Song Review: The Avett Brothers — Kick Drum Heart

The Avett Brothers' Emotionalism was one of the most well-rounded records of 2007, from the counterintuitively joyful "Die Die Die" to the smarmy but brilliantly executed "The Weight Of Lies." There were missed beats and just-off harmonies, part of the honest appeal the Avett's have had for years: just a few North Carolina boys rambling around the country, imperfections and all. (See especially the sad bastard tune, "Salina," as moving and intelligent as it is cheesy).

But now that they're label mates with Tom Petty and The Black Crowes, their gritty edge has been polished clean off. Indeed, the first six—six!—tracks on I and Love and You are about as rowdy as your gramma's Thursday quilting group. At least in the days before they were being sold in Starbucks, their hokey-pokey sentiments had enough roughness around them to make the over-sincerity all the more endearing, but this...!

Which brings me to "Kick Drum Heart," probably one of Scott's songs, inserted onto the album in homage—or, more likely, as a eulogy—to their former let-loose style. The piano-plinking intro attempts to sound swarthy and ne'er-ye-mind, but comes off like a bizarrely cheerful Japanese commercial for watermelon backpacks. When the brothers start singing, they copy the piano's melody and style plink-for-plink, sounding less badass and more, just, ass. The chorus could have been a clever image, but the clunky lyrics describing it and the obvious accompanying musical choices just make it stupid ("my heart like a kickdrum!" ...wait for it... and GO: "thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump").

But then, there is the bridge, which is the least objectionable part of the song—the fiddle tentatively following the voice sounds like classic Avett, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. But only for a second. The snare rolls four short snaps and we're back to the poppy grind. Nothing else really happens for the rest of the song, except for the partially redeeming line, "It's not the chase that I love / It's me following you." And, of course, the palm-to-the-forehead absurd heartbeats the (yup!) kickdrum beats out as the track closes.

It's a miserable effort by the Avett's to revive a dead record. Fortunately for them, though, many of us who miss their old style also have parents, who will eat this shit up. So here's to them.

Glass: Contrary Motion

The other day I sat and listened to Donald Joyce play Philip Glass on the organ. Glass was a minimalist composer, so the experience took me back to my year of trying to major in music theory, playing things like Piano Phase by Steve Reich. The organ, however, makes the haunting ethereal gooey dullness twice as palpable, and twice as deadening. (You know, deadening in a good way.) The experience was so enjoyable and nostalgic I thought it might give me enough ammunition to produce a poem.

I chose the triolet form (here's another triolet from my other blog), because, although it predates minimalism by a few centuries, it still has that repetitive echo-y feeling, which seems appropriate. Maybe not as appropriate as a sestina would be, but easier to write.

Glass: Contrary Motion

Organ pipes demystified by

stereo ossification.

Gray film glazes on your eyes while

organ pipes demystify. By

sleep's arrival you'll know why

the metal chambers hark salvation.

Organ pipes demystified by

stereo ossification.

Bruyéres

My degree is in English, supported mostly by poetry classes, but for the first year of university, I thought that I was going to double with music theory. My primary instrument was piano, and despite my heavy workload as an accompanist (which was not my choice, but rather a requirement of the major, and ultimately the reason I gave up on the whole business), my professors had me playing a whole lot of solo pieces, as well.

I've been sifting through some of my old sheet music, and I found Debussy's Études, which I hadn't thought I'd ever played. Thumbing through it, however, I found one annotated and highlighted throughout with green pencil, and I was shocked to recognize the handwriting as my own. Most likely, Dr. Morgan had slipped this into my frenetic Winter Trimester schedule, during most of which I was conscious in only a loose sense of the term, and had therefore learned and performed it without ever engaging my immediate faculties. It's not, after all, terribly difficult. At any rate, I looked it up on YouTube, and sure enough, I sort of remember playing it.

The piece is named Bruyéres, and is perhaps one of Debussy's most experimental (at least from his études). I suggest you listen to it before reading further.


Bruyéres

The linear theme and the horizontal one
alternate without being prepared,
a novel harmonic structure
with little connection
to the title of the piece: "Heather."

But let's not
hold the French
to too high
a standard.
It's not

a sweeping drama of divergent emotion
bromidic in a pretentiously intelligent way.
When the man wrote in all twenty-four keys
he skipped five of them, and why not?
It is simply an appreciation of musical

creation
and re-creation,
and I guess it needed a name.

The Idea, not the Name

The Idea, not the Name

This dust clustering between the coils
of steel and air, pulled off with the thrumming
by padded acacia, velvet, sturdy, strike
the five-sevenths point, and a nebula in
oil painted sunlight shifts to nothing if not
music. The wood strains its long cells
locked together under finger-weight, under
tusk and bone, until its dense anatomy,
again, higher, shakes, intense in the silence
of every other sound that insists on not
not being heard, as a single drop of paint
makes whiteness burn. The mind
strains through nerve to effect its soul,
bending heaviness to purpose, solidity
to vibration, and reality to meaning.