Hello everybody and welcome back to the Berkeley Place Blog. I am here to try to revive this blog with some all new super cool content about all topics imaginable. This new stuff might include content related to all pasts posts or it could incorporate all kinds of brand new stuff.

Who is Matthew Perryman Jones? [Insert Chandler reference here.] I’m not sure who he is, being that “Swallow the Sea” is the first album I’ve heard of his. But color me impressed.

The work is very similar, vocally and lyrically, to the work of Ryan Adams, but it lacks the bitterness, the edge, or the irony. Jones is more content to allow the songs to speak for themselves, without inserting an overpowering personality into them. This is much appreciated, because too many songwriters these days seem to feel the need to add something other than the music. Jones’ work is straightforward: Very high quality songs, delicate piano and guitar, drums that hang in the background and provide momentum without force, and above it all, vocals that rise and fall, leading the music that trails just behind them. It’s the kind of traditional songwriting we don’t hear that much of in these days of postpunk and indie rock. Matthew Perryman Jones crafts perfect pop Americana, and has succeeded in writing one of the most thoroughly listenable albums of the year. There are few (if any) weak cuts, and only one cover–his take on “Motherless Child” is novel. I’ve heard the song played as a folk tune, I’ve heard it as a classic rock tune (most notably by Clapton), but I’ve never heard it as a true lament, which it is here–a sad, but hard, take on the traditional. If you like music that puts you in a calm, pensive mood, or music to watch rain to, this album is for you. Produced by Neilson Hubbard (Glenn Phillips, Garrison Starr).

And, above all else, this album should make the listener ask: How the fuck does this guy not have a record deal?

For fans of: Ryan Adams, Bell X1, Coldplay, U2.

Tracks removed at label request.

Atlanta’s Short Bus Alumni dropped “Mr. T’s Revenge” in July oh-eight, a rollicking CD of what is best called nostalgic new jack. It’s chock full of references to old school, but never uses a simple 808. The beats will definitely move modern butts, but should also appeal to Hip-Hop purists and older listeners.

Although the group hails from Atlanta, SBA don’t get bogged down with that Southern sound. It’s six members are intelligent, versatile rappers, who can be witty without being profane, gritty without being foul, and can make party music without speaking down to their audience or relying on the lowest common denominator. On Brick Records, mostly produced by Raydar Ellis.

The Rural Alberta Advantage are a Canadian indie-rock/Americana trio with a sound not unlike Centro-Matic. I found them thanks to a reader submission, but I’ve been unable to learn much about them. Far as I can tell, they’re unsigned. Which is a damn shame, because their debut record, “Hometowns,” is adventurous, full of hooks, and a pleasure from start to finish.

The opening track, “Ballad of the RAA,” is electronica-meets-country, a refreshingly different take on what has become the pretty standard indie genre of Americana. Lots of folks discuss the huge influence of Brian Wilson on indie rock, but one can make the argument that Van Morrison and his successors (Counting Crows, e.g.), have been an equally important force, and Rural Alberta Advantage clearly borrow heavily from the latter. But other cuts, like “Drain the Blood,” dump the electronica and instead go for earnest, overwrought vocals. Then “Luciano” comes on with fuzzy punk and blurry drums. Yet every song is instantly familiar, and completely accessible, as all great pop should be.

This album will keep you guessing, but will never leave you behind.

Recorded with a single mic and a computer, the Morning Benders are releasing a full album of cover songs, free to you! You’ll find covers of tunes by The Crystals, Randy Newman, The Cardigans, the ubiquitous “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, and many, many more. It’s to help promote their official release, “Talking Through Tin Cans,” a wonderful little record you can score on iTunes and elsewhere.

Get the album, as a zip, just by clicking here!

Recently, I wrote how this has been the summer of the superhero. But a buddy asked me why I thought the women of the best movies of the summer were so . . . Sexless. It got me thinking.

