North Coast Journal March 20, 2008 : IN REVIEW

March 20, 2008

In Review heading

CD: Magnificent Fiend
CD: Jesus Of Cool
DVD: Lust, Caution

Magnificent Fiend
By Howlin Rain
American/Birdman

As Howlin Rain prepares for an intense year of touring in support of Magnificent Fiend, one cannot help but cheer the developing story of a small-town boy who has gone out into the world and done good for himself. From his days as an English major to his years with the much-acclaimed Comets on Fire, Eureka's Ethan Miller has been busy writing this tale. Howlin Rain is simply his latest chapter.

Howlin Rain's self-titled debut, released on Birdman Records in 2006, was a raw and rootsy affair that drew upon country, folk and psychedelic influences, the album's sound drifting wide across the spectrum, from lazy banjo rolls and acoustic wanderings to fuzz-busting and riotous guitar jams. And as Miller puts it, the band, just a trio then, recorded it "in a very short time with a very small budget and whole lot of whiskey and chance."

Magnificent Fiend, in contrast, benefits from a year of careful planning, the deep pockets of American Records, and the support of super-producer Rick Rubin. It also sees the Howlin Rain family, which includes Humboldt natives Ian Gradek on bass and Mike Jackson on guitar, grow to five members. Joel Robinow from Drunk Horse is a key addition to the lineup, his deep-grooving Hammond organ providing a rhythm and soul that has been long lost in rock 'n' roll. His playing is gospel-like in swing and gives the band the kind of white-boy swagger it needs to make songs like "Lord Have Mercy" and "Goodbye Ruby" authentic in their down-home approach.

After opening with some odd trumpet-led noodling, Magnificent Fiend kicks into gear with the hard rocking, guitar-laden groove of "Dancers at the End of Time," a song penned in homage to Michael Moorcock and his series of science fiction novels of the same title. The band has taken full advantage of its expanded roster by adding depth to their songwriting. Leads and solos that were played with reckless abandon on the first album are now performed with a consideration that displays great maturity without sacrificing intensity. Check "Calling Lightning Pt. 2" and its shrewd interplay of keyboard and guitar for evidence. Of course, not every song rocks. There's a bohemian mysticism woven in the mellow strains of "Nomads" and a bit of Dead-like harmonization in the album's closing "Riverboat," both of which seem appropriately representative of the band's Lost Coast origins.

Ethan Miller's vocal performance is impassioned throughout, varying from the ragged whiskey-gravel of a young Rod Stewart to a romantic melancholy reminiscent of Terry Reid. There are times when Miller appears somewhat pained by his separation from home, and in a recent interview he acknowledged Humboldt "is a place I have run to and run from at different points in my life. It is not a place where you can belong as an outsider, and yet its arms are always open if you are willing to stay." It's a paradox reflected in the lines of "El Rey," in which Miller assures us, or perhaps himself, "You don't have to change, you don't have to hold onto your past. You don't have to carry it down this path, it's all part of the deal."

Where will the tale of the small-town boy head next? Well, Howlin Rain's current tour takes it to Mexico, across the States, over to Ireland, England and Wales, up to Norway and beyond. With any luck we'll see Miller and company in these parts within the coming months and hear the story ourselves.

— Mike Mannix

Jesus Of Cool
By Nick Lowe
Yep Roc reissue

When I first saw Elvis Costello and the Attractions, blasting through a set at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in 1979 during their notorious Armed Forces tour, "Music For Money," the first song off of Nick Lowe's then-new record, Jesus of Cool, played on the overhead speakers at the conclusion of the show. It sounded so huge. Lowe had told the engineer Roger Bechirian to make the drums "sound like oil drums falling down the fire escape." The production, might now can be called "lo-fi," was clever, resourceful and often brilliant. The majority of the basic tracks that would appear on Jesus of Cool were recorded in a cramped 8-track recording studio.

By this time, Lowe had already established himself as a successful producer. He was responsible for the production work on early records by Graham Parker and the Rumour, (Dr. Feelgood, The Damned, Wreckless Eric, as well as the first three Costello records, My Aim is True, This Year's Model and Armed Forces). Lowe's song, "What's So Funny (About Peace, Love and Understanding)," originally penned for his former group, Brinsley Schwartz, had been revived by Costello with a blistering, anthemic version that concluded the U.S. release of Armed Forces.

Columbia Records, the distributor of the U.S. release of Lowe's solo debut, Jesus Of Cool, found the UK album title too controversial, so Lowe (and manager Jake Riviera) changed it to Pure Pop for Now People. This was 1978. Pure Pop varied in other ways: songs excluded on the U.S. release contained Lowe's tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Bay City Rollers, "Rollers Show" (which became a surprise hit in Japan), a studio version of "Heart of the City," and "They Call It Rock," an alternate version to the original "Shake and Pop."

