Into the Black

Hey you!

Yeah, you back there—the one w/ the noose! Don’t do it!

So you heard the bad news too, huh? It’s awful, I know, but we’ll all get through it somehow.

Whazzat you say? To what bad news am I referring exactly? What?! So you don’t know! What, were you gonna slough off this mortal coil over some mundane shit like the human cost of the World War between the capitalist west and Islamic fundamentalism? Or the hundreds of species that are dropping off the planet every day? Or AIDS? Or Scientology?

Snicker, hurm hum… Well, you’re sorta a pussy, aintcha? You’re really not gonna be able to deal w/ this bad news:

Now. In our most grim hour. The Reputation has disbanded.

Wait! Listen, buddy, there’s reason to live! You matter. I matter. We matter.

OK. Not really. Almost had you there, didn’t I?

No! Don’t do it! I’m sorry. That really was a bad joke—the one about us mattering. But seriously. Put down the noose. You’ve got so much to live for.

Well one thing, anyway. And you… How could you have forgotten it?! You ungrateful lickspittle!

We have Elizabeth.

We loved the Reputation, but it was Elizabeth, always Elizabeth, who was our light. Who gave us our hope. And we still have her artistry to help us stumble along through this blasted wasteland. (Look at those smoking ruins! Look at that gnarly scrub brush over there! How dreadful!)

And thankfully, in the midst of this catastrophe, she’s standing up, like real heroes do when the chips are down, when the Fiend lurks, when the Bernie Mack show is on. Elizabeth has given you a solo record.

That’s right. See? You can’t die now. Go buy it! Meanwhile, I’ll talk to the empty space you were standing in before you dashed off to your local sound emporium. I’ll tell it all about this new platter. And maybe, when you get back, we can share some hopeful tears…

OK. Here goes…

Boy is this one a doozy. To say that All Lost Yesterdays is a vast improvement over the Rep’s sophomore and most recent effort, To Force a Fate is not only an understatement, but a sub-understatement. It’s, like, under Earth’s molten core. It’s like over in China. (Relative to where I am writing from anyway. If you’re outside the USA, I suggest you consult a globe to see where this statement lies.) I mean, it’s like bone to skin and marrow to bone and like that. This album is outstanding.

Yesterdays was recorded several months before the sundering of the band. Ironically, in its liner notes, Elizabeth insisted that she would remain constant to her band. She said that the new release was not the beginning of a solo career, as the cliché runs, but simply a solo project—an opportunity to stretch out into a new context. And here, boy, did Elizabeth ever stretch—like a yogi or a glop of taffy.

Even if the band had continued, Yesterdays would have been something more than a blip on the ol’ Elizabeth-ometer. It’s a solid piece of work in its own right—accessible and (improbably) challenging at the same time.

Considering Elizabeth’s formidable songwriting gifts, it might seem disappointing that 3 of these 11 songs are covers. But a single listen, relieves any doubts you might’ve had. Just as the first Rep. record’s version of “Almost Blue” out-Elvised Elvis, (Costello of course, not Presley—let’s not get silly here,) Yesterdays bares Elizabeth’s considerable interpretive talents.

Whatever a song’s source, Elizabeth makes it her own. (Just like my heart). That she makes it seem so effortless would be intimidating if you didn’t get so caught up in the music. It’s easy to do since virtually all of the songs here are so compelling.

Look, for example at her re-working of “Cave Bitch,” that ol’ Ice Cube nugget re: his distaste for white women. Obviously this one’s confrontational and is maybe hopin’ to be a little controversial as well. I didn’t find it that shocking, but still: Sistahs are doin’ it for themselves! Elizabeth hits back! Only 10 years after the fact! And this time, she’s gotta little help from fonkee friend Fergie, of the Black Eyed Peas. (Who knew Elizabeth had such cachet?) Elizabeth employs some chug-chuggin’ power chords to recast the original song’s tough beat. Meanwhile she and Fergie trade ironic verses punctuated by the occasional improvised exclamation, e.g. “fuck yeah!” (At least I assume these moments aren’t scripted. You can never be sure w/ a control freak like Elizabeth.) Elizabeth only gets 1 verse to herself, and OK, she’s no Ice Cube, but I found her rhymin’ to be surprisingly unforced—almost, dare I say it?—natural.

Girl power! It might also be pointed out that Elizabeth is striking a blow not just against misogyny, but against racial prejudice as well. And while it’s difficult to pull off when you’re defending yourself against an anti-Caucasian point of view, she pulls it off with grace and toughness.