Let’s look at the best superhero films ever. Who were the female love interests/central female characters? Batman had Katie Holmes and then Maggie Gyllenhaal. Superman had Margot Kidder and then Kate Bosworth, and as a boy he’s got Kristen Kreuk. In his teen years, he isn’t dating Lois and the actress playing Lane is perhaps the hottest woman ever to cross a caped crusader’s path. Hulk had Jennifer Connelly in the Ang Lee film. Iron Man had Paltrow. Spidey had Dunst. All of these women are good looking, to be sure. (There are no truly ugly chicks in Hollywood, unless they’re supposed to be ugly, and then they end up being over-the-top fatties or horsefaces.) But also, none of these women reek eroticism. They don’t have fire, they don’t have sexual energy, like Angelina Jolie, Naomi Watts, Eva Mendes, Jessica Beihl, or even Lindsay “I’m out of control with drugs and can’t stop flashing my snatch” Lohan. The women who star in superfilms look and act like the kind of girl you would take home to mother.

Adam West’s Batman, who flirted with Lee Merriwether’s Catwoman back in 1966, is not an exception to this rule, for two reasons:

First, Catwoman was hardly a female lead–as far as I can remember, she and Bats only went on one date, in their respective secret I.D.s. And Bruce’s fling with Miss Kitka didn’t exactly end well, especially because the guys who set up the blind date were Joker, Penguin, and Riddler. For another thing, it seemed as if Batman’s heart truly belonged to the boy wonder. (Note: Julie Newmar, an even hotter Catwoman, flirted with Batman on the TV series. Still not an exception to my thesis, but just look at this buttshot: Mee-OW.)

The only other exception I came up with is Liv Tyler, who played Betsy Ross in this summer’s Incredible Hulk film. But even that’s stretching it a bit–Liv isn’t really my type, and she spends most of the film looking mopey and sad. I guess a chick can be a little hotter if she’s tortured for it. I’m reminded of a similar horror-film rule: The first girl to show her boobies is the first girl to end up with her belly cut open and her guts strewn across the screen.

Truth to tell, the last time I remember geek-film-freaks being given a truly sexy, sexually active pin-up girl as a lead, she was a cartoon.

You could argue that Jessica Alba of Fantastic Four, or even Hallie in Catwoman/X-Men or Garner in Elektra, are exceptions to this rule, but they aren’t. Because they were superheroines. And the same is kind of true for them, in reverse. Alba dated Reed “king geek” Richards, known for being completely sexually oblivious. Hallie got a hottie in Catwoman (Ben Bratt), but in X-Men she dates nobody and fellow seXy-woMEN Famke and Rebecca Romijn dated ubergeek Cyclops and old lech Magneto, respectively.

The next question is, why are our heroes denied a really hot and heavy sexual dynamo? Cops in the movies get them all the time. So do firemen and mobsters. Senator Charlie Wilson scored Julia Roberts, for chrissake, and two of the ugliest guys in Hollywood recently got two bodacious babes who couldn’t keep their hands off their men: Hoffman married Tomei (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead) and Paul Giamatti got Laura Linny (John Adams, HBO). Hell, fat white guys on TV have hot sex kittens dripping off their man-tits. (Tony Soprano had a new one each week.)

So what gives?

There are several possible reasons:

1. Hollywood thinks comic-book fans will be sexually threatened by a libidinous female. The problem with this theory is that ubergeeks buy DVDs, upload scene- and screen-catches, and endlessly compile lists of things like hot chicks (and lists of reasons for a dearth of hot chicks). I mean, after Spider Man came out I can’t tell you how many super-bloggers were analyzing at that first kiss, frame by frame. Think of the fun they’d have had if the other pair of lips in Spider-Man’s upside-down rain kiss had been on top of a wet-white-T-shirted Carmen Elektra?

Compare this:

To this:

.

.

..

To say that this type of film watcher doesn’t want to see sex is to say that the internet is not primarily a tool for masturbation. Let’s get real.