Upon its original release, Jesus of Cool/Pure Pop for Now People became an instant hit with critics, both in the U.K. and in the U.S. Lowe used all of his production and songwriting skills. While on tour with Dave Edmunds, Lowe was inspired to write the song "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" after seeing a trashed dressing room in San Diego (presumably trashed by the headlining act, Bad Company). Lowe used his twisted humor and keen observation as a goldmine for lyrical content: the real-life death of a silent film star, found by authorities partially eaten by her dog, inspired "Marie Provost." A Costello throwaway phrase, "Little Hitler," was transformed it into a scintillating love/pop song. "Nutted by Reality," with an obvious Motown/Jackson 5 bass-line running underneath, opens with the line, "I heard they castrated Castro because he was the people's friend ..."

But what makes Jesus of Cool shimmer after 30 years from its initial release is Lowe's uncanny production and his resourceful use of the studio. The record is texturally rich, lush and pristine. At times, he would edit two separate unfinished songs together (as in "Nutted by Reality") in a seamless manner. Lowe also had a stable of crack musicians to execute his wide variety of musical styles at his whim. These musicians included members of Rockpile, Graham Parker's Rumour, Ian Dury's Blockheads, the Attractions and other pub rock mates including drummer Bobby Irwin and guitarist Larry Wallis.

The Yep Roc reissue of Jesus of Cool, in the original U.K. song order, is superb in its packaging, remastering, liner notes and inclusion of excellent bonus tracks: B-sides and rarities previously available on various import collections. One could simply look at Nick Lowe's amazing career as a songwriter, performer and producer over the past 30 years to know that he lived up to his "Jesus of Cool" moniker — just short of walking on water.

— Mark Shikuma

Lust, Caution
Directed by Ang Lee
Universal

Lust, Caution is Taiwanese director Ang Lee's second movie with a comma in the title (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). It's also his second film about two people cautious to engage in what is ultimately destructive love (think Brokeback Mountain). In Lust, Caution Lee combines the acrobatics of the first film — this time sexual, earning it its NC-17 rating — with the repression and pregnant silences of the second, and sets them against the backdrop of a World War II-torn Shanghai, where glitzy cafes continue to serve coffee in delicate china cups while men die of hunger in nearby alleyways. The film never played in local theaters (too much lust, caution?) but now it's available for rent.

In Lust, Caution, Mrs. Mak, the wife of a Hong Kong businessman, is having an affair with Mr. Yee, a Japanese collaborator. Mak — in reality a demure college thespian, Wong Chia Chi, turned spy for the Chinese resistance — has no idea that she will end up falling hopelessly in love with the sadomasochistic Yee. Nor could the cautious bordering on paranoid Yee have ever imagined that he'd be inveigled by a coed with a penchant for nationalist theater.

The film is based on a short story by Chinese author Eileen Chang, whose works often focused on female characters in 1940s Shanghai and Hong Kong.

As a spy thriller, the movie is not a complete success. Clocking in at 158 minutes, it lingers too long to really get your heart pounding. But it's in a handful of languid drawn-out moments — like watching a cigarette burn slowly, the ash growing precariously long but never quite crumbling off — where the movie really shines.

The film opens with four women playing mahjong (a Chinese version of rummycube). In any other movie, the scene would be static and unmemorable. In Ang Lee's hands, it unfolds like a cinematic version of Nikoly Rimsky-Korsokov's orchestral interlude, "The Flight of the Bumble Bee." Lee clearly has a knack for turning the mundane into poetry. For some, though, two and a half hours of poetry may be too much.

Yee is played by Tony Leung, whose stoic character held together Wong Kar Wai's understated romance 2046. And Mrs. Mak is played by first-time actress Wei Tang, who does a marvelous job of navigating her two diametrically opposed characters — the ingénue Wong Chia Chi and the seductress Mak — as they tragically spiral into one another. It's refreshing that Ang Lee didn't choose to cast a more conventional Chinese leading-lady like Zhang Ziyi in the role. Then again, perhaps Zhang wouldn't have been willing to bare as much flesh.

Lust, Caution was raked over the coals by some movie reviewers when it first appeared in the theaters. They were mostly disappointed by the less-than-erotic soft-core sex scenes. (If you're looking for an erotic WWII spy film rent Paul Verhoeven's Black Book instead.) However, in Lust, Caution, sex serves not to arouse lust, as the title would suggest, but rather to peal away at Yee's personality like an onion, undressing the calculating bureaucrat to reveal a desperate lover. We come to realize that each new layer reveals more lust, caution, and eventually no core at all. Unfortunately for Wong, she realizes too late.

— Japhet Weeks

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