Heard Here

YAndrew W.K.
I Get Wet

And indeed he does. If you haven’t seen the cover for the album, you should look at it right now. It shows Andrew’s face covered in blood. It’s the face you’d expect on a guy who just got thrown out of a heavy metal concert in 1989 for getting in a fight. Andrew is just that man. He is ready to rock and doesn’t mind if a few noses get broken along the way. I Get Wet has been reviewed so well and received so much hype that I wanted to hate it, but I couldn’t. Sure it’s dumb. None of the songs have more than a few lines repeated over and over to a beat which makes you want to slam into your friends and shout back at Andrew. If you like your music clever, soothing, romantic or relaxing, this is not the CD for you. On the other hand, if you enjoy knowing all the words to songs with titles like “Party Hard” and “Party ’Til You Puke” (yes, those are two different songs) then happy friggin’ birthday because this one’s for you.
Not to slight Andrew’s motives. I imagine there is a lot more behind this album than the bloodied face. I Get Wet is far too funny to be taken without a healthy dose of irony. Which may be too bad. I prefer to think of him taking all of this completely seriously, but I don’t think he is. He has a too little in common with Meat Loaf to be without a sense of humor. Don’t get me wrong, I dig Meat Loaf, and Andrew W.K. too.
I recommend this album with a fist in the air. On second thought, make that two fists in the air.
–Emma Straub

The Village Voice Presents
Love Songs for New York

Love Songs for New York, presented by the Village Voice, is a CD that the New York publication put together in the wake of Sept. 11. What is really nice about this CD is that it represents a large range of emotional responses not only to the attacks but also to New York in general. The Voice did a really nice job, garnering the talents of both the darlings of popular music and some people nobody ever heard of. These include Moby, Mekons, Loudon Wainwright III, and my beloved Gogol Bordello. In fact, I kind of want to write my review of Gogol Bordello instead of this CD.
Anyway, Gogol Bordello is this band fronted by this guy who deejays the weekly Bulgarian nightclub on Canal Street. The band is made up of five or six musicians, one belly dancer, two small children and a lot of Bulgarian outfits that look kind of like someone stole the entire wardrobe of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. They’re amazing and crazy and make jokes about building stages with only a hammer and a sickle and I love them. If you ever have the chance, go see them. They will make you dance.
Ok, back to the CD. There are a few good songs. They’re all about New York, theoretically, although Moby’s track sounds just like all of his other songs. There are a few more ambient and lame tracks, but there are also unexpected gems like Ari Upp’s reggae song, which includes the chorus, “Don’t say nothing bad about New York / Don’t say nothing bad about my city / It’s good to me and that’s all I care about,” and also features hand-claps and children singing. Genius. Also good is Loudon Wainwright III’s song about the A train. Also good is Andrew W.K.’s anthem “I love NYC.” Brilliant.
In short, this album is full of love songs for New York. I love New York and so I love this. If you don’t love New York then who needs you. Buy this CD if you want to be a good person and support the September 11th Fund, which you should, because New York is the best place on earth and I don’t care what anyone else says.

–Emma Struab

Donovan
Greatest Hits

How’s your mellow quota these days? You may not be in the habit of measuring your mood on that scale, but I suggest you begin immediately. Those unfamiliar with the aforementioned feeling should have a little talk with Donovan Leitch. For novices, the Greatest Hits album should keep you floating in a semi-transcendental haze for quite some time.
This Scotsman will show you parts of yourself you can’t imagine, surely, your inner child, wide-eyed and blissful. You will be shocked that you ever scoffed at happy-go-lucky psychedelic crap because there is a time and place when nothing is more appropriate than lying on your bed, freaking out, listening to “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (possibly high on codeine directly after getting your wisdom teeth pulled).
Written in India, Donvan said of that amazing song, “My chords like a mantra, and in my head I heard power guitar riffs and wild drums...ecstatic trance vibes...” This is exactly the sort of thing that my father, Frank, disapprovingly refers to as “hoogie-moogie,” a category which includes everything from yoga and marriage counseling to tarot cards and new-age cults (and probably soy milk as well). He lived in Los Angeles for many years, so go figure.
In fact, Donovan offers far, far more than just hoogie-moogie stuff, though it is all stuff at which Frank would decidedly roll his eyes. The songs on this album, together and within themselves, present a shocking blend of influences. It’s debatable whether this “blend” is fusion per se, or something messier, a potpourri, the world-traveler who wears too many souvenir-accessories. I am skeptical of such attempts in most areas of life (fusion cuisine generally gets a big thumbs-down from me, for instance) but in Donovan’s case, it’s working.
It works because what’s consistent is the personality that yielded such deranged “tunes,” also because it’s actually good. With the album comes a little note from Donovan in which he acknowledges several producers and musicians with whom he collaborated, (among the musicians on this album are John Paul Jones, John Bonham, and Jimmy Page, the Jeff Beck Group, Suzi Quatro). He adds, however, “I know the song-writer defines the genre. That’s me. You will experience many styles of music. All are me. All are you. This life presents the most varied possibilities of art. Let’s be open to all. Hope you dig the music, man!”
These styles of music include a strong folk sound in songs like “Colours,” directly a product of Donovan’s mentor Derroll Adams, and influenced by Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger with its handy banjo work. “Catch the Wind” is another song in this vein, and it’s great, but the early pronouncement that Donovan was Britain’s answer to Bob Dylan was really crazy. If what holds Donovan’s body of work together is that “all is [him],” it’s absurd to compare his personality with Dylan’s. Donovan is a very happy, loopy guy.
Not to mention funny looking and snaggle-toothed, my goodness. Funny, but if you listen to Donovan for a long time without picturing him at all, you will think of him as your lover. Never your boyfriend, but forever your lover. Senior Emma Straub declared that Jeff Buckley was her boyfriend in a recent review for The Review. That makes perfect sense. Some musicians are your boyfriends, my most ready examples being Sting, Mick Jagger, Alex Chilton and, in fact, Bob Dylan. But others are strictly lovers. Donovan falls into this category, with Leonard Cohen in a major way. Leitch is particularly lover-ly in “Sunshine Superman,” with lines like “I’ll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind,” yeah, Donovan! The lover is out there, deep, mystical but fleeting, the stuff of hookahs and flutes and harps and man-skirts and tears.
Anyway, Donovan dabbles in all categories; the maddening “There is a Mountain” is a “Zen ditty with Caribbean flavors and exotic power. Always loved the tempo of the islands. And why not?… This strange rhythm is from Barbados, in fact. The song is from me.” Guess who said that? The Gap-immortalized “Mellow Yellow” is Donovan in a “jazz mode.” For “Jennifer Juniper,” Donovan sings in his French accent! There is some major woodwind action going on here and I feel really good about it. He cites Bob Marley’s influence on the ska-sounding “Riki Tiki Tivi” which is bold to say the least.
Have a good sit-down before you get involved with “Atlantis,” one of four bonus tracks. It begins with a long spoken introduction and will rock your world every time. Among the more popular is the wonderful “Wear Your Love Like Heaven,” with a good vibraphone thing happening, and of course “Season of the Witch,” a song that, according to Donovan, prophesized the pot busts of himself, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles in London.
I love Donovan, I don’t care what anyone says. You’ll excuse me as I have to go listen to Dark Side of the Moon while watching the “Wizard of Oz” and smoke the pot I’ve been growing in my dorm room.
–Nina Lalli