2. They don’t want the sexy to override the super. Maybe it’s the directors’ faults. Maybe they don’t think they can get people to focus on the hero if there’s a big pair of tits pointing at the screen. This suggests that the directors, not the heroes, are the ones who are sexually threatened. But this theory, too, is flawed. For one thing, have you seen the comics these heroes are based on? Lois Lane has the proportions of Barbie, and Mary Jane is supposed to be a fashion model! Kirsten Dunst is certainly pretty, but a model? She’s way too short and her hips are boxy. If standing next to a brick house doesn’t detract from the ink-and-newsprints heroes, it shouldn’t detract from the celluloid ones. It being the directors’ faults seems to make sense because the most courageous and inventive superdirector of all time cast the hottest female superlead of all time: Kim Basinger in Batman (1989), and Burton has a history of knowing how to create sexual chemistry between bizarre characters (see: Edward Scissorhands, e.g.).

3. Geek writers can’t write sexy. This is similar to reason #2, above, and my answer is the same: As a boy reading The Amazing Spider Man #220-280, Mary Jane could lively up my loins with a single word: “Tiger.” And Lana Lang in the Superboy books was always in a hurry to hold hands and kiss. Ditto Betty Ross, the hottest scientist in history. So if the funnybook writers can do it, the screenwriters should be able to, too.

4. Superheroes are portrayed as sexually weak. This is perhaps the best theory. In all big-screen iterations, superheroes are sexually unsophisticated. Whether he’s the conflicted, self-tortured soul of the Tim Burton Batman films or the immature lothario of Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, or the naive and virginal Christopher Reeves, or the reclusive misfit Tony Stark. I suspect that this is because the writers/directors/and maybe even the actors are themselves insecure men who cannot imagine how kinky it would be to have x-ray vision, super agility, or the ability to stretch. Can you imagine someone with powers like that not being the first one to get invited behind the velvet rope? A defense could be that in their secret I.D.s, superheroes play down their talents and confidence, so as not to draw attention, but that’s not always true, either. Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne, for example, are flamboyant playboys who get laid by models all the time. So why do they fall for Gwennyth and Maggie? And don’t tell me there’s no smart and sexy chicks out there, and these guys are falling for the brains so they let go of the need for bodacious tatas. First of all, there are plenty of smart and sexy women in the real world (visit any major metropolitan public library, law school, or medical residency program, if you doubt me). And second, we’re not talking about the real world. We’re talking about casting in superfilms. And for that matter, there are plenty of sexually vibrant, intelligent Hollywood character actors, too. See: Marisa Tomei, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Christina Ricci, e.g.

5. It’s just being true to the character. For example, in the new Batman films, Kaggie Hollenhaal’s character is supposed to be, literally, the girl next door from his childhood. I’m calling bullshit on this reason, too. I’m sure Bruce Wayne grew up next to more than one girl, yet this is the one he remembers. And the girl who grew up next door to Peter Parker grew up to be a model! I’ve read studies that show that men who have professions that involve the justice system, in particular trial attorneys and cops, have significantly higher hormone levels than men in less dramatic fields. In general, people who are physically healthy tend to be more amorous. And if the gamma rays made Bruce Banner more excitable, and Peter Parker more physically fit, wouldn’t they have a similar effect on their sex drives? Adrenaline is an aphrodisiac, after all. So why wouldn’t these heroes seek women who could keep up with them? The answer is, they would.

So, what does this all mean? It means that it’s a man’s world for Kevin James and Jim Belushi, but Christian Bale and Tobey McGuire are gonna have to settle for hormonally challenged love interests until someone in Hollywood grows a pair and realizes that superflicks can also be sexy flicks.

What do you all think?

A Backyard Tire Fire review practically writes itself. Take everything you love about Patterson Hood’s emotional grit, The Old 97s classic barnburner footstompers, and the spirit Whiskeytown had when Ryan still had something to prove, and you’ve already got a good sense of what the band is about: Rockin’, drinkin’, raisin’ hell and kicking ass through the use of well-placed power chords.

The band’s new record, “The Places We Lived,” is no exception. It’s Midwestern Americana at it’s slice-of-hard-life best. This album is a little more folk-y than their last one–a little less gritty in many places, and it has much cleaner production. But it’s still a real solid record. I particularly enjoyed “Everybody’s Down” and “How the Hell Did You Get Back Here?” the latter of which is played live at the show posted below. Because the really great thing about BTF is their live skills. Check ‘em out on tour, and download a groovy show below, after the tour dates!

