Time can heal all wounds. For example, five years ago had I heard the saxophone solo in the middle of Poison Control Center’s “Being Gone,” I would have exclaimed, “Who the f*ck put that saxophone in my rock song!” Now, comfortably removed from the saxophone solo’s hey day in the ’80s I can take a much wider and much more reasonable perspective. And here, for the Posion Control Center, the sax solo actually works because they’re not trying to be Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band or Bob Seger or Bruce Willis, and “Being Gone” would have been a perfectly fine half-jagged, half-jangly indie rock song without the sax. Moreso, they don’t use the sax as an opportunity to show off their best friends jazz skills, but instead, use it as a replacement for where a guitar solo would have been. Well played, rockers.
MP3: Poison Control Center – Being Gone
Take the vocals away from Woven Bones’ “Guess You Already Know,” and you’d have something akin to a surf rock party. With vocals which sound like they came from an undead surf rock party, you get something altogether different — a song with a unique balance of good times and bad times, one half girls in bikinis shakin’ their hips and the other half, undead denizens eager to take a bite out of those tasty hips.
MP3: Woven Bones – Guess You Already Knew
Male Bonding’s “Year’s Not Long,” is another tune which sports an interesting dynamic. When you isolate the rhythm section, you’ll notice them banging out an old-school Ramones jam like “Beat on the Brat.” The vocals, meanwhile, sound much more Stone Roses than Ramones, as they float above the ruckus below in a more measured tempo. Now, add in guitars which would make many a noisemaker proud, and you have a song which should work about as well as an old used Yugo. The key word, of course, being should.