In fact, given the song’s stiff upper lip, one wonders how Elizabeth got Cube’s permission to use the song. Maybe she just did the grr-ella thang and appropriated the fucker w/o askin’. Either way, it’s a very memorable standout track.

Less of a stretch in terms of style or sensibility is Elizabeth’s rendering of the Gary Numan ballad “Please Push No More,” but it contains a startling revelation: Elizabeth’s solipsism and self-pity are the spittin’ image of Gary’s! How come it never occurred to me before? For days after my first listen, I was blinded by this epiphany! My work and social life suffered grievously, until finally I digested it all, along with the fact that the song itself is merely adequate.

Elizabeth’s decision to stick with plain ol’ electric keys just left me pining for that sad, freakish synthesizer that Gary employed. What’s more, her vocals seem more than a little self-conscious, which is strange. Maybe she was having a bad day. Or faced w/ such a perfect musical match, maybe my expectations were too high.

Then there’s Wesley Willis’s “Rock n’ Roll McDonald’s,” one of two nods to Elizabeth’s adopted hometown. (The other being “Windy City,” a pleasant Reputation style mid-tempo pop song.) Prior to his death in 2003, Willis was an unforgettable feature of the Chicago indie rock scene. A hulking schizophrenic who spent some time living on the streets, his songs were simply arranged for a single, cheesy synthesizer, but they covered an enormous stretch of hallucinatory turf. Like the work of most mentally ill “outsider” artists, Willis’s music led to some debate as to whether or not it was exploitative. Elizabeth avoids disrespect by finding the genuine core of joy in the song and then bringing it to life. She recasts it as a rubbery, almost danceable guitar number. It’s reverent, but fun, and one of the best songs on the album.

While the covers are boldly chosen and executed, the, uh, new originals are drawn from an even wilder bed of esoterica. Where the Numan-Elmore parity of “Please Push No More” was startling because it was so fucking obvious, there are other songs here that are even more shocking because they are so unimaginable. “The Geometry of Love,” a “duet” between Elizabeth and free jazz pundit Douglas Ewart may qualify as the most mind-bending moment. Roll over, Iggy! This five-minute pairing of squealing atonal clarinet and aggressive punk rock shredding recalls the noisy glory of the Stooges “L.A. Blues.” A year ago, if you’d told me that Elizabeth was capable of this sorta ungodly cacophony, I woulda laughed till I wet your pants. This song is just simply great.

Speaking of things unprecedented in the Elmore oeuvre, one pleasant surprise here is the bizarre “Dear Scabby.” What can we possibly make of Elizabeth’s spot on take on a slow chuggin’ noise rocker that flows from a Sabbathian estuary and on into even sloggier territory where drifts the waterlogged flotsam and jetsam of the Melvins or Sleep? (Doesn’t get there, of course, but let’s not get greedy.) Well before ya answer, consider the vocals—a sweet sing-songing list of cheeses. Yeah, really—like Gouda and Parmesan and cheddar, etc. I know what I have to say: I am personally ashamed that I thought of Elizabeth as a exquisite and exquisitely gifted fox who spun excellent pop songs out to her public like so much (admittedly bittersweet) candied floss. I was wrong. Dead wrong. Elizabeth is a genius. The real deal. A great soul in an increasingly slight world. Superlative? Give this one a listen. Then we’ll talk.

Not all of the songs here are so far removed from The Reputation’s sound—thankfully—as it would have been a terrible waste of her enormous talents if Elizabeth had completely turned her back on conventional pop/rock forms. She’s crafts these songs so masterfully that no matter how standard they are, you just can’t stop consumin’ ‘em. Like corn chips.

For instance, comin’ straight out of the Elmore playbook is “Watch and Ward,” a punchy take on a soured relationship—sorta like the tough, recriminatory tunes that graced the first Rep record, like “Alaskan” and “She Turned Your Head.” Elizabeth even deploys prior collaborator Josh Berman on trumpet, making the comparison upfront. As in those songs, Elizabeth is here to put blame where its due, and it ain’t due to her! When Elizabeth snarls “Your little boy heart leaves me cold,” I just recoil from my speakers, covering my head with my hands, as I crawl into a corner to hide.

