "Dear God" is hardly a springboard for fancy footwork. As for the lyrics, doesn't he get tired of writing this shit over and over? And what of Bushwick? Once again, the question remains: did he fall or was he pushed?

Joe S. Harrington

Number Seven Uptown Swearing at Motorists (Secretly Canadian)

Classic indie rock?by which I mean Midwestern white guys playing guitars and singing lyrics that vary between hope and alienation?is so far out of fashion right now that it's almost startling to hear a record that fits the bill as well as this, the second album by the Ohio group Swearing at Motorists. Don't get me wrong?this would have ranked as a very good record even back in, say, 1989, when the bins were brimming with similar-sounding bands. Nowadays, however, it practically qualifies as a diamond in the rough.

Unfairly saddled with an irrelevant pedigree (drummer Don Thrasher used to be in Guided by Voices, but there's no audible spillover from that band here), Swearing at Motorists is a duo centering around singer/guitarist Dave Doughman, who has a knack for sketching just enough detail into his lyrics for you to fill in the rest. On the record's best song, "Flying Pizza," he communicates all the conflicted emotions of a broken relationship with his opening lines: "On the way downtown I saw you/ Looking real good, looking the other way/And I was hoping you would not see me." By the second verse, he's wavering: "It's been a long time, but not too long/And not long enough, I'm thinking to myself." In the last verse, he suddenly caves: "And how's your mom?/Are you working the same place?/Your hair got long..." And that's where he leaves you, hanging in the ambivalence.

Okay, a breakup song?pretty basic, right? Except that Doughman delivers it in this devastating deadpan, to the tune of crunching guitars that build and perfectly mirror the lyrics' escalating tension. Little riffs flourish here and there as the tune progresses, and the bridge kicks you right in the ass, just like it's supposed to. All in all, it's a minor masterpiece, and you can tell Doughman knows it's his strongest tune, because he's chosen it to lead off the record, which is a smart move (and also because he's put a softer version of it elsewhere on the record, which is a not-so-smart move, and the album's only major misstep).

Nothing else on Number Seven Uptown quite matches "Flying Pizza," but a lot comes close. It's a particularly good record to listen to this time of year, because most of Doughman's landscapes feel cold, crisp and bleak, like a November day when all the leaves have fallen off the trees but the snow hasn't arrived yet. The songs feel like scenes from the same tragic play (or, as is likely, from the same life?Doughman's), set in a place where "you realize it's all the same, only the singers change," where "there's only one kind of phone call at quarter 'til three," where "we'll go out for a drink at one of the two bars we know."

Doughman tosses in enough regional references to stamp him as unmistakably Midwestern (anyone from the Great Lakes area will clearly recognize this lyrical terrain as home), but his most consistent theme is one of life's great universals: isolation. He bemoans "lost he's and she's" and goes to sleep "with the light on just in case you drive by," and his drinking and drug allusions all sound more solitary than communal. His salvation? A girl, of course, but she's obviously gone wayward, so he settles for the next best thing: "Then the band started playing and it all went away."

Yes, that's a cliche. So are breakup songs and lonely drives and getting tanked at the corner tavern and wallowing in your sad little life. It's a measure of Number Seven Uptown's greatness that these references never sound rote, and a small miracle that Doughman actually makes you care. (Secretly Canadian, 1703 North Maple, Bloomington, IN 47404; www.secretlycanadian.com)

Paul Lukas

"Wine in a Box" from the Lookout! Freakout Compilation Black Cat Music (Lookout!)

This Is the New Romance Black Cat Music (Cheetah's)

The Only Thing We'll Ever Be Is All Alone Black cat Music (Cheetah's)

Within the last six months or so, Oakland's Black Cat Music has released their first three recordings: the single "One Foot in the Grave," the EP This Is the New Romance and the album The Only Thing We'll Ever Be Is All Alone. The first time I heard, I mean really heard, "Wine in a Box" (which is also on the EP) was in my bedroom with a friend. We had the stereo cranked loud enough to drown out some popular rap song coming from a nearby neighbor's window. The Black Cat Music song, a slow starter with sampling, quickly kicks in with a steady beat and loud guitars to the catchy lyrics, "I've never seen anyone so beautiful as you tonight/Gonna take you out tonight/Yeah, wine in a box." Immediately, indulgent and impure thoughts from my adolescent years filled my head as my lip went into a snarl. I loved every second of the song, especially the words "All the people say we're mean and that we're evil/Well you know they just might be right/Let's drive your car I don't care where," sung in a raunchy yet sultry kind of way.

