Aidin Vaziri | Interviews, Reviews and More: June 2008

29 June 2008

Pop Quiz: Adele

Aidin Vaziri | Forget all those other singers who are supposed to dethrone Amy Winehouse: This month Adele Laurie Blue Adkins - better known as plain old Adele - is the only one you need to know about. The 20-year-old Londoner graduated from the Brit School just like Leona Lewis and Winehouse, and has already topped the British charts with her first album, "19," out now in the United States. It features the hit "Chasing Pavements." We spoke to Adele when she was in town for a sold-out show at Bimbo's.

Adele
Q: When did you get into music?
A: I remember my first show was the Cure in Finsbury Park when I was 2. My mum was really young when she had me, and she was a proper hippie for a while. I remember it so clearly because the singer looks like a witch. I loved it. I listened to them and the Spice Girls. "Dreams" by Gabrielle was the song that used to get me on the table when I was 5.
Q: Is there any video evidence?
A: No, we never had a video camera when I was younger.
Q: Where do your songs come from?
A: Something has to completely take over my life to write a song. The boy that the album is about took over my life and everything else, so it was quite easy to come up with the album, really.
Q: Did you send him a copy?
A: Oh yeah. He loves it. I'm grateful. He cheated on me, and I dumped him. He still works at a phone shop in Croydon, and I'm in America on tour. Who's laughing now? Continue reading.

On YouTube: The Ting Tings and the Green Screen

YouTube picks: Aidin Vaziri | There's something for every taste on YouTube, but with so many choices, how to choose? Chronicle critics and writers are here to help, pointing you in the direction of some fascinating video in our second annual YouTube favorites roundup.

THE TING TINGS "GREAT DJ," 3:24: Music videos were great until everyone started blowing up helicopters, hiring armies of strippers and spending 17 hours to choreograph every hip thrust. This clip by British pop upstarts the Ting Tings takes the format back to basics - two people awkwardly standing in front of a green screen that just changes color once in a while. It looks like it was shot in a booth at Fisherman's Wharf and choreographed by C-3PO - after he was dismantled. It also helps that the song - a taut burst of shouty new-wave vocals and primitive rhythms - is better than anything else on TV, times a thousand. Continue reading.

Review: Jewel

Jewel 'Perfectly Clear': Aidin Vaziri | Like Jessica Simpson, another blond singer who has taken pop music fans' lack of interest as a sign to throw on cowboy boots and relocate to Nashville, Jewel pulls a Carrie Underwood on her seventh album. The results are predictably awful on so many levels, from the counterfeit twang in her voice to the low-slung lyrics ripped from the pages of "Writing Country Songs for Dummies." Mostly, though, on tracks such as "Stronger Woman" and "Love Is a Garden," she just dresses up the same old melodies that made VH1 shrug, using mandolins, banjos and slide guitars in the hope of selling them off as secondhand goods. It's a good thing country music aficionados don't know any better. The album is currently sitting on top of the Billboard country charts.

Live Review: George Michael at HP Pavilion, 06/19/08

In San Jose, George Michael is their man: Aidin Vaziri | He has said this will be his last tour. At 44, Michael is not as bendy as he used to be, and the tight white shorts of the Wham! days have sadly been traded in for boring black blazers, but in every other regard he looked exactly like we left him, with the gleaming teeth, designer sunglasses and ever-present stubble intact. "My can-canning days are over, I'm afraid," he apologized at one point. But that didn't stop Michael from taking the stage alone, with the live band relegated to three-tiers of scaffolding behind an enormous digital screen that broadcast images ripped directly from the iTunes visualizer and six backup singers hovering near the edges. He might not move like Kanye West but he had little trouble keeping the audience on its feet.Continue reading.

Pop Quiz: Boy George

Aidin Vaziri | Boy George was one of the great pop stars of the '80s, but since Culture Club fell apart in 1986, it seems as if he's been balancing a busy life playing DJ, writing autobiographies and creating the stage musical "Taboo" between personal crises that keep landing him in the courts and on the streets of New York picking up litter. On the eve of his first U.S. tour in 10 years - which was just cancelled after his visa request was denied - the 47-year-old singer told us he's finally in a better place.

