New Jersey’s finances are a long way from being set on solid ground — and it is unclear whether the state Legislature has the stomach to make the repairs necessary.
Of course, nonsense like this from a former governor who did so much to create the mess from which we are attempting to crawl really do not help.
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I’ve got to say that, so far, this Pop Matters review of Wilco’s new disc, Sky Blue Sky, gets it. (I used to write for Pop Matters, but have not in about a year.)
The new disc, which I purchased from iTunes last night (I plan to buy an actual CD copy at some point, but wanted more than the stream available on the band’s Web site for now), doesn’t break any new ground — perhaps a rarity for this iconoclastic band — and is one of its most unified collections the band has released to date.
It has been compared to Neil Young’s Harvest — which seems apt, though not because the disc sounds anything like Young’s masterpiece. Harvest was more of a folk record than this is — Sky Blue Sky is in many ways a traditional middle-of-the-road rock record, but infused with a sense of lyrical dissolution, the disintegration of a relationship giving way to some level of hope.
Where the Harvest analogy holds water, however, is in its sudden departure from earlier sounds. Harvest was the quiet Neil Young record, coming on the heels of bigger, more explosive records — and captured a need among the rock listening audience for this kind of sound.
Sky Blue Sky fits this mold — though, I am doubtful that it will strike the same kind of cultural nerve. And that is OK. The band makes great records and puts on an explosive live show (I’ve got tickets for the June 22 show in Red Bank) that has a loyal fan base coming back for more and more.
But back to the record at hand. Sky Blue Sky is the band’s breather record — a step away from the angular guitar lines (though not too far) and experiments with feedback and noise that characterized their most recent efforts.
But perhaps that’s too simple — and doesn’t give this gem of a disc enough credit.
The resignation and acceptance of the opening cut, “Either Way” (“I will understand / everything has its plan /either way”), repeats itself through out, trying on different guises, sometimes in the same song (the apologetic whisper that opens “You are My Face” is cut through with a surprisingly twisting guitar line before settling back into its contemplative mode; “Impossible Germany” letting its musical explorations carry the song, keyboard giving way to guitar and then second guitar with Jeff Tweedy’s restrained vocal almost acting as supporting instrument, hanging there but never getting in the way).
Eric R. Danton, writing in the Hartford Courant, sums up the record this way:
It’s a gentler record, split between breezy ’70s-style pop arrangements and folksy songs that are relaxed and sometimes even playful. Tweedy’s lyrics are … well, “happy” isn’t quite right. But he sounds far less anguished, and there’s an undercurrent of philosophical acceptance to much of his wordplay, as if he’s content for perhaps the first time in his career to simply let things be.
The music, though, is more complex than the ’70s sounds it implies, occasionally rising above itself as it does in “Side with the Seeds,” with Pat Sansone’s keyboard driving the first half and Nels Cline’s subdued frenzy of a guitar lead taking the song home (yes, subdued frenzy may seem like an oxymoron, but there is no other way to explain it).
“Shake It Off” shifts in shape and sound, at times jaunty, at times contemplative, while “Please Be Patient with Me” offers a brief look into brittleness and the R’nB-influenced “Hate It Here” explores the pain of being left behind and the way that loneliness infects even the most mundane of daily occurences.
The disc’s emotional core — and its best song — is the single “What Light,” a fresh piece of folkish rock that I’ve been listening to for several weeks (sometimes when I’m running I hear it and then replay it).
It is hopeful and independent and true, and its placement near the disc’s end allows it to act as commentary on all that has come before: “If you feel like singing a song / And you want other people to sing along / Just sing what you feel / Don’t let anyone say it’s wrong.”
I wouldn’t call Sky Blue Sky the band’s finest disc — but then, I wouldn’t make that claim about any of the previous five studio albums, each offering its charms and challenges. Sky Blue Sky does the same, expanding on an impressive body of work.
I can’t wait until June 22.
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NJPIRG is trying to lend some sanity to the debate over the governor’s “monetization” plan by circulating a petition asking that the governor abide by six basic principles to prevent the kind of bad deals agreed to elsewhere. The group, on its Web site, offers this explanation:
We need to ensure that New Jersey citizens retain control of our Turnpike and Parkway for all future planning, management and development. We need to make sure that if a deal occurs, New Jerseyans get fair value for our roads instead of our budget crisis leading New Jersey to sell at a discount. The process of making a deal must be transparent and accountable. And above all, the people of New Jersey should have the final say in the Turnpike’s future safety standards. If a monetization deal can’t meet these conditions, embodied in our six principles, a deal must not be done.
I remain skeptical that a monetization plan can work, but if the state ultimately does move ahead, the PIRG petition offers a useful outline of the kinds of safeguards needed to keep New Jersey residents and drivers from being fleeced.
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How unseemly is this story?
On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call.
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush‘s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush’s domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.
In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey’s presence in the room, turned and left.
According to testimony yesterday by Comey, the Bush administration was so keen on creating a a paper trail that would make its illegal wiretapping program appear legal that it was willing to take advantage of a deathly ill member of its administration, hoping to catch him in his weakness.
The irony in all this, as Keith Olbermann pointed out last night, is that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft comes off looking like a paragon of virtue and a defender of civil liberties — a crazy notion given his record in office.
What does this say about Gonzales, the current occupant of the attorney general’s office, and the lengths to which this administration might go to protect its prerogatives and advance its notion of the unitary executive?
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Four miles in 35:56 — fighting allergies and knee pain all the way. And now I think I have a head cold, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
iPod: Bruce Springsteen, The River
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Hank Kalet 