August 1 / Dunegrass Festival / Empire, MI
August 3 / Brown Baer / Elkhart Lake, WI
August 22 & 23 / Paulie’s / Bloomington, IL
September 5 / Metro / Chicago, IL
September 10 / Picador / Iowa City, IA
September 11 / The Rave Bar / Milwaukee, WI
September 12 / The Annex / Madison, WI
September 13 / 7th St. Entry / Minneapolis, MN
September 17 / TBD / Columbia, MO
September 18 / Record Bar / Kansas City, MO
September 19 / Josie’s / Emporia, KS
September 20 / Lucas School House / St. Louis, MO
September 24 / Grog Shop / Cleveland, OH
September 25 / The Basement / Columbus, OH
September 26 / Spin Nightclub / Indianapolis, IN (Sponsored by My Old Kentucky Blog)
September 27 / Southgate House / Newport, KY
December 3 / Mercy Lounge / Nashville, TN (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 6 / Majestic Theater / Detroit, MI (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 7 / Intersection / Grand Rapids, MI (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 8 / Oneida Casino / Green Bay, WI (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 10 / Ottos / Dekalb, IL (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 11 / Peoples Court / Des Moines, IA (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 12 / Cotillion Ballroom / Wichita, KS (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 13 / Cains Ballroom / Tulsa, OK (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)

LIVE SHOW: 5/25/08 Performing most of their new record, some old faves, and some covers. A few tastes and a zip, as always.

Set list:

01 Lines
02 Thick Skin
03 Everybody’s Trying to be my baby (Carl Perkins)
04 Knockin on the Doghouse Door
05 Jimmy and Bob and Jack
06 Tom Petty
07 King of the Road (Roger Miller)
08 No Sense at All
09 Trying to Get Paid
10 Lawyers, Guns, and Money (Warren Zevon)
11 One Wrong Turn
12 This Morning’s Blues
13 A Thousand Gigs Ago
14 How the Hell Did You Get Back Here

ANNOUNCING A NEW FEATURE: MODERN CLASSICS!

Not that there isn’t enough great music out there—this year is proving to be a banner year both for major label artists like Nas and Lil’ Wayne and for little indie folks like Grand Archives and The Features—but I’ve been noticing lately how many recent albums fell through the cracks, and failed to get the attention they deserved from either me, the blogosphere, or both. So what will constitute a “modern classic”? Well, for one thing it’ll have to be a fairly recent release—within a decade or so. For another, it will have to be one of those records where you never skip a track. And having an effect on the industry is gravy, but not required. And a great example of a record that meets these requirements is Berkeley Place’s first featured certified modern classic:

HAIKU D’ETAT-“Self Titled.”

Haiku D’Etat, on the remarkably diverse and always surprising Project Blowed underground rap label, released their self-titled debut in 1999. The band consisted of underground duo (and friend-and-foe to Joe Budden) The A-Team (Aceyalone and Abstract Rude), and Mikah 9 from The Freestyle Fellowship. (You may also know Abstract from Abstract Tribe Unique, another underground rap band.) The band called itself Haiku d’Etat to signify the “poetry takeover” they hoped would occur.

The album contained a dramatic array of sounds—the dancehall/boom bap pioneered by KRS-One (“Los Dangerous”); spacey rhythms punctuated by odd harmonies (“Non Compos Mentis”); grime (“Westside Slip N Slide”) . . . There’s even a Bob Marley cover (“Kaya”). It was also marked by the different style of each of its members. Wu Tang Clan was arguably the best collective to combine gangstas, hippies, thinkers, and ballers, but Haiku didn’t use its diversity to keep the listener off balance. Instead, each of its members used their skills to create a unique, seamless whole. Acey brought his intricate and detailed lyrical skills, which can be off-putting to those who prefer flow; as a counterbalance, Mikah brought his smoother, more improvised jazzy style; and backing them up, Abstract Rude used his rich voice to provide bottom and soul. Most of the production was by “The Elephant” (a.k.a. Fat Jack), who combined samples, live horns and flutes, and random crowd sounds and crying babies to form the intricate tapestry necessary to back a band with such range.