Boy George
Q: You've had your tabloid stuff. George Michael is passing out behind the wheel on the streets of London. Adam Ant was last seen waving a pistol around a pub in a cowboy hat. Why does it feel like all my favorite singers from the '80s are self-destructing?
A: Well, I admire the fact that you've set the tone right away. I understand that I will be asked such questions, and that's fine, because I have refurbished my horizons and self-destruction is no longer an option. I can't talk for the other George, although he has just finished a major tour, which suggests the asleep-at-the-wheel situation was a brief excursion from sanity. Adam Ant has mental-health issues, and that is very different and more serious than the sort of self-destructiveness that myself and George Michael were embroiled in. So, talking purely for myself, I can tell you that my head is firmly screwed back on - the right way - and I am a far saner human being than I have been in a long time, if not forever.
Q: Was it cruel and unusual punishment to put you on the streets of the Lower East Side with a shovel and broom?
A: I had a truly wonderful time working with the folk at the New York Sanitation Department, and I was treated with great kindness by the people who clean up your rubbish. I also received tremendous affection from New Yorkers, and what threatened to be a heinous experience actually turned out to be quite rewarding. It was a photo op, and I refer to it as my "media service," but I was responsible for putting myself in a dangerous situation and I broke the law, and the outcome might have been far worse. So, all in all, I was pretty lucky. I hated the orange jerkin, but it's no longer in my wardrobe. Continue reading.

Review: Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros 'Med Sud...': Aidin Vaziri | If you have spent the past decade lying awake wondering what Sigur Rós front man Jon Por Birgisson is singing about in his famously made-up language, here's some good news: The Icelandic quartet's fifth album includes its first song ever sung in English. Not that you can make a word out through that glass-shattering falsetto. Like the other 92 percent of "Med Sud," what really makes the music float is a woozy concoction of sad piano melodies, thumping rhythms and ambient noise. Produced by Flood (U2, Depeche Mode) and recorded at various ports around the world, it's supposed to be both looser and more polished than anything the band has done before. But to our ears it still sounds like a couple of whales playing a game of hide the bone.

17 June 2008

Review: Coldplay

Coldplay 'Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends': Aidin Vaziri | What do you need to know about the new Coldplay album? 1) Produced by Brian Eno. 2) Stupid title. 3) Otherwise amazing. If you're not already jogging to Kmart to buy a copy, then we can fill you in on the rest. The British band's fourth album isn't much like the other three, which is incredible insofar as the other three sounded pretty much exactly alike (but still great). There are improvements all around, and none of them involve the group doing a mega club mix of "Yellow," although that would have been nice. For example, we're not sure if Eno made Chris Martin cut up all his lyrics, throw them in a top hat and pull them back out, but they are clearly some of the best words he has ever strung together - even if they are still utterly pointless. Then there's the overall sound of the album, which somehow makes it feel as if the band members were just hanging out in the studio one day in their new Adam Ant jackets and then decided to pick up their instruments and knock out a classic album. Everything sounds incredibly loose, casual and completely effortless, which it probably wasn't. Finally, there is the veritable avalanche of brilliant, life-affirming music that leaves Coldplay's idols (U2, Oasis) and followers (Keane, Snow Patrol) spinning in the dust: "42," "Cemeteries of London," "Violet Hill," even the iTunes jingle "Viva la Vida." Plus, as far as we can tell, Gwyneth Paltrow wasn't allowed to sing on anything. Neither was Huey Lewis.

Pop Quiz: Katy Perry

Aidin Vaziri | Everybody is falling fast for Katy Perry, whose song "I Kissed a Girl" was just blocked from topping the iTunes Top 100 by those evil guys in Coldplay. Have you no heart, Chris Martin? This girl is sweet. Raised by pastor parents in Santa Barbara, she nearly became a Christian rock star as a teenager before coming to her senses, dying her hair black and defecting to the dark side of mainstream pop. Her first single, which was charmingly called "Ur So Gay," served as a kiss-off to an eyeliner wearing ex, and she will be spending her summer traveling the country with the sweaty, tattooed men of the Warped Tour. We spoke to the 23-year-old Perry shortly after she made a bizarre cameo on "The Young and the Restless."

Katy Perry
Q: Your parents were both pastors. What's the best thing you did inside a church?
A: That sounds provocative. I never crossed that line. As much as I'm like a bad girl, I still have roots. I'm glad to believe there is something bigger out there than me.
Q: When you were 13, you tried to smuggle an Incubus CD into your house and it broke in half. Do you think God was trying to save you?
A: I don't know. It was just one of those moments. Imagine being a 13-year-old kid and something like that happening. I was like, "I'll never do it again!"
Q: Did your parents pick up the issue of Penthouse with the two-page spread on you?
A: I don't think they have. It wasn't like I was spread-eagled. It was just an article in the music section with stock photos. I've got hearts and stars and rainbows all over my record cover, so we've got to reach the boys somehow. Continue reading.

