The Tris McCall Report
That's Ivy from Aikostar, in case you're scoring at home. Photo by Jared Midgen.
I've been meaning to write this piece for a long time. Now that I finally have, the least you can do, fellow Jerseyan, is slog through it and think about what I have to say about our state.
Forget the Lord of the Rings. The new big thing for geeks like us is the Yessay.
If you're new to this site, or to my writing and sometimes prickly opinions, you might want to start with the Tris McCall Pop Music Abstract for 2004. If you're feeling really brave, try hacking your way through my interminable review of Scarlet's Walk.
Nine million words here about rock and roll music, and one of the most popular pieces on the site turns out to be my reflections on Los Angeles. Either people can't get enough of coastal travelogues, or everybody is more comfortable with me three thousand miles away. The first of the two L.A. entries is more programmatic, the second more lyrical, and probably better written.
For some pithy meta-discourse on record and music reviewing, click here. For a diaryland-type excerpt from my rock journal masquerading as a record review, click here.
I've tried to avoid writing about the current ugly world situation, but since it saturates every aspect of our culture, it's impossible to avoid. This article is my first and last word on the current priorities of the Bush Administration and its allies.
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Your Friends And Neighbors
Articles about NYC and Northern Jersey acts, and our local musical subculture. If you're an area performer, and you want your record reviewed in an upcoming Friends And Neighbors column, send to Tris McCall, 166 Grand Street, Apt. #2, Jersey City, NJ 07302.
November 30, 2003 -- I gave some reasons for my radical reorientation toward New Jersey in the daily Journal for November, but I saved the really heavy stuff for this Friends and Neighbors column. Reviews of records even more obscure than usual, but it's mainly a jumping-off point for my most vigorous defense of the Jersey scene yet.
August 4, 2003 -- They've all been kicking around the Turnpike for awhile, but taken collectively, this this coterie of interrelated Jersey groups offers a promising route forward for Garden State music.
July 23, 2003 -- Why are there so many great and idiosyncratic rock projects from Larchmont, New York? It's because unlike your average bunch of NYC-area rock mooks, they aren't afraid of words. Lots of amusing quotes from the brothers Rosenthal, the Vitamen, Marc Levitt, and Gregg Altman.
July 2, 2003 -- I ended up waiting around in Rare for hours one night before a gig. I got crabby, and I wrote this open letter.
June 18, 2003 -- Oh, we had an emotional time at Luxx that night...
February 27, 2003 -- My interview with The Swimmies, an indiepop group from Bloomingdale, New Jersey.
February 22, 2003 -- A lengthy round-up with a couple of really nice pieces. The Negatones review is so absurd that it's a must-read. My long-standing distaste for rhythm electric guitar comes to a head in the Big Boote review, which is not to say I don't like Big Boote.
October 15, 2002 -- Hyperbolic but decently-written articles on Baby Dayliner, Spiraling, and Double-Breasted, with a more even-handed review of Little T & One-Track Mike thrown in for good measure. This should also contain reviews of The Vitamen and The Giraffes, but I don't know where those went. Into the cavernous maw of digital space, I guess.
August 17, 2002 -- I didn't call it "Williamsburg Vs. New Jersey", that was Andy Gesner's doing. Jim Testa gave it the inflammatory headline "Why Our Scene Is Falling Behind" in Jersey Beat. Consequently, this became the most controversial thing I ever wrote, but in retrospect I think it's all fair. Not my finest hour as a prose stylist.
May 23, 2002 -- Talk about controversial. This one got me in hot water with the members of my own band, all of whom have something I sorely lack: integrity. Sander Hicks is the culprit here, he forwarded me a questionnaire from a California student who was doing a term paper on punk. Kind of like asking Bill O'Reilly to comment on the French Socialist Party, isn't it, Sander?
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Notes From The Front
Pieces, sometimes sketch-style and shoddily written, about pop music as a refraction of American mass culture. Radio music: I knock it, but I love it.
April 2, 2004 -- Here in Jersey City, there are 240,000 people, which according to the laws of permutations and combinations, means there are at least 2,400,000 bands. Yet we only have one place to play: Uncle Joe's. Tris McCall investigates at length. Originally published in Take magazine.
February 25, 2004 -- Ben Krieger points out that Yes was a favorite among choir singers he knew in high school. It reminded me that my own Yes-loving group of friends were all in the Jonathan Dayton High School chorale. Yet another reason to love Yes: here was a rock band that gave choir kids a reason to feel proud.
December 18, 2003 -- Why does everybody ask for a Top Ten list in the middle of December? I can't do that; I need time for the albums to sink in. As a stopgap, here are two lists that are more interesting than your usual album flogging anyway.
December 19, 2002 -- The best album of last year was recorded by an erratic singer whose last few releases had been seriously out to sea. Like a childhood friend who'd gotten involved in some alienating extracurriculars, she's somebody you'd never entirely give up on no matter how much she made you cringe. Still, if I had been given my pick of pop stars to send out on the road to report on an America still shaken up by the attacks on Washington and New York, I think I would have selected Chuck D, or somebody like that. Goes to show what I know.
