Nick Lowe - Labour of Lust

Yep Roc just reissued Nick Lowe's classic first solo album, Jesus of Cool. Hopefully it is the first in a series of reissues, because the man's catalog (or catalogue) is a mess. How can it be that an album as great as Labour of Lust could ever be allowed to go out of print? Sure, many of the highlights are available on Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe, but you really need songs like "Born Fighter," "You Make Me," "Skin Deep" and "Dose of You" too. Every song on that album is a classic. Nick The Knife, The Abominable Showman, Cowboy Outfit, etc. may not be as consistently great, but they still deserve to be heard without being robbed on Amazon's Marketplace. This is an injustice of epic proportions. Can you imagine the reaction if none of van Gogh's paintings were on display in any of the world's museums? If Citizen Kane were only available on SelectaVision? If Hulk Hogan retired? This is the rock and roll equivalent people. It's sick and twisted and just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. Am I making myself clear?

So go buy Jesus of Cool (even if you already own it it's worth it for the bonus tracks and excellent packaging). Then demand reissue of Labour of Lust and the rest of Nick Lowe's catalog.

Snakefinger - There's No Justice In Life

This single was released on July 1, 1987, ironically the same day that Phillip "Snakefinger" Lithman dropped dead of a heart attack. Lithman was barely past his 38th birthday. No justice in life indeed.

Snakefinger is, of course, most closely associated with the music of the Residents. Lithman was involved in some of the Residents' earliest musical experiments, then went on to found legendary British pub rockers Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers. When that band broke up, he moved to LA to establish a career in mainstream pop music, then returned to San Francisco to help create the music that forms the core of the Resident's musical legacy. Lithman also released a handful of excellent, but largely overlooked, solo albums that tone down the avant weirdness of the Residents just enough to sound something like pop music.

As Ted Mills notes at All Music Guide, Snakefinger's solo work wasn't weird enough to capture the full attention of the Resident's cult audience, nor was it "normal enough for chart success or critical recognition." This is particularly true of his later solo albums, which were made mostly apart from the Residents, though still released through their label, Ralph Records.

These two tracks were also featured on Snakefinger's final studio album, Night of Desirable Objects, cut with his backing band the Vestal Virgins. On "There's No Justice In Life" it never sounds like he's complaining or bitter, just offering a very matter-of-fact observation on life's inherent unfairness. The b-side, a cover of the jazz standard "Move" (made famous by Miles Davis during the Birth Of The Cool sessions), is a revelation. Snakefinger was more than competent as bop-jazz guitarist. His famous manual dexterity is balanced by good taste and a strong instinct for group interaction.

There are precious few artists who can move so effortlessly between avant-garde strangeness, pub-rock, pop and jazz. Unfortunately, commercial success rarely comes to those committed to this kind of musical diversity (some might call it schizophrenia), no matter how talented they are. But then who ever said there was any justice in life?

The Attractions - Mad About The Wrong Boy

Following in the tradition of Crazy Horse and The Rumour, Elvis Costello's supporting band The Attractions (Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Bruce Thomas) released a "solo" album, Mad About The Wrong Boy in 1980.

The album suffers somewhat from back-loading, that is, a greater proportion of the album's good songs fall on side two. Side one of the record, a few decent songs aside, sounds like a fairly clichéd and even annoying new wave record. Steve Nieve's keyboards often sound too busy, and the vocoder is sometimes employed to cover up for the expected lack of a distinctive vocalist. Songs like "Little Misunderstanding," "Damage," and "Motorworld" sound very much like failed genre exercises, and don't date particularly well.

"La-La-La-La-La Love You" starts off side two on a much more enjoyable note: rather than forced sounding new wave with too many trendy sound effects, side two sticks to the pub-rock model of Rockpile or Nick Lowe. It's a shame they didn't stick more closely to this formula for the entire album, because the group is obviously much better working within this style; "Sad About Girls," "Single Girl," "Lonesome Little Town," "Taste of Poison," "Talk About Me" and "Camera Camera" (get it?) are all enjoyable new wave flavored pub rock.

So while we may not have been mad about the wrong boy, The Attractions did manage to make one half of a good record without their boss. Elvis Costello thought highly enough of "Sad About Girls" to make a go of recording it for Trust, but in the end opted not to share songwriting duties with anyone else. Costello's version can be heard on the Rhino and Rykodisc editions of Trust and on the Out Of Our Idiot compilation (and no doubt some future deluxe reissue from UMG).