George Michael's Most Fantastic Moments

Top 10 George Michael Moments:: Aidin Vaziri | On the occasion of George Michael's first U.S. tour in 17 years, we look back on the accomplishments that helped him sell 85 million albums worldwide and made him one of the most exciting pop icons of our generation.

1. He met Andrew Ridgeley.By all accounts, the bespectacled Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou was a total loser until he met his future musical partner Andrew Ridgeley at Bushey Meads School in Watford, England. Never mind that Ridgeley had absolutely no musical abilities and would have to pretend to play guitar and sing for the length of Wham!'s career. He wisely persuaded Michael to lose his glasses, go on a diet and pluck his eyebrows. That obviously made Ridgeley the real genius of the operation.Continue reading.

08 June 2008

Pop Quiz: Gavin Rossdale

Aidin Vaziri | Ex-Bush front man Gavin Rossdale has spent the past few years living behind the platinum glow of his wife, Gwen Stefani. Now the 42-year-old British musician is hoping to change his fortunes with his first solo release, "Wanderlust." That is, if he can survive the critics and paparazzi and come to terms with the fact that he's the second most successful pop star in the family. We spoke to Rossdale by phone from his home in Los Angeles, just a few days after the celebrity-studded second birthday bash for his son, Kingston.

Gavin Rossdale
Q: How much has your wife influenced your songwriting?
A: She clearly has a whole world of admirers, and I'm impressed by that, but the way I write has more of the echoes of other writers that I like.
Q: Tell me a good story about Bush's touring days.
A: It just was this nonstop cyclone, where you're just bouncing around in the bubble you move in. It's just so fun and self-indulgent and exhilarating. We were playing five, six nights a week and traipsing through the snow in Canada and then playing in South Beach, where it's 90 degrees and the water is like a bath. And then to play New York at CBGB's, you know, all these incredible landmarks. There were people everywhere: people running after the bus, people waiting outside after the shows, people waiting at the hotels. All-night noise. It was like 10 years of that.
Q: What's the one record you and Kingston can agree on?
A: "The Jungle Book" - "The Bare Necessities." I think it's a genius song. He also really likes my single. Continue reading.

Review: Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette 'Flavors of Entanglement': Aidin Vaziri | Alanis Morissette wrote most of her seventh studio album as her relationship with fiance Ryan Reynolds fell apart. It's only fitting that the actor announced his engagement to Scarlett Johansson in the days leading up to the disc's release, throwing Morissette back into the indignant role she occupied so well 13 years ago on her breakthrough, "Jagged Little Pill." But if you're hoping for a return of the primal wail and roaring guitars that made her one of the biggest-selling artists of the '90s, look elsewhere. "Flavors of Entanglement" is more restrained than it has any right to be. The music is mostly indistinct, awash in soft electronic effects and faux Eastern rhythms. Morissette's heavily processed voice, meanwhile, feels like a bulldozer plowing through slight soundscapes such as "Underneath" and "Moratorium," offering volume instead of rage.

Pop Quiz: The Ting Tings

Aidin Vaziri | You may not realize it, but the Ting Tings have already invaded your living room. Thanks to the recent Apple ad featuring the group's frenzied hit "Shut Up and Let Me Go," the British boy-girl duo has gone from playing empty rooms to being one of the year's biggest pop prospects. Singer Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino's first album, "We Started Nothing," is loaded with even more glossy dance-floor fillers, such as "Great DJ" and "That's Not My Name." But it's the live show where the pair really jumps to life.

Katie White of The Ting Tings
Q: How do just the two of you make so much noise?
A: We shout a lot.
Q: That's the big secret?
A:We use loop pedals when we play live, as well. Jules will have little electronic noises he can trigger with his feet, so we just keep laying it and building it and taking stuff in and out. Some people don't understand it at first. They think we're using a backing tape. But it's completely live, and we're just triggering stuff.
Q: Do you even have enough limbs to actually pull that off?
A:It always goes wrong every show. But even when something goes wrong with the loop, it's just back to guitar and drum, and that's fine. The audience wouldn't know any different.
Q: You know what? You need some more power ballads.
A:Yeah, some more power ballads to just sit there and do nothing. We get bored with stuff like that. We're really getting off on the live energy. I don't know. We could sit there quite nicely and sing beautiful songs. We can actually sing, but it's boring. We like screaming and banging things.Continue reading.