Just when you’re starting to think that Elizabeth is being consumed by judgmental rage, she comes right back at you with the sweetly remorseful “Just One More Time.” It’s a keyboard driven weepy number in which Elizabeth bids a cherished lover adieu, all too soon, and sends him on his way with a new girlfriend. The lyrics are relatively restrained. You won’t need your copy of Webster’s to negotiate it, nor will you have to diagram any sentences to figure out just where the fuck the syntax is at and where the fuck it may be going! That’s a welcome change, as Elizabeth’s more grandiose language can be distancing—esp. damning in a number like this, where empathy is the raison de teet.

“Just One More Time” remains understated and quietly affecting. Like its older, more demonstrative cousin “For the Win,” it catches Elizabeth at her most vulnerable with all tough-girl bitchiness piled around her ankles. (I gotta stop this! I’m getting’ way too aroused here!) Her emotions are naked, which is good ‘cuz that’s always helpful, when you’re delivering lines like: “Morning light fades, and you fade away/ One last goodbye, and I’ll add you to her…” Amid all the other challenges and fantastic experiments here, this song stands out as one of the strongest on the disc.

Less gentle is “Some Distance.” Each of the two Rep records climaxed in a long cathartic ballad, full of hushed implorings and sudden, belted out explosions. True to form, Elizabeth pulls out all the stops here, as she lets her trembling but stalwart voice cut through crashing piano chords. Man, she works those dynamics till yr. guts are wrenched up like Silly Putty in the hands of a three year old. It’s only later, after you’ve recovered your breath, that you realize that the lyrics are the same old mish-mashed myopia that Elizabeth always ladles out, (fave lyric “There’s no avoiding childish, spineless snares you lay,”) or that the music itself is a bit formulaic, not really expanding much on the edifice of “For the Win” (from the first Rep record) and “The Ugliness Kicking Around” (from the second). Sadly, with repeated listenings, this redundancy saps some of the song’s force. (‘Tho not all of it.)

The aptly named “Cinders” is one smoldering, lustful come-on. Over a hard, almost dance-oriented beat, Liz gives the other Chicago Liz—Phair that is—a run for her money in the good ol’ Potty Mouthed Suggestiveness Derby. While we are, by this time, used to Elizabeth’s frank references to grown-up concerns like morning after pills and women’s asses, who would ever have dreamed of hearing her how she’ll “mount it like a horse, ride you into the foothills of pleasure?” I’m not sure if I was more shocked or aroused when I heard this one. But I’ll tell ya it took more than a cold shower to get myself back under control, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

All My Lost Yesterdays is a very different sorta album than anything the Reputation released. But taken as a whole, it stands with the very best of their earlier work. One wonders what sorta solo career it might’ve led to for Elizabeth.

That’s right: I said “might’ve led to.” See, um, I’ve got more bad news. Unfortunately, Elizabeth has announced online that not only has the band broken up, but she does not believe she will be making music of any sort in the foreseeable future.

Wait! Don’t do it, buddy! Put down that noose!

C’mon—um—hang in there! There’s still hope!!! The shade of Mother Theresa’s been seen surfing in Malibu! I hear that Cher might start touring again! Bland, creaky ol’ Eric Clapton’s gonna be at the Bijou! Tickets are only 5 bars of platinum each!!

Um. Or something.

Do you got anything better?

That Left Turn at Albuquerque

Akiko's #1 Best Buddhist Bed & Breakfast lies about 15 miles north of Hilo. Along the way, the landscape is mostly rural, with narrow turnoffs and the occasional roadside house or liquor store. I only passed a single gas station, which, under the circumstances, did little to ease my mind.

In the glow of my headlights, the scrub bushes and nondescript trees I passed didn’t look esp. exotic. I found it hard to believe I was in Hawaii. I could've been traveling through the Plains states or the Mid-West. Given my own upbringing, I was reminded of Michigan, particularly the Upper Peninsula. Matter of fact, the longer I was on Hawaii, the more I made that association, though, at other times, I felt so far away from Michigan that I could’ve been… well… on a Pacific Island.

Still, speeding through the darkness, I knew my view was incomplete. There were a few signs of something more fantastic around me. Here and there, the roadside rose up in walls of rock and dirt. These were lined with moss, small bushes and a dense network of roots. At their apex grew a dense mixture of trees and other plants.

What I didn't know was that I was driving past some absolutely spectacular views of the Pacific. When I first left Hilo and was closer to sea level, I'd caught glimpses of something like the movement of water. I'd assumed it was the ocean and regretted missing it in the dark.

Something else I missed in the darkness: I was up high and climbing higher. I'd noticed a gradual slope, but didn't realize how drastic it was until my ears started popping.