November 7, 2002 -- With apologies to Original Pirate Material, Nas, and McLusky, the album of the year sweepstakes essentially came down to a choice between Scarlet's Walk and Kill The Moonlight. Spoon's album featured better singing, better playing, better songs, and a vastly superior production aesthetic. I prefer the album that flails for a method of engagement with American culture to the one that articulately justifies retreat. But that's a matter of personal taste.
July 20, 2002 -- These days, all we've been listening to around the Hi-Vue is the new batch of teen-queen radio songwriters. Lavigne is the super-talented singer and Carlton is the daring instrumentalist, but it's Michelle Branch who's got the impressive songwriting acumen. I don't think I made that clear enough in these articles.
October 30, 1999 -- Reflections on a live performance by Olivia Tremor Control at the Knitting Factory. I'm not sure why I'm posting this; I think there's something graceful about the prose formulations. But OTC is no more, in case you didn't know.
August 26, 1999 -- Rapid-fire, pithy recap of summer radio singles. Worth looking at for initial impressions of Eminem, Jennifer Lopez, and a couple other acts that first surfaced a few years ago.
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Who needs travel abroad when you can expand your horizons by mail-ordering obscure albums from Europe? That way, you can form ironclad impressions of foreign cultures by scrutinizing pop-song lyrics in the comfort of home, and you don't have to worry about customs checks. Most of these originally ran in Jersey Beat, since Jim didn't have anybody else to cover British music.
April 11, 2003 -- When I first heard Original Pirate Material, I was sure that this would be the album that would shatter the embargo and re-open American music to foreign influences. Again, history intervened.
July 11, 2002 -- Time may have passed Oasis by, but Heathen Chemistry was a return to form after the lackluster Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants. This is probably the best review I've ever written. Oasis brings out the champ in everyone.
August 2, 2001 -- I take on Air and their nasty attitude, Stereolab and their incomprehensible politics, and rock critics who pathologically compare everything with breathy vocals and crappy recording quality to Belle & Sebastian. Plus I conclude with some below-the-belt shots at Radiohead. How can you go wrong?
April 7, 2001 -- Not quite as punchy as the August issue, but still pretty readable. The acts are a bit more obscure (Death By Chocolate, Tarwater, Cinerama), but I do manage to anticipate the current widespread disenchantment with Tony Blair, and in the context of a review of Coldplay, no less.
October 14, 2000 -- The first of many rants about Radiohead. Notice I'm still pulling my punches a little bit. By 2001, I'd be frothing at the mouth. But you would be too, if you had to hear Kid A every damned time you walked into Brownies. A strangely disengaged set of record reviews follows. Some choppy prose here, pardner.
September 16, 1999 -- For every Elvis Costello fan who has gotten annoyed by the old man grumpuses at the gates of critical opinion, most of whom want to pretend it's all been downhill since This Year's Model. This was originally a bitter letter-to-the-editor, in case you couldn't tell by the grandmotherly tone.
July 15, 1999 -- Hard words from Tris McCall. I guess I was cranky the day I hammered this one out. I mean, who bothers to pan Shantel? What the hell is wrong with me?
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Lyrics Check
Something I'm hoping will be a regular feature of this website. Scott Miller once wrote that he felt people would be interested in a rock-critical project that thumbed through pop song lyrics line by line and explicated them. I chose to start with a couple of patriotic songs, but in the future I will probably turn my attention to classic rock.
October 7, 2004 -- On Bruce Springsteen's No Surrender, and the spirit behind New Jersey's multiple municipal madness.
December 28, 2001 -- Why "New York, New York" moved me while "God Bless America" didn't. Probably all you need to know about my political priorities, and my final word on the war on terrorism.
March 19, 2001 -- More Oasis fanboy stuff. Goddamn it, I can't help it. I got a little irritated by a pundit I respected who continually put Noel Gallagher down, and he finally gave me the opportunity to lay my case out for him. Which of course I did, in quintessentially logorrheic style.
July 4, 2000 -- Here's a piece I still get e-mail about. It's a history lesson about the national anthem, written after hearing Robert Merrill go through the motions one too many times. I think it exists somewhere on the Internet, on a wacko patriotic site. Fair use, fair use.
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End of marking-period recaps of mass-released records. The name may be a reference to Bill James, but the style is more Chris Kahrl. Writing about kazillion sellers gives you some latitude for irreverence. I'm missing my very thoughtful abstract from the year 2000. Ah well, I suppose God wants me to present my jerkiest face.
December 13, 2004 -- What you all know about the Dirty South? If you had the radio on this year, plenty. Highlights: Jadakiss, Papa Roach, scattered reflections on Kanye West.
December 9, 2003 -- Been in the mall, and sick as fuck of Christmas music? Me too! Fifty familiar seasonal songs and Kahrls... er, carols get the typical Tris McCall treatment. Don't leave 'til you read my take on Rudolph. Complete with top (and bottom) ten lists!
July 2, 2003 -- The War With Everybody edition. Your two best bets don't have anything directly to do with American politics, though -- the Good Charlotte entry and my celebration of Sean Paul's values.
January 24, 2003 -- The complete Abstract from 2002. Missy Elliott's entry is probably the most insightful, but my hatchet jobs on Eminem, Moby and Dashboard Confessional are a trip. I expect some of their goons to come and rough me up.
January 16, 1999 -- A very well-written five album representative sampling of the trends of 1998. Those weren't the best albums of the year that year, but they were springboards for some interesting reflections.