Review: Radiohead

Radiohead 'The Best of Radiohead': Aidin Vaziri | Thom Yorke is really good at throwing tantrums. So it's little wonder that the news that his band's old label, EMI, was going to put out a bunch of different versions of the poorly titled retrospective package, "Radiohead: The Best Of," set him off spectacularly. "It's a wasted opportunity," he grumbled. "If we'd been behind it, and we wanted to do it, then it might have been good." He kind of has a point. Radiohead is not the type of band you're likely to mistake for ABBA anytime soon. Yes, the band issued quite a few singles during its decade-plus run with the record company, but what it really delivered was a handful of wondrous albums that rippled with clashing textures and wide-eyed ambition. This collection's biggest crime is that it makes Radiohead sound totally conventional. Stripped of context and concept, the radio-friendly singles gathered here represent only a sliver of what the band really accomplished since setting out with 1993's "Pablo Honey." In fact, it's hard to think of a contemporary band that has successfully shredded the blueprint as many times as Radiohead has, not that you would be able to tell by listening to one watery midtempo ballad after another. "Karma Police," "No Surprises," "High and Dry," "Fake Plastic Trees" - they're all here. The group's first big quiet-loud single, "Creep," sounds out of place in the company of pitch-shifting works such as "Paranoid Android" and "Idioteque." And while all the songs sound just fine as solitary creatures, it's hard to shake the feeling that any 15-year-old with an iTunes account and $12 could have pulled together a much tighter and more revealing account of the Radiohead story.

Live Review: Flight of the Conchords at Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, 05/27/08

Music review: Flight of the Conchords - live!:: Aidin Vaziri | Seated on stools for its entire two-hour set, the group dabbled lightly in hip-hop, dancehall reggae and bossa nova. They delivered their twist on the Serge Gainsbourg catalog with "Foux de Fa Fa," in which the guys basically rattled off a bunch of common but totally unconnected French phrases: "Soup du jour! Jacques Cousteau! Discotheque!" Best of all, it effortlessly knocked back the steady stream of requests coming from the audience. "We didn't open the floor," Clement warned at one point. And when a particular request caught the Conchords' whimsy, they offered only a sample. "We're not doing it," the bespectacled singer said. "It just shows we know it." Continue reading.

Review: Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson 'Anywhere I Lay My Head': Aidin Vaziri | Anyone who saw Scarlett Johansson slaughter "Brass in Pocket" in the karaoke-bar scene in "Lost in Translation" might think this is just another stupid actor vanity project. But with her sepia-toned album of Tom Waits covers, "Anywhere I Lay My Head," the 24-year-old film star defies some pretty big odds. It's not just good but at points remarkably captivating, conjuring the despondent beauty of classic 4AD acts like This Mortal Coil and Pale Saints. Accepting that she's not going to shatter any goblets, Johansson throws what little voice she has - think Nico - into the arms of producer Dave Sitek, who adds Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and David Bowie into the mix while building dark little masterpieces out of songs like "Town With No Cheer" and "Falling Down."

Live Review: Adele at Bimbo's, 05/22/08

Amy who? Let's hear it for Adele:: Aidin Vaziri | Everything about Adele is huge - her cat-like green eyes, her bee-stung lips, her gut-busting cockney laugh, the pile of hair wrapped into an unruly bun on top of her head and, of course, her overall size. But biggest of all is her voice, an awe-inspiring instrument so grand and wondrous that at a sold-out concert at Bimbo's 365 Club on Thursday it took only a few seconds to knock the chattering crowd into stunned silence. Even the ice cubes stopped clinking. Continue reading.

Pop Quiz: Al Green

Aidin Vaziri | The wait is over. Even though his last two secular releases saw him reuniting with producer Willie Mitchell, who steered his classic sessions for Hi Records in the '70s, this is the Al Green album people have really been holding out for. Produced by Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson and featuring guest spots from Corinne Bailey Rae, John Legend, Anthony Hamilton and the Dap-Kings Horns, "Lay It Down" effectively re-creates the vintage bedroom-bound sound of hits like "Tired of Being Alone" and "Love and Happiness." We spoke with the Rev. Green of the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church of Memphis by phone from his home.

Al Green
Q: I heard you wrote "I'm Wild About You" while you were watching Animal Planet.
A: Yeah. It's about wild love. Excuse the expression but it means I don't want to ask for it, I want to take it.
Q: What show was that from?
A: I have no idea. I watch it all day, every day. I just keep it on there. They have elephant movies on. They have polar bears. They have giraffes. They have cheetahs. I just let it run.
Q: If you could be any animal for a moment what would it be?
A: I don't know. I'm not able to transform myself to even be another animal. I don't have that in my head. Next question.
Q: Which of your old hits moves you the most when you sing it live?
A: "I Ain't Telling."
Q: You're not?
A: No, that's the name of it. Continue reading.