The rain had diminished to a light drizzle. Pretty soon, the buildings and crossroads disappeared. I lost the moon, and it grew even darker. I had an ugly suspicion that I'd missed the road to Akiko’s, but could find no-fucking-where to turn around. 19 is a 2 lane highway pretty much all of the way. There are very occasional, very short lanes where slower traffic can move off to the right and let everyone else pass them. (I was amazed to find that people actually used these lanes.) But these weren’t going to help me much if I needed to make a U-turn.

I had no idea how long it'd been since I'd passed a house or a turnoff. The slope of the road was pronounced now, and occasionally I passed a road sign telling me my altitude. (I think I was somewhere in the vicinity of 3,000 some-odd feet at this point.) Judging by the mile markers, I'd overshot Akiko's #1 Best Buddhist Bed & Breakfast by around 30 miles, and it was an hour later than the time I'd said I would arrive.

The road was twisting and narrow, and unless I had no other choice, I didn't want to risk a U-turn. Still, I'd pretty much resigned myself to it when a car came up behind me. Its headlights seemed especially harsh to me after driving in the dark for so long. I sped up to accommodate it, hoping for a turnoff. There was nothing. I tried moving over to the right, slowing down and flashing my brights. My friend slowed down and stuck with me. I finally pulled onto the thin strip of turf that served as a shoulder, half-expecting the car to pull over behind me. I watched it disappear and then cautiously went about making my turn.

I was only about halfway back when the rain started again. It was dousing me in waves, and I had the windshield wipers whipping and whapping in a panicky sorta way. They were almost comically unequal to this downpour. It was, of course, more difficult to see, and I was about 99.763% sure that I'd miss the turnoff again, but this time I got lucky.

The 14-mile marker comes up just before an elevated pedestrian bridge across highway 19. It's not very well marked on your way out of Hilo, but on the way back in, there's a shiny new green road sign, directing you toward the village of Wailea. (Another shiny new sign has since been added on your way out of Hilo as well.) I was sure I was gonna fuck up the next part—a fork that occurs immediately after the turn. I was supposed to take the left branch—not Chin Chuck Road on the right. (Yes, that is really the road’s name.) Again, I lucked out. Though the turn was sharp, and the pavement was wet, I skidded only a little, and managed to stick to the proper fork.

I cruised on into Wailea, passing a small park with a baseball diamond. It looked sloppy and wet. Masses of damp leaves were spread all over the road.

Houses began to spring up. Most of them were large and well maintained—less humble than Akiko's directions and their references to a "wee village full of Japanese elders” had led me to believe. Each house appeared to have a lot of land, as well as lush, complex gardens. Although I drove slowly, the sound of the motor and the glare of the headlights felt like fingernails on a chalkboard. Every single place was completely dark, and I couldn't escape the feeling that I was disturbing various someone’s.

Further up the road, I ran into something that seemed more like a traditional village. Lit by ordinary streetlights, it was really only about the size of a city block. It felt like one of those Old West tourist type towns that you find all over the American heartland. Instead of Dodge City ‘tho, this place seemed to be a historical preservation of a very small town from the late 40s or early 50s.

Like many of the houses I’d seen in Hilo, these buildings had clapboard walls with shingled or tin roofs. (A design scheme I would find was extremely common on the Big Island.) There were a few old shops that, for the most part, appeared to've permanently closed some time ago. There were only two brightly lit buildings. They had been a gas station at one time, and between them lay a narrow courtyard that was lit by powerful security lamps. I could see banana trees where the light fell off beyond it. A bright yellow banner identified this place as Akiko’s # Best Buddhist Bed & Breakfast.

One of the buildings was cream-colored and very wide. In front of it, plastic lawn furniture was scattered across a long strip of concrete. A large stone Buddha stood in one corner, and a low, overhanging roof sheltered this entire porch area. An open garage door led into darkness. (Later I'd find that there was a small Buddhist temple inside.) Several cats scattered away from my headlights, but a couple lay unphased in the plastic chairs.

The second building was bright yellow. It had a shingled roof, with a short, wide gravel lot underneath its overhanging edge. A few cars were parked there, so I rolled into an open spot on the end. I cut the ignition and lights and got out of the car.

I hefted my bag onto the pavement next to me. It seemed like I'd been driving forever, and standing still there, I felt almost vertiginous. The force of the rain surprised me. I was calmer, but dazed.

Then a small, very thin woman approached me. The light was behind her, so I had trouble seeing her at first.

She said, "You must be Steve Forceman, P.I."

TO BE CONTINUED IN OUR NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT OF A MORON IN PARADISE!!!