I still get an adrenaline rush every time I listen to a Black Cat Music record. As I strive to present myself as single by choice, punk rock albums, played out like a raw, heartfelt blast of emotion, remain my dominant form of motivation. Themes of yearning and distant lovers are prevalent throughout Black Cat Music's oeuvre. While songs like "Haunted Hotel Colorado" evoke a hopeless romantic side ("Put you in my pocket/Live inside your locket/That night in your car/You almost stopped my heart"), "Journal Square Train"'s lyrics?"She's clever, she's pretty/East side Manhattan/New York City"?makes me wanna learn how to play guitar or at least live out my fantasy with some hot guitarist.

Even though Brady Baltezore's unmatchable voice and lyrics are what keep me coming back, their East Bay punk-rock sound is great. Like the EP, The Only Thing We'll Ever Be Is All Alone also sings of hard times, angels lurking over distant lovers, having no regrets and living life with one foot in the grave. While similar themes dominate the lyrical content on both records, the album expands on their typical songwriting by incorporating pop sensibilities and even a Cure-esque bass progression on the sad and beautiful "Full on the Lips." Adding to the complexity and diversity of the album are the slow, bass-heavy "Outside Rochelle" and "China Lake," where the band somehow manages to make the words "cold fluorescent light" seem pathetically seductive. But the lyrics to "We Don't Have Much Anymore" summarize it all: "I've Got enough pain for you and me both...You and me had it all before but/We don't have much anymore...Somehow it doesn't interest me/The way it used to."

Black Cat Music's songs, for the most part, reflect a typical twentysomething boy's troubles; there's a maturity that exceeds most in this genre?Hot Water Music, At the Drive-In. They can convey emotion without sounding wimpy or repetitive, and they're smart enough to pull off slower, mellow numbers. Their music remains raw in sound, dynamic in structure and unique in vocal flexibility.

Lisa LeeKing

Red Line Trans Am (Thrill Jockey)

When I was younger, I tried to explain that the only way rock music could be revolutionary was to remove all the sex from the equation. Think about it. By the early 80s, almost all the poses that could have been struck in rock music, almost all the ways it could be challenged and corrupted had been explored?by men, at least. Look at punk. What were the Sex Pistols if not the Kinks played badly and speeded up? What were the Clash if not rather obviously the swagger of Mick Jagger's Rolling Stones given a fresh coating of politicized paint? The Slits and Raincoats were by far and away the most interesting bands to come from that period, yet the former were patronizingly dismissed as being The Clash's "girlfriends." Fuck you! The Clash were the Slits' boyfriends.

Popular music usually only has a couple of purposes?as a comforter for those unable to get sex (the Smiths, etc.), as a sex substitute (any dance music, most metal) or as an excuse to get sex (see any adolescent male frontman). How dull. So I used to write that if sex was removed from rock altogether?divest the form of its core?then we might come up with something enticing and challenging. Unfortunately, I also overlooked the fact that rock minus sex is very dull indeed. We have supermarkets for that.

Still I might almost have been predicting the rise of post-rock. It's a fascinating yet ultimately dull form. And please don't take that to be an insult. It isn't meant to be. I think. Take Trans Am. In the last few years, DC's foremost schizophrenic electronic band have taken to covering ZZ Top, Rush and Led Zeppelin songs with just one item on the agenda. Make these bands lose their sexuality?their essence and reason to exist?while simultaneously endeavoring their hardest to recall the retro-futurism of Kraftwerk and This Heat.

In this, Trans Am have been successful. There's little sexuality here?but there is plenty to challenge the listener in their music. This mostly instrumental album is a much more sprawling, epic affair than their 1999 space-age adventure into pop music, Futureworld. Whiffs of the found-sound adventurism and looping sequences of fellow post-rock bands like Tortoise shine through on "For Now and Forever." By "Bad Cat," however, Trans Am have once more turned into sleaze-rock gods (hence the presence of various members from Royal Trux and the Make Up)?minus the sleaze. Is this the way forward for rock? I hope